Compania Sincara presents: The Dragon

Times are confusing, times are hard. People seem to have lost their bearings. In such a situation, some long for a hero who can show the way and provide solutions. But there are no heroes to be had; instead, there are three clowns – Waldemar, Eusebius and Kerbel. At least that’s something.

Here they are again. Once more they’ve come to stay with us, to marvel at us and our way of doing things. They may not understand much about heroism, but they’re willing to give it a go for our sake: “A hero is a role one can play.” They want to rouse the dead and piece together what has been shattered – at least for a brief moment. To do so, they take on a play that tells, without flinching, how far our piles of rubble reach not only into the sky, but also into our minds and hearts. A dragon must be defeated. And then another. And another. So they rise up and take us by the hand.

Even more than 80 years after it was written, Yevgeny Schwarz’s fairy tale about the tyrannical dragon and the dangers of cowardice has lost none of its relevance. Rather the opposite. All over the world you find them, the dragons. Even now. And there are more of them – as multifaceted as the dragon in the parable: they too have multiple heads, can transform themselves and, with the greatest persuasiveness, gather yes-men and followers around them. A dragon, with its backbone built from all those without a backbone. For the three clowns, this marks the start of the real game – a rebellious game against opportunism.

But how does one bring down dragons? And what to do once they have been brought down? How to deal with those who follow a dragon? And what if the dragon one seeks to slay is sitting inside oneself? Is a dragon sometimes just a bastard and surmountable? Yevgeny Schwarz’s fairy tale provides a wonderful opportunity to philosophise about all this. And that is exactly what the clowns do, in their own very special, affectionate way.

Compania Sincara is celebrating its tenth anniversary, and for the fifth time in a row, the company is staging a production in co-production with Schauspiel Leipzig and Schaubühne Lindenfels.