DER REICHSBÜRGER (360°)

THE VR EXPERIENCE

Direction & stage: Thomas Krupa
Music composed and produced by Hannes Strobl
360° video recording and postproduction: Tobias Bieseke
Set sound and video: Adrian Kareev
Spatial audio postproduction: Thomas Koch
Lighting design; Christian Sierau
Dramaturgy: Vera Ring
Production and set management: Friederike Külpmann
Technical coordination VR equipment: Markus Hesse

Schauspiel Essen is entering the world of virtual reality for the first time, allowing viewers in Essen to experience theater up close at home via VR glasses!
As a first project, „Der Reichsbürger“, the successful production by Thomas Krupa with actor Stefan Diekmann, was adapted to the requirements of the 360° perspective and enhanced with a spatial Ambisonic sound experience that is currently unique in Germany.

The piece by Konstantin and Annalena Küspert is about so-called „Reichsbürger*innen“. Their credo is that they do not recognize the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany, because according to their understanding of history, the occupation of Germany has never ended and the Federal Republic is exclusively a construct of the Allies. For Reich citizens, therefore, the German Reich continues to exist. – Reason enough for them to withdraw from the social contract, to deny the legitimacy of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany and to believe that they can take the executive power into their own armed hands.
The authors shed light on the psyche of a Reichsbürger, who is far from coming across as an aggressive conspiracy fanatic, and take an approach to this irritating social phenomenon that is as biting as it is enlightening.