Katja Brunner and Christian Eckstein
Photo: Rachel Israela
Katja Brunner, playwright born in 1991, studied scenic writing at the UdK Berlin and the Biel/Bienne Literature Institute and applied theatre studies at the University of Giessen. She also performs with her combo as Loretta Shapiro and works as a lecturer in scenic writing, including at the German Institute for Literature at Leipzig University and the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She maintains an ongoing collaboration with Pinar Karabulut, for example. Her book ‘geister sind auch nur menschen’ was published in 2021 by ‘der gesunde Menschenversand’.
Photo: Laura Bodenmann
Christian Eckstein, born in Mainz in 1991. Initially a youth actor at the Volksbühne Berlin's P14 youth theatre, Spinnwerk Leipzig and JungenBurg in Vienna. Afterwards, studies in theatre directing at the Zurich University of the Arts. Important lecturers included Florentina Holzinger, Natural Theatre of Oklahoma, and Sabine Harbeke. In his writing practice, he also learnt from the auteur filmmakers Cyril Schäublin and Bela Tarr. His plays are characterised by music and poetry. He sings in various bands and interweaves pop song and poetry in his author pieces. Her role models are René Pollesch and Sybille Berg. He lives in Zurich with his 6-year-old daughter.
Project
Was nun? Oder Wie die Welt zu Schokolade wurde (AT)
‘I woke up the other night and my bed was shaking. Everything around me became indistinct and foggy. The soil became mushy and disintegrated. And suddenly, the bed was gone from under my body, and I fell into this soggy mass – something like sludge or boiled chocolate.’ (from Epilogue)
In his text ‘Was Nun oder Wie die Welt zu Schokolade wurde’, mentored by Katja Brunner as part of the Migros DoubleLiterature programme, Christian Eckstein deals with historical figures and their inscription in theatre history.
The musical theatre piece deals with the schizophrenia of a person who wants to be comfortable and revolutionary in equal measure. In ‘Was Nun’, three genderless characters L1, L2 and L3, modelled on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, reconstruct the fear of the impending heart attack, the reactionaries and the real political consequences of the revolution. The play is not an accurate examination of Lenin’s life. Lenin is not a revolutionary here, but a hesitant contemporary. His biography possesses knowledge about the outcome of world history. The play attempts to examine the powerlessness of a generation in today’s political situation on the basis of historical hopes and defeats.
In the mentoring session with Katja Brunner, the two develop a contemporary view of the past and try to find a modern theatre language for the non-modern revolution. When do theory and poetry meet, how do I smuggle instructions for disobedience into a text and where does the non-concrete become concrete? To end with an answer to the question: who was it that hung them in the sky, the great moments of history?
