Roland Schimmelpfennig
Selected Plays

Out of the light and into the dark. Across the street. Dangerous. Especially the father who gets to his car much too late after mass. Much too late to get to the next one on time. Much too late to calmly get comfortable. It’s new, after all, the big, black car. Much too late, and the car is still stubborn and the music is too loud and his nerves are frayed and his thoughts are far away. And the black monster only feels a slight resistance. Under the wheels. On the street. Barely discernible. Was that something? A flying child?

Roland Schimmelpfennig drives the tragic death of a child into your flesh like a thorn. Right from the beginning, he leaves no shadow of a doubt that the lantern procession will end badly. The women pronounce bleak prophecies. The sewerage workers beneath the street are unsettled.

Like harassing fire, the moral failures of the parents flicker through the funeral song. Because as if the loss of the child weren’t bad enough, a friendly father caught the attention of the mother during the procession and furtively caught her hand. And as if the guilt over the death of the child weren’t bad enough, the father was driving not only in an unfamiliar car but also in eager anticipation of an auspicious encounter with a beautiful stranger. Guilt is flying around with the dead child. And settles on the shoulders of those who have lost. No ifs and buts. Because ifs and buts don’t exist any more.

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Romit Roy (Bengali),                       
• P. Seralathan & Hem Mahesh (Tamil),                             
• Md. Khalid (Urdu) Das fliegende Kind

Two journeys, two stories. They narrate the flight into the clouds, wild paper boat cruises through the canalisation, merciless procedure of passport control at the border. During the onslaught of risks and dangers, there is only one consolation for both – they remember that the journey started together. They almost travel through a miracle and meet at the end on the kitchen board and their story gets united, becomes one. They have toiled through and survived water and fire, now they stand in front of the audience and tell the story.
One of the most widely performed contemporary playwright from Germany, Roland Schimmelpfennig has developed a captivating script based on the renowned fairy tale. He directs the play himself.

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Jayashree Joshi and Mrunmayee Shivapurkar (Marathi)                                   
• Romit Roy (Bengali)                   
• Kamal Pruthi (Hindi)                                              
• P. Seralathan & Hem Mahesh (Tamil)                             
• Md. Khalid (Urdu)

DER ZINNSOLDAT UND DIE PAPIERTÄNZERIN

Roland Schimmelpfennig’s characters are unsettling, and their story remains a mystery. 
“Things are not easy. They might seem easy, because they seem to follow a pattern. Every character sees the story from a different side. Which one should I pick out and tell? In the end, someone is right and someone is wrong – but can you say definitively who? Franz? Maria? Karl? – (not that I don’t know) Or no one is right and no one is wrong: those are the worst plays of all – I have tried to explain why life is hard for Maria, Karl, Franz and the others. It’s hard. 

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Subroto Saha (Bengali)
• Ashani Ranasinghe (Sinhala)
• Dr. Hamsavahini Singh (Tamil)
• Sadique Raza Khan (Urdu)

Die ewige Maria

The one man comes from the North – bringing rain along with him – and buys a gun; the other hails from the South and thinks he is Perseus. Both men fall in love with a young woman with snake-like hair. This Medusa figure works as a waitress and is accompanied by the West Wind. Life brings together people from all four points of the compass, seemingly at random. Only Madame Oiseau, the fortune teller from the East, knows that their fates are intertwined – and that today one of them will depart this life for good. 

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Subroto Saha (Bengali)           
• Shailesh kumar Ray (Hindi)      
• Lalitha G. (Tamil)
• Milind Sant (Marathi)

Die vier Himmelsrichtungen

On the basis of the same promise of sacrifice, Roland Schimmelpfennig plays through the variations of the Idomeneus saga which go from blood-drenched drama to seemingly peaceful ending. In changing choric compositions, men and women tell of the homecoming of the king, of the illusion of purchased happiness and the inevitable tragic outcome. Thus a myth of possibilities is told with chosen simplicity and precise beauty. A reflection on the saving temptation of the moment which can obscure the sight to that which follows. And what remains is the hope for a turn for the better, a hope for the forgiving god from Mozart’s opera. Tenderly and yet following the unrelenting law of the gods, Roland Schimmelpfennig takeson this king and decides, after some pros and cons, to let him have his last will. Even if only in a figurative sense.

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Sunanda Basu & Amrita Dhara (Bengali)                                 
• Salman Abbas (Urdu)

Idomeneus

The managers – Angelika, the executive, and Sabine, a young, upcoming, promising manager, play off their different power games and advantages against each other: Angelika assumes that Sabine is having an affair with her husband, who also happens to be Sabine’s boss. Sabine confirms the false suspicion in front of the competitor, which is her own undoing; Angelika fires her.

Patrizia and Robert, who are having an affair, also try to take away each other’s chances. Likewise, Hans and Frank, who, just like the others, have applied for the long-awaited job in Delhi, also experience the merciless competition for selection. Here, Hans, who is older, loses out to Frank, who is younger in age, despite Hans’ abilities and fitness. Only the security guards seem to be free from this venom and inhuman state of affairs.

Comments by the press

Schimmelpfennig’s managers and advertising fuzzies are so mentally and emotionally determined by the performance principle, that their room for manoeuvre reaches the level of isolation prisoners. Again and again, all heads are dominated by the same compulsive self-image of the all-around successful, attractive and curiously enough sexually active and free spirit personality. One believes that one has to fight for this image at all imaginable fronts. 
It is an entertaining piece, funny, apt, well-assembled – probably the most concrete text that Roland Schimmelpfennig has ever written. In contrast to his last piece, “Die Arabische Nacht”, where the narrative fantasy is devoured between an Arab harem and a German apartment block and produces whimsical things, “Push Up” always maintains its posture and form. It is true that the characters get out of their dialogues every now and then and speak to themselves in their minds, but there is an astonishing realism when it comes to depicting reality, quite unlike Schimmelpfennig’s general style and concept of presenting reality.

Source: Verband Deutscher Bühnen- und Medienverlage e.V.

Translations:

• Kamal Pruthi (Hindi)
• Mrunmayee Shivapurkar (Marathi)

Push Up 1, 2, 3
 

The scenes are short, some very abrupt. A mixture of stage directions and thoughts and spoken thoughts and dialogue with no distinguishing commentary from the author, one scene just plays on TV. Some of the scenes may be silent. But the play is about people, and happiness and the environment are of their own making. As we slide from one situation to another, we are caught in a kind of seemingly random, but subtly patterned, series of security cameraesque blips—from one room to another—from one life to the next with negligible crossover. The whole play could happen in one Motel 6 on the outskirts of a small town with a bar next door, and a middle-income condominium Scene from everyday life. But with a few extraordinary elements—a man climbs into a picture on the wall, an organism confronts a scientist. A woman around thirty years old just before consummating an affair and then just after, and then a month or so after. In another room, a businessman watches a soft porn bikini re-enactment of some special forces operation south of the border.

Two workers fix a light bulb and determine that Americans weren’t the first in space—a toast to Juri Gagarin. A woman over 70 who caught a glimpse of her body in a mirror today is shocked but what she saw and seems stopped in paralyzed by the event. There are 36 roles listed on the title page of this play. Not all of these individuals are seen more than once. And it is possible to scale it down some, without risking the accidental creation of a real protagonist. There are moments in life when things change. When a before and an after take on a ruthless and persistent shape. These are not always big glamourous Events. Schimmelpfennig seems concerned with photographing the quiet parts of big events—how does the air taste after consummating the affair.

From the director: This is an unusual play with the potential to be a great performance. I am very drawn to its reality and to its potential to shine a light on the singularities of existence. It moves fast and slow, but the situations are compelling and it may be made beautiful.
It’s not abrasive. Maybe once or twice. I will use some of Chantal Ackermann’s films as source material - especially Toute Une Nuit. And maybe some of Sam Taylor Wood’s photography–particularly her revolutionary five seconds series. Beginning with some improvisations around themes and actions in Ackermann’s film and then pushing what emerges into the context of the play.

Sometimes this could feel like an approach to dance in which choreography or steps are replaced with behaviour, passionate attraction heated up, turned into disenchantment. A structurally challenging play. it’s held together musically (rhythm) visually (repetition), and the narrative works by accumulation. An overall feeling pervades and it is this aura or general feel that more than anything provides the payoff. This a speculation. It moves in a direction without moving toward a resolution. It is not pushy and only a couple of the scenes feel flexed or obvious—they’ll be under the knife. This might be where the task lies—in delivering the sensation of an environment so strong it’s undeniable. But of course, this is speculation.

Translations:

• Prasad Patki (Marathi)
• Lalitha G. (Tamil)

Vorher/Nachher