Dürrenmatt’s “Physiker” Premiers in Theater InCognito

The Theater InCognito (TIC) embedded in the Faculty of Cultural Studies is currently staging a classic piece: “Die Physiker” by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The premier takes place on Tuesday, June 19 at 8 pm in the University of Bremen’s theater hall, which is adjacent to the Mensa.

InCognito regularly puts on performances of highly acclaimed plays at the University. The actors are students enrolled in the humanities and various science disciplines. In this way, the theater under the direction of Franz Josef Eggstein supports the course “Practical Theater Work” offered by the IPKM (Institute for Press, Media and Communication) at the University of Bremen.

The plot of the grotesque comedy:

A nurse has been murdered in the mental hospital Les Cerisier – by a patient who thinks he is the famous physicist Einstein. Inspector Voss, charged with investigating the case, has his hands tied. It seems Einstein is mentally ill, so he cannot arrest him. Little by little, one learns that three months previously, another patient, who believes to be Newton, also murdered his nurse. And yet a third physicist patient, Möbius, believes King Solomon regularly appears to him to reveal his wisdom. Möbius – by profession a nuclear physicist – is really a genius, though, and the discoverer of a brilliant but lethal physical formula.

The modern-day reference:

Friedrich Dürrenmatt wrote “Die Physiker” (the physicists) in 1961 as a grotesque comedy. The classic piece raises questions that are just as relevant today as they were then. Can one keep a research finding secret once it has been made – however dangerous it may be – and like Möbius, escape to the madhouse so that nobody gets their hands on it? Can one try to prevent new knowledge being abused by commercial or political interests? “Everything imaginable can be thought up, now or in the future. Something that Solomon found can also be found by others. For “what has been revealed is no longer a secret,” says the director of the mental institution Zahnd to the three scientists. In essence, the piece focuses on the responsibility of the scientist regarding the problem issues arising from the human drive for knowledge and the use of research findings on the part of private or state interests, with all the potentially dangerous consequences this entails.

Tickets:

Theater InCognito’s staging of “Die Physiker” premiers on Tuesday, 19th June19th, 2018, in the theater hall of the University of Bremen. Further performances will be on the 20th, 21st, 29th and 30th of June. The curtain goes up at 8 pm. Tickets can be reserved on the website of the theater InCognito: www.theaterinCognito.de