5 Gründe warum Delfine böse Tiere sind

The world is bad and any benevolence pointless. That is the unvarnished and caustic crux of the sparkling production “Fünf Gründe warum Delfine böse Tiere sind” (Five reasons why dolphins are nasty animals) from the Bern-based theatre group KNPV. In director Dirk Vittinghoff's fast-moving and humorous staging, Priska Praxmarer and Philippe Nauer conjure on stage a polished blend of hand puppets and acting in a black action comedy. The story centres on Melanie, a straightforward and rather naive bank clerk who prevents a bank robbery at the start of the play. Celebrated as a heroine, she soon finds her neighbour at her front door, however, demanding compensation: it's her husband who's been arrested, and they desperately need the money to pay for an operation for their seriously ill child. Afflicted by a bad conscience, Melanie decides to "put things right".  What follows is a zany string of (criminal) acts and entanglements, at the end of which there is more than just one victim.

The storyline comes from the Danish film In China they eat dogs. KNPV not only takes its cue from this acerbic cult film, but also makes direct and shrewd use of other cinematic resources: the virtuoso puppet show is spiked with quick-fire changes of scene, intermezzos resembling video clips, slow-motion sequences and visually lavish DIY special effects. The film references culminate in the use of quasi-documentary video clips in the style of the UK television series Creature Comforts: soundtrack quotations about justice, morality and responsibility are put into the mouths of the cardboard and stuffed figures from previous KNPV productions.  This is a beguiling nod to the theatre group's own creative work since its inception in 2006; and at the same time, the players from Bern use this subtle narrative trick to confront the fundamental cynicism of their action comedy with a series of laconic observations from daily life, thus emphasising even more strongly the grotesque humour of the action. Finally we're left hoping that the state of the world is not quite so bad as the overwrought plot of this formidable production would have us believe.

(Mathias Bremgartner)

• distrib

  Idea and realisation
  Philippe Nauer,  Priska Praxmarer, Dirk Vittinghoff

  Direction
  Dirk Vittinghoff

  With  
  Philippe Nauer, Priska Praxmarer    

  Video
  Moritz Praxmarer        

  Stage design
  Beni Küng       

  Costumes
  Sibylla Walpen

  Graphics
  Theres von Goumoëns

  Administration
  Annette von Goumoëns

  Production 
  KNPV

  Coproduction  
  Kellertheater Winterhur, Schlachthaus Theater Bern

  
  Surtitles (french)
  Juliane Regler

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