Staatsschauspiel Dresden / Florian Fischer
“It is so simple: to evoke in a person the feeling of fear, to surround him with consistent information, which only makes one reasonable sense: 'You have to escape or ...' And then it is enough to take the human’s hand and he will go with you wherever you lead him. And he will even like it so much, he will even pay for it.“ — Vladimír Minařík
Spring 1948: The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia has taken over the leadership of the country, starting to settle with political opponents and alleged oppositionists. For this purpose the Czechoslovak intelligence agency is developing the operation Kamen.
Opponents under suspicion are repeatedly given the information that they are in danger and, finally, the offer of assistance for the escape. Once they have decided to flee, smugglers guide them through the forest in the border area at night. They will reach a perfectly furnished border house there. They are offered cigarettes, whiskey and Swiss chocolate. They answered questions to the border guards, revealing details about friends, supporters, and family, hoping to help them escape. They sign a protocol of inquiry and are sent further west - to the auspicious border. But everything is fake and a perfidious staging, the border guards actors of the Czechoslovak intelligence. A few meters further, the refugees get arrested.
Director Florian Fischer is dedicated to the events of Czech post-war history in a documentary theatre evening and interviews strategies of the secret service. How true is the fiction and how invented the reality? Whom can you trust, who cannot?
Reviews
“Lukas Rüppel is working really hard. The ninety-minute evening becomes an inner cinema, a game between facts and fiction.”
Sächsische Zeitung, Rainer Kasselt, 22th October 2018
“The result is a sound collage. They use a black head on stage with a tripod on castors and hypersensitive microphone ears. This is an amazing experience.” Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, Andreas Herrmann, 22th October 2018
Credits
WITH Lukas Rüppel
AND DRESDEN CITIZENS Helene Kaluza, Bertolt List, Nadja Müller, Torsten Preuß, Thomas Richter, Vivian Richter, Jana Roy, Peter Ruck, René Sonnenberg, Alexandra Sroka
DIRECTION Florian Fischer
STAGE AND SET-DESIGN Stefan Britze
COSTUME Birte Wallbaum
SOUND-DESIGN Ludwig Berger
CAMERA Markus Kloth
CAMERA- AND SOUND-ASSISTANT Georg Kussmann
CUT Ben Laser
LIGHT Olivia Walter
DRAMATURGY Katrin Breschke
ACADEMIC ADVICE Václava Jandečková
Duration: 75 Min. No intermission.
The cooperation is supported by the German-Czech Future Fund.
