No Strings Attached Festival, Mainz
13 – 16 May, 2011
Mainz
This trip saw a welcome return to the No Strings Attached Festival in Mainz. We took The Cleansing Of Constance Brown there in 2009 and had a great time and it was lovely to see once more festival director Nike and venue director Tom. The show was presented in the Mainzer Kammerspiele, the same theatre space that Constance had been in. It was fun to use that space opened out after having planted the corridor set in there on our first visit. The rice always looks good under a bit of theatre light and this also gives us the rare opportunity to get the Of All The People In All The World gobo out. With a plentiful supply of steel deck we were also able to have one of the longest tables in show history.
This version of the show had a large environmental section to reflect the growing influence of environmental issues on German politics over recent months. The Green party had made significant gains in local elections and the Fukushima nuclear disaster had reignited the debate about nuclear power in Germany. This had led to large protests and demonstrations which we were able to represent, alongside the growth in employment in the alternative energy sector in the country. We continued the story with reference to protests against wind farms and statistics related to mining, oil production, air travel and local debates about controversial transport infrastructure developments in Stuttgart. Soon after we left Mainz Angela Merkel announced that over the next few years Germany would be phasing out nuclear power. (I don’t think we influenced her decision though).
A return to Germany also allowed for the return of many old favourites such as statistics related to the division and reunification of the country, the Berlin Wall and the German diaspora. One of my favourite statistics is the number of U.S. and Soviet spies exchanged on Glienicke Bridge during the Cold War. Two weeks after this visit to Mainz we took Constance Brown to Fabrik Potsdam and just up the road from there is the bridge itself. Nice.
Credits
Performers: Chris. Dugrenier, Jake Oldershaw, Craig Stephens, Jack Trow
Concept: James Yarker
General Manager: Charlotte Martin
Advisory Producer: Nick Sweeting