Premiere: October 16, 2020 at 20:00 at the National Theater of Kosovo
Upcoming Shows: October 17, 26, and 30, 2020 at 20:00 at the National Theater of Kosovo
By: Jeton Neziraj // Directed by: Blerta Neziraj // Cast: Arta Muçaj, Adrian Morina, Armend Smajli, Ylber Bardhi, Shpetim Selmani // Stage and Costumes: Jelisaveta Tatić Čuturilo // Choreography: Gjergj Prevazi // Music Composer: Gabriele Marangoni // Dramaturge and Artistic Collaborator: Alban Beqiraj // Collaborator for Scenography: Mentor Berisha // Video: Ilir Gjocaj // Stage Manager: Lendita Idrizi // International Outreach: Maud Dinand // Coordination: Beqir Beqiri // Translation into English: Alexandra Channer // Lights: Mursel Bekteshi, Yann Perregaux // Technical Director: Fatlum Idrizi // Press: Arif Muharremi, Aurela Kadriu // Sufler: Nazmije Krasniqi
About the Show
The Return of Karl May
(An entertaining play for the German people)
The Return of Karl May confronts the audience with the almost-demonizing approach taken by Western Europe towards the East – an assumed cultural, political and intellectual superiority – which, according to Aleksandar Hemon is deeply rooted in colonialism and racism.
In our play, Kara Ben Nemsi, the famous protagonist of Karl May’s books – escapes the East and, together with a group of actors, from Kosovo, heads towards the German Lands. In this almost-epic journey, he meets Slavoj Zizek, Peter Handke, a member of Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund and several other characters.
An idealized West, a nest of wisdom, science, culture and civilization, peopled by skillful and bright Catholics who keep their word, on one side; an exotic and despotic East full of ignorant people who have no dignity, thieves and Muslims for whom to plunder is God, on the other: this is part of the literary heritage of some of the novels of Karl May, the cult German author.
What is the impact of May’s work in the West today – especially in the Germanic lands, from which he comes?
The play takes a scan of today’s Europe, its assumed cultural and civilizing values, its democracy that is proclaimed as holy, and which, in the babel of bureaucratic letters of the EU, comes to us in the shape of Eurovision – the music contest – that is, as a Europe of love, harmony, glow and diversity that, at its core and in reality, is also an arrogant, Eurocentrist and even racist Europe with anti-Muslim and anti-eastern sentiments! It is a Europe that glows from the outside, and revels in stereotypes on the inside!
While Karl May and his literary works can be ‘excused’ with the justification that he lived in a century of ignorance, darkness and limited communication opportunities and access to information, how can we excuse and justify an author like Peter Handke? An author of our time who denies the genocide in Bosnia and who [in the name of artistic freedom, of course] has been taken under protection by many European intellectuals and journalists, furthermore, whose contribution is acknowledged and appreciated not only with the Ibsen Award, but also the Nobel Prize for Literature!
Here is the overview of a Europe that, besides the four freedoms and egalitarianism, is creating itself another side with a gloomy and a dark future, even. The European Trumps are on their way! The curtain is open, their path is being paved beautifully with flowers and confetti, even literary ones! The speeches of Handke and his ilk are there for those who will want to create a “Let’s make Europe great again,” a Europe from which the new Kara Ben Nemsi will take off – this time not with horses but probably with tanks – to explore, educate and civilize the barbaric East – and every other East that is not like their West. It is in this way that frustration and racism towards Balkan refugees and those from third world countries, continues to flourish in the East as well.