At times questions are more helpful than answers

Sophiensæle: Nico and the Navigators go in search of happiness with “Wo Du nicht bist" (Where You Are Not) At one point in "Wo Du nicht bist” someone says: “You only live once. But when you do it right, isn’t one time enough?” But how does one live “right”? Does to live mean to suffer? To learn? To be happy? Can it be that the only one who is happy is he who is not living? Questions with which people have busied themselves for all time. Nico and the Navigators too offer no answers – and when, to be taken with scepticism. But the posing of questions is an art in itself and in this the stars of the Off-Theatre scene prove to be absolutely virtuosic: and once again with their piece regarding happiness, which involves seventeen performers and is their largest production thus far. For years Nicola (Nico) Hümpel and her multi-national ensemble have been passed from region to region and this time the première of "Wo du nicht bist" was at the Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival). Now the piece is playing at the Sophiensæle in Berlin, the real home of this cult group, grounded in 1998 at Bauhaus Dessau, which, due to the great demand elsewhere, happens here only sporadically. The quest for happiness takes place in Oliver Proske’s grey hill country. A part of the stage set consists of a kind of music box that is wound by an actor. The lid opens and offers up a small orchestra. Franui, the East Tirolean group with which the Navigators are working for the first time, plays Schubert utilising the instrumentation of a village band. "There where you are not, that’s where happiness is", a line from Schubert’s song "Der Wanderer" describes the constant longing for another place and is the source of the title for the piece. Andreas Schett and his band of dulcimer, tuba, violin and saxophone make over, shorten, and extend motifs from Schubert’s Lieder, while Nico and the Navigators work a variety of interpretations of happiness in a similar way - from Aristotle through Camus to Thomas Bernhard. Director Nicola Hümpel and her group make associative theatre, and that goes for the production too, developed as it was from improvisations involving performers, light, sound and space. And for the audience response as well: the various scenarios are designed to create room for thought. Many paths lead to happiness. Props such as a ball, a bucket, a sled may represent a happy childhood; the apple, which at one point is threatened with a golf club, rolling across the stage stands for the expulsion from Paradise. A large book, which Anne Paulicevich almost manages to crawl inside of, denotes knowledge. An actor with a protective helmet prowls the stage – life as a construction site. Miyoko Urayama throws soybeans about in an Asian springtime ritual. One consults cards or looks to the stars, bursts balloons or washes bliss away with water. And one sees happiness in despair - a desperate at his own burial – for then the others are unhappy. It all unfolds in the rapid interplay between slapstick and pose, wild frolic and sad pauses - surprising changes of mood create the comic effect. The spectator does not come away scot-free: lines like "You work and work only because you lack the talent for happiness” certainly can be painful. Happiness is thus not liveable. Because we strive for the big happiness we often disregard the little ones. Sometimes an evening in the theatre counts among the latter. This one should not be passed over.

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