Theatre | The 10 Selected Productions

Mittelreich (Middle Rich)

Musiktheater nach dem Roman von Josef Bierbichler nach der Inszenierung von Anna-Sophia Mahler

Musical theatre based on the novel by Josef Bierbichler
Based on the production directed by Anna-Sophie Mahler

Münchner Kammerspiele & Anta Helena Recke
A production by Münchner Kammerspiele and Anta Helena Recke

Premiere 12 October 2017

Mittelreich. Isabelle Redfern, Ernest Allan Hausmann, Yosemeh Adjei, Jerry Hoffmann, Moses Leo © Judith Buss

Public discussion on 18 May, following the performance

Two years ago, Anna-Sophie Mahler’s adaptation of Joseph Bierbichler’s novel “Mittelreich” was presented at the Theatertreffen: a quiet evening of musical theatre that deconstructed the concepts of home and family across three generations of Bavarian lake-side innkeepers. Following the tradition of “appropriation art”, which questioned the art world’s normative categories in the late 1970s, director Anta Helena Recke has copied this production, but with one significant change: Her cast consists entirely of actors of colour. This production is the first to ever appropriate a “white” play on the stage of a German city theatre, to address it with an apparently simple thought: What is different when there is a black cast rather than a white one? While on stage the topics of privilege, exclusion and displacement, familiar from the Bierbichler/Mahler-version, are moving in new and doubled vibrations, this “copy” demands a reflection on our patterns of perception and on the institution of the theatre and its structural racisms.

www.muenchner-kammerspiele.de

Conceived and directed by Anta Helena Recke
Stage Design Duri Bischoff
Costume Design Pascale Martin
Lighting Design Jürgen Tulzer
Musical Director and Conductor (“Mittelreich”) Prisca Mbawala-Dernbach
Musical Director (“Mittelreich” original production) Bendix Dethleffsen
Dramaturgy (“Mittelreich”) Julian Warner
Dramaturgy (“Mittelreich” original production) Johanna Höhmann
Production managers (“Mittelreich”) Hannah Saar, Sabine Klötzer
Assistant director (“Mittelreich”) Adele Dittrich Frydetzki

Semi Moses Leo
Young Semi / Young Sea Landlord Jerry Hoffmann
Old Sea Landlord / Sea Landlord Ernest Allan Hausmann
Theres / Singer Isabelle Redfern
Victor Victor Asamoah
Ms. von Zwittau Yosemeh Adjei

On the Piano Miriel Cutiño Torres, Sachiko Hara
Kettledrum Jan Burkamp
Direction Choir Recording Julia Selina Blank
Choir Recording Junges Vokalensemble München
Sisters (Hertha/Philomena) Rebecca Fischer, Gertrud Neubauer
Choir Blaise Amada, Eliane Ango, Elisa Asefa, Jeanne-Francine Aziamble, Noah Doncker, Christine Grant, Jehovah Jireh Emanuel, Benjamin Soul Kraus, Akin Laja, Ivy Lißack, Samuel Mettana, Yannick Niang, Naim Schleicher, Iman Tekle

Mittelreich. Yosemeh Adjei, Ernest Allan Hausmann (liegend), Victor Asamoah, Moses Leo, Isabelle Redfern, Jerry Hoffmann

© Judith Buss

Funded by Fonds Darstellende Künste and Richard Stury Stiftung.