ART AND VEGETABLES, A. HIPLER, the first collaboration between Zimbabwean-born director Hosea Dzingirai and Christoph Schlingensief, combines the traditional stage play with an exhibition within the theatre, a succession of scenes between the fine and performing arts, tonality and atonality; between drama and dilettantism, Wagner and Schönberg; between Berlin and Harare, Lüderitz and New York, decay and renewal; first and third world; movement and inertia; black and white; sick and healthy; Volksbühne and countryside; Richard and Wolfgang, house and garden, i.e.: art and vegetables.
The just under 80-minute-long evening concentrates and quotes images of the modern world, inhabited by consumers and figures, moving vessels, those who uphold Dzingirai and Schlingensief’s quest for modern man in a world of chaos and disintegration. The evening is held together by the watchful eye of author and ALS sufferer Angela Jansen, whose words are rendered legible via an iris-activated keyboard. The trio use the incorporation of classical theatrical elements, excerpts from Arnold Schönberg’s opera “From Today Until Tomorrow” and popular modern stage technology such as live video transmissions, calling them into question and destroying them, as they do the wall projection of a greengrocer's at the beginning. Whereas Udo Kier, Irm Hermann, Peter Kern and Corinna Harfouch play out their roles via huge screens, Schlingensief’s long-time collaborators Kerstin Grassmann and Horst Gelonik become living works of art. Peter Müller is excellent as Johannes Heesters, whose birthday is celebrated several times over – which is understandable considering the exceptionally advanced age of Mr. Heesters. The fact that the reason for the celebration has been forgotten by the end is irrelevant. Even memory faces its limits.
Content / 2 DVDs:
- "Art and Vegetables, A. Hipler" (Volksbühne Berlin, 27.2.2007, 105 min)
- "Art and Vegetables, A. Hipler" (live video recording, Volksbühne Berlin, 21.01.2005, 104 min)
- Theater films (Volksbühne Berlin, 2004/2005, 8 films: 50 min)
- Report on ALS patient Angela Jansen (2004, 6 min)
- Christoph Schlingensief – Interview (dctp.tv, 2008, 18 min)
- 20-page booklet with texts and photos
