aber die füße. aber die ohren. aber die neuen plüschmäntel. - a film by Birkner-Behlen, Harksen, and Koprow 2025
First things first: what you are about to experience is a film—a film on stage based on the texts of a writer who wrote a book that is a film. Or a musical.
Ronald M. Schernikau, who inspired this evening and died in 1991 at the age of 31, was (among other things) an author, a communist, and gay. With unbroken and unbreakable optimism, he emigrated from West Germany to East Germany in the late 1980s to become an (even) better writer. His texts shy away from neither utopia nor banal everyday life. In most cases, the two are intertwined anyway. Schernikau sees the big picture in the small details: in the meeting between the university group and the residential group in Franz and Paul's apartment, or in the encounter between two men in bed. Or in the sonnet, which can do anything, because, by the way, fourteen lines have been enough to show the world in it so far.
The evening approaches Schernikau's aesthetic, which juxtaposes kitsch and classicism, allowing them to merge into one another, and thereby encounters the world in a manner that is both lighthearted and serious at the same time. Of course, such an approach does not always work. Nevertheless, we want to follow Schernikau's example and try not to lose what is successful
once it appears somewhere. And perhaps it will turn out to be truly beautiful.
Credits:
Concept: Charlotte Birkner-Behlen, Jonas Harksen, and Michelle Koprow
Performance:
@doner_hairaway , Jonas Demuth, Lisa Kato, and Michelle Koprow
Choreography:
@doner_hairaway
Live music: Jonas Demuth and Lisa Kato
Dramaturgy: Charlotte Birkner-Behlen
Musical director: Jonas Harksen
Stage: Michelle Koprow
Lighting design: Franka Fix
Funded by the Cultural Office of the City of Frankfurt and the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Art and Culture
Photo 1 ©Michelle Koprow;
all other photos ©
@arthur.grieben 
