An Enchantment

"The first decision is: to myself - courageously, alone." So goes the first sentence in the new play "Kain, Wenn & Aber" by Nicola Hümpel. Yet the word "play" may not slip from one's lips at all. The events of Hümpel's nine-member troupe Nico and the Navigators are, after all, meditations that are as perfectly highly artificial as they are naively playful: this time on the subject of self-determination. And from this follows the question: How self-determined do we actually decide? Nicola Hümpel, bursting with imagination and awareness of form, is a sister of Tati, Allen, Keaton and studied not only at the Kunsthochschule Hamburg, but also - and this is clearly noticeable - at the Bauhaus Dessau. The 36-year-old says that her collective of experts builds its pieces (after all!) like a painter builds his pictures - somewhere between instinct and intellect. Her credo: never give in to the need to finish something. And indeed, the scenic fragmentation almost touches the genial. One is amazed, perplexed, enraptured, confused. But in the end - and often only in retrospect - all the dadaistic, anecdotal, dreamy, lunatic stuff seems extremely plausible. "Comparatively temporarily accomplished", it is then self-ironically said about the "communication success" between Hümpel art and spectator head. True. Comparatively temporary - and flying by. Nevertheless, these eighty minutes remain unforgettable. Strange. A beautiful mystery of art. A lasting enchantment, so to speak. Together with Michael Thalheimer's Hauptmann production "Einsame Menschen" at the Deutsches Theater, the Navigators were the most beautiful theater Christmas present at the famous off-studio Sophiensaele presenting the stars of tomorrow. In the meantime they are on tour in France. And then on through all of Europe.

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