Why We Took the Car (Tschick)
based on the novel by Wolfgang Herrndorf
mounted by the DT Ensemble using a stage adaption by Robert Koall
"A minute later, and the light-blue Lada Niva was sitting, motor running, in front of our garage. Then the motor went off, and Tschick got out. He braced himself with his elbows on the roof and watched as I watered the lawn.'A-ha', he said, and then fell silent for a little while. 'Having fun?'"
(from "Tschick", published by Rowohlt)
Tschick is otherwise known as Andrej Tschichatschow, a Russian-born, ethnic German teenager who lives in Berlin’s Marzahn district. One day he and Maik Klingenberg, a classmate who suffers from affluent neglect, take off in a stolen Lada. Without a real plan or sense of direction, they go on a wild journey around eastern Germany. Director Alexander Riemenschneider stages Wolfgang Herrndorf’s moving, pithy and humorous road novel about two 14-year-old outsiders with nothing to lose. During their travels they discover the value of true friendship and that the foreign is often to be found right on of your doorstep.
"A story you can never get enough of….it’s existential, comforting, great."
Tobias Rüther, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Book Trailer: Wolfgang Herrndorf reading from 'Tschick'
Sponsored by Friends of the DT
"A minute later, and the light-blue Lada Niva was sitting, motor running, in front of our garage. Then the motor went off, and Tschick got out. He braced himself with his elbows on the roof and watched as I watered the lawn.'A-ha', he said, and then fell silent for a little while. 'Having fun?'"
(from "Tschick", published by Rowohlt)
Tschick is otherwise known as Andrej Tschichatschow, a Russian-born, ethnic German teenager who lives in Berlin’s Marzahn district. One day he and Maik Klingenberg, a classmate who suffers from affluent neglect, take off in a stolen Lada. Without a real plan or sense of direction, they go on a wild journey around eastern Germany. Director Alexander Riemenschneider stages Wolfgang Herrndorf’s moving, pithy and humorous road novel about two 14-year-old outsiders with nothing to lose. During their travels they discover the value of true friendship and that the foreign is often to be found right on of your doorstep.
"A story you can never get enough of….it’s existential, comforting, great."
Tobias Rüther, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
Book Trailer: Wolfgang Herrndorf reading from 'Tschick'
Sponsored by Friends of the DT
Director Alexander Riemenschneider
Set & Costumes Rimma Starodubzeva
Music Arne Jansen
Dramaturgy Birgit Lengers
Premiere December 3, 2011
Sven Fricke
Thorsten Hierse
Arne Jansen
Kotbong Yang
[…] On the tiny Box stage of the Deutsches Theater, Riemenschneider sketches a minimal utopia using frugal means – consisting almost entirely of the power of the spoken word. […] This imaginary torrent of images is given a soundtrack by a lone ranger in a dapper cowboy costume (Arne Jansen), who waits patiently at the edge of the stage to play his songs. At one point, Thorsten Hierse as Maik reaches for the acoustic guitar. With a poignant pathos reminiscent of Rainald Grebe in its amateurish resoluteness, he laments not being invited to the birthday party of his beloved. He and Sven Fricke skilfully perform all the roles of the novel, but most of the time they are Maik and Andrej, masterfully capturing the speech patterns of youth-speak, without making the audience cringe. Even the way they stand, in their casual uniform of jeans and sneakers, so helplessly adolescent, in just the way 14-year-olds do who don’t know where to put their hands, makes the audience forget that these are grown-up men – or in Isa’s case, a grown-up woman. With equal poise, Natalia Belitski lends her brief appearance the same teenage insouciance as her fellow actors. How magical places spring from nowhere: Wolfgang Herrndorfs Tschick at the Deutsches Theater Berlin
[…] On the tiny Box stage of the Deutsches Theater, Riemenschneider sketches a minimal utopia using frugal means – consisting almost entirely of the power of the spoken word. […] This imaginary torrent of images is given a soundtrack by a lone ranger in a dapper cowboy costume (Arne Jansen), who waits patiently at the edge of the stage to play his songs. At one point, Thorsten Hierse as Maik reaches for the acoustic guitar. With a poignant pathos reminiscent of Rainald Grebe in its amateurish resoluteness, he laments not being invited to the birthday party of his beloved. He and Sven Fricke skilfully perform all the roles of the novel, but most of the time they are Maik and Andrej, masterfully capturing the speech patterns of youth-speak, without making the audience cringe. Even the way they stand, in their casual uniform of jeans and sneakers, so helplessly adolescent, in just the way 14-year-olds do who don’t know where to put their hands, makes the audience forget that these are grown-up men – or in Isa’s case, a grown-up woman. With equal poise, Natalia Belitski lends her brief appearance the same teenage insouciance as her fellow actors.