One on One on One

“I believe that the theatre is much more pop than people think – especially German theatre”, says Marcus Gaab. This thought was one of the points of departure for his film project One on One on One, which will now be concluded after five years. With 61 actors from the ten selected productions, the director and photographer shot in total 47 films between 2015 and 2019. Their aim was to translate the core of the respective production to be presented at the Theatertreffen – with free rein given to the actors as to how they wanted to achieve it. The films turned out to be extremely diverse, both in aesthetics and content, but they always had two things in common: the collaborative working process of their creation and their focus on performance at the moment it happened. Marcus Gaab himself described his films as “portraits of performances”. He sees the second core idea of the project in the attempt to transport the live energy of acting into another medium without losing it. Some films were shot in one take; they are the documentation of a single acting process. Others required more time and attracted outside attention, for example, when an actor moved through Kreuzberg in a painted full bodysuit or when another performed unusual movements on the roof of a theatre.

For the finale, all of Marcus Gaab’s One on One on One films were screened during the Theatertreffen in a cinema box inside the Festspielhaus’ Kassenhalle. They are still available on 1on1on1.tv.