Spleen

Author: Charles Baudelaire
Director: Hendrik Mannes
Puppets: Michael Vogel
Live music: Charlotte Wilde
Voices: Jördis Barth, Julka Finger, Luana Goller, Lotta Hillert, Merlin Lando Dweezil Ben Müller, Luis Neuschäfer, Vincent Sudau
Cast: Michael Vogel
Length of Performance: 50 minutes

The basis of the production is the late work of the French poet Charles Baudelaire - prose poems from his collection Paris Spleen. They are tightly packed miniatures representing a scene condensed into a few lines, sometimes ephemeral thought processes and romantic utopian ideas of the end of the previous century. Baudelaire's poems are sometimes gloomy and melancholic, sometimes cheerful. He created them for people on the threshold of modernity who cannot decide between an apathic longing for life and an eroticised longing for death, between the longing for infinity and banal triviality.

The open form is also adapted by the production, which through puppets and musical instruments, as well as texts spoken by children and young people, leads to a kaleidoscope of various moods, feelings and thoughts. It is based on imagination and a creative relationship between actors, puppets, Baudelaire's poems and the 21st century audience. The production has won many awards, including the prize for outstanding artistic achievement at the Stuttgart Theatre Grand Prix in 2007 and subsequently at other puppetry festivals.

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