Quality control

By Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel

"I have never asked WHY did it happen to to me. Why, 20 years ago as a celebration of my graduation I was flying out of Stuttgart to Crete with my parents. Why did I dive into the pool at the resort – head first, into the shallow end. That was the last time that I could command my body to move. Since then the lines of communication have been cut between my brain and anything south of my shoulders. My father resuscitated me beside the pool. I was asked at the hospital if I wanted to live at all. I really wanted to. I have high spirits.

I would go on to be in this theatre piece. It would be about how at the end of my final exams my life took a new path. About my sister and how much I love her and how happy she seems although at 2 years old she stopped developing mentally in any way we can measure. I will steer this piece. I will show the world that I am complete. I’ll talk to women who are expecting a child, with geneticists who test the quality of life. I will ask my nurse to gesticulate for me. I will leave the stage to my sister. I will ask questions about what it means to be human. I will answer my own questions. I will laugh without the help of technology: I smile – often."

"I'm falling – I": these are the final three words in 'Black Tie', a piece dealing with "the black hole that is identity". At the beginning of the piece, the word "I" is repeated 276 times, a promise that is not kept by the play. A play in which a young woman, who came from Korea to Germany in the '70s, begins the search for her biographical and biological roots. In QUALITY CONTROL this text is updated but the hunt continues. The "I" has changed!

As paradoxical as it may sound - you come out of the theater with a real spring in your step (...) Maria-Cristina Hallwachs grips and fascinates us, showing us that life is a marvel and a joy.
Rimini Protokoll stages this work in a gently ironic and playful way, to take the melancholic sorrow out of this difficult topic; there is a depth of thought throughout, and yet at the same time a life-affirming lightness. It is a long time since I have seen a work of theater as intelligent and as moving as this one.

RBB kulturradio 11.11.2013

Awarded with the audience prize of the Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis „Stücke 2014“.

Performed by
Maria-Cristina Hallwachs
Timea Mihályi / Admir Dzinić

Written and directed by Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel
Stage / Lighting Design / Videomapping: Marc Jungreithmeier
Stage: Marco Canevacci (Plastique Fantastique)
Video / Video mapping: Grit Schuster
Music: Barbara Morgenstern
Dramaturgy / Research: Sebastian Brünger
Production Management: Heidrun Schlegel
Directors Assistance and research: Markus Klemenz
Stage Assistance: Ewa Sobczak
Production management Assistance: Caroline Lippert
Stage manager: Hans Beck, Thomas Hoffmann
Directors trainee: Birte Niederhaus
Dramaturgy trainee: Lena Fritschle

A co-production between Rimini Apparat and Schauspiel Stuttgart. Funded by the Department of the Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.

Performance rights: schaefersphilippen Theater und Medien GbR