Speech theater: With »Enter! Sara Tannen« celebrates the premiere of another school class play by the Mainfranken Theater in Würzburg – the play can be booked individually
WURZBURG
2
Min.
»This is the way to the hall!« Sara Tannen storms through the door in a fighting stance. Enter! “I’ll finish you off, you rat!” the computer game heroine from “Ghostquest 3” keeps repeating the same phrases in a choppy voice.
She wears a leather cape and gold aviator goggles with a vial of stardust tucked into her belt. Sarah Tannen, always on a dangerous mission, also values being a full version. Only? Where is she anyway? Shortly before the final level, she was still in the »Forest of a Thousand Deaths«. Now she has landed in a room that looks completely different from any room before. It is a sixth grade of the Siebold-Gymnasium in Würzburg.
40 minute piece
With »Enter! Sarah Tannen” by Bettina Wegenast, after “Klamm’s War”, “Captain Taumel” and the Christmas play “The Last Sheep”, the Mainfranken Theater is drawing another production through the classrooms in Lower Franconia. The almost 40-minute production is designed for fourth to seventh graders. Directed by Annalena Maas, who among other things was responsible for the children’s play »Mozart’s Sister« in Würzburg. Actress Isabella Szendzielorz conquers the classroom in the role of action-adventure game heroine Sara Tannen. She’s combative, she’s funny – and bit by bit she’s turning into an increasingly vulnerable being. Again and again scenes make you smile – for example when the heroine is looking for a secret passage under the students’ tables. With audio, the classroom becomes cyberspace – and cyberspace becomes the classroom. Everything mixed, transformed. Is this a secret room? Actually, Sara just wants to get out of this technical bug or secret tutorial. “Players are a nuisance. Who actually programs the players?’ she asks, annoyed. And who the hell are the weird other characters in the room? NPCs, say, purely creative elements of the virtual world?
Offline reality contacted
The action heroine desperately tries to make contact with the offline reality. And this is where Isabella Szendzielorz initially finds it difficult in the interactive play. The students are as quiet as a mouse and are visibly cheering along. Only: At first no one dares to respond to Sara’s questions. Finally, the director’s daughter steps in. phew Now the class is also warming up and increasingly actively accompanies the heroine on her journey of discovery through completely new realities. This ? Classroom? seems to be a beta version?
Sara gets to know completely new cheats like eating and pain – and crazy feelings like joy or crying. Really now? An eyedrop cheat? Who needs this? The heroine learns that there are “characters” outside of virtual worlds who make their own decisions – and at the same time stick to certain rules.
It’s like zero and one at the same time, she says thoughtfully. And she wonders if in the future she will have to be sad every time she gets shot or runs over someone herself. Crazy real world. Szendzielorz responds to the students, improvises and returns to her text role, which is a sheer joy. The excursion to »Ghostquest 3« was well received by the sixth graders, and the applause at the end was correspondingly intense.
bSchools can “Enter! Sarah Tannen« for one Flat rate of 200 euros book plus travel expenses at schools outside of Würzburg; a workshop can also be booked; More information at https://www.mainfrankentheater.de/theater/plattformx/theatertogo/
MICHAELA SCHNEIDER