Explosive questions to “All sick” at the Klabauter Theater | NDR.de – Culture

by Peter Helling

“I have a lot of courage and this courage that I always receive from my colleagues, and also from Teresa, it makes me contagious”, says Agnès Wessalowski. She has Down syndrome and is Klabauter set. With Teresa, she means her director Teresa Rosenkrantz: “There is so much strength and courage here in the whole ensemble that we are passing on courage to each other and we also have a vision to do more projects together.”

“All sick” is the name of the play of the inclusive theatre, which is now returning to the stage after a Corona break of several months. Agnès Wessalowski is already looking forward to it: “It’s always very fun for me to play with my colleagues. You have to be very alert and have more concentration on stage.” The ensemble enters the stage one after another, arrives in wheelchairs, on crutches, sits on the chairs in the waiting room of a doctor’s office – and competes to see who is the most, very sick.

The massage ball becomes the viral protagonist of “Everyone Sick”.

In “All sick”, all imaginable illnesses are pronounced with a lot of spirit to question this taboo, the taboo of: we don’t talk about the disease! Performance above all!
“Is health the norm or is it not the norm to be sick once in a while?” Teresa Rosenkrantz and her team developed the piece long before Corona: Everything changed with the virus, suddenly a little red massage ball became the viral lead actor, says Rosenkrantz: “She was hanging out here and we worked and played with her . thing we noticed: it’s so similar to that whole picture you see in the media all the time!”

Agnès Wessalowski, who is boxing in the air, gets massaged from behind with the ugly red ball, but: be careful, it’s contagious! And so it is said in the play: “I want to move freely. I’m sitting alone in my room. I wish it was finally over!”

Comfort and hope in the Corona period

Inclusive theater means: people with disabilities slip into the roles, present and with the highest level of professionalism, like Agnès. Now that Corona is ubiquitous, it’s all about comfort and hope. Personal experiences are also included, says the actress: “It’s very depressing for me, and on stage, when we play here, you have to let it all out.”

For the director of the Klabauter Theater, Karin Nissen-Rizvani, the play returns to the stage at the right time – with typical Klabauter humor, nicely biting, but never cynical: “Here it is also a kaleidoscope of sadness, that it resonates with this variety of possible illnesses, but still something comforting, so simple, like chicken soup that is made for viewers in the media.”

An evening of theater that insolently gives courage

Otherwise, the committed theater with its ensemble of 13 people is doing well, says Karin Nissen-Rizvani, the link with the public is not broken. And: Inclusive theater is now perceived very differently. As an expression of diversity on stage, quite equal: “It’s no longer limited to: ‘Oh, now we go to the Klabauter inclusive ensemble’, but: ‘We look at a world.'”

A poetic world of bodies and thoughts, where people sing and dance in their sleep across the stage. “All sick” is an evening that brazenly incites.