1932 – GREETINGS FROM BERLIN

The musical letter collage 1932 – Greetings from Berlin was created from letters written by two brothers from Berlin to their parents in Ludwigshafen between 1930 and 1932. Rescued from the bulky waste in the 1980s, they provide impressive evidence of how the façade of democracy and bourgeoisie cracked culturally, ideologically and economically in the last years of the Weimar Republic. Living conditions become precarious. Unemployment, the burden of reparation payments, social unrest become unsolvable tasks for politics. Life in the metropolis becomes barely affordable for the two brothers Werner and Hermann. So their call for radical solutions grows louder for them too. Little by little, the optimistic tone of the letters and the trust in democracy, politics and parliament fade.
The staging reinforces the humour of the letters. Songs, from the beginnings of jazz to the mocking songs of Claire Waldoff underline the attitude to life of the two young men in this particular time and form the surface under which the volcano is already bubbling.