Three Questions to Yosi Wanunu

Your latest production, “The Chosen One,” is about the fictional left-wing politician Amelie Bauer, who suddenly disappears. How did you come up with this idea, and does Amelie Bauer have a real-life role model?

The idea came not from a real-life model but from its absence. The Left seems not to find a leader who can unite people and change the current election dynamic. But what will happen if such a leader exists? That’s the basic premise of The Chosen One.

As I understand your project so far, it also involves group dynamics among Amelie Bauer’s followers. What are you interested in?

We are in the middle of the Rashomon Cycle*, so the multivoices used in this show and the ones before are part of the overall approach to storytelling we use for the cycle. I refer to the shows in the Rashomon Cycle as “essays.” I don’t really like telling stories. I prefer a kind of tapestry, a background on which I can embroider my ideas. The technique we used in this show to achieve an essay form is to create a primarily plotless text with emotionless characters, who often break the fourth wall to conduct a political rant or in dialogue that would be interrupted by the intrusion of unrelated images or voice-over commentaries.

These tactics remind the viewer that the show is “ideologically weighted” and that the audience should think rather than feel and analyze the events objectively rather than vicariously experience them.

The premiere date shortly after a much more decisive National Council election is no coincidence. What is at stake this time?

The idea for the show was born a long time ago. The fact that reality imitates art is out of my hands.

*Akira Kurosawas Film „Rashomon“ handelt von unterschiedlichen Erzählvarianten desselben Ereignisses, von der alle Erzählenden die Wahrheit für sich reklamieren. Das Phänomen wurde in der Folge als „Rashomon-Effekt“ in den akademischen und künstlerischen Diskurs integriert.  Der „Rashomon“-Zyklus setzt sich somit den Schwerpunkt des komplexen und dialektischen Prozesses der Wahrheitsfindung und der Multiplizität von Stimmen, Haltungen, Ideologien, Standpunkten. (Yosi Wanunu in einem Interview für WUK performing arts)

Die Fragen stellte Hannah Lioba Egenolf.

Foto Titelbild: TimTom