A strange woman stands between the red walls of the Rational Theater. She doesn’t fit here, in this basement pub atmosphere with the rustic, wooden bar, the juke box and the dark carpeting. She stands there with her red, tight dress, her bright pumps, her pigtails braided like a doll and adorned with red bows. She marches down the stage robotically. As if she had never learned to walk, as if she was from another time or perhaps simply didn’t belong in this world. “I’m from a movie,” she tells the boy she meets. She couldn’t tell him which film it came from. Only that she finally wanted to die.
“Varnis” by Gerhard Zahner and Tim Dziarnowski was named after the thick protective coating that protects a painting from decay. Just like digitalization can do with old films. The fact that the immortalization of art, which is marketed under the guise of salvation, can also rob a work of its beauty is dealt with here in an absurd and yet impressive way.
In Jurij Diez’s production at the Rational Theater, the tragedy of a main character is revealed who flees from his own film because it is to be restored and digitized. Because then the woman, embodied by Lena Halve, would be condemned to be trapped in her role for all time. A role in which she constantly steals, murders, is abused and dies. Despite the initial skepticism of her companions, played by Alexander Felder and Adrian Moskowicz, they ultimately try to help her escape irreversible suffering. But can digitalization even be stopped once it has begun?
“Varnish”, 11. and November 12th and November 30th to December 3rd, Rationaltheater Munich, Hesseloherstr. 18, www.rationaltheater.de