In 2019, Theater Chemnitz commissioned Brian Bell with devising a piece about the possibility of utopias, for the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.
Four employees of a Chemnitz development company are asked to take part in a team-building workshop. What begins as a comparatively harmless Escape Room develops into a high-stakes game in which not only the relationships of the employees are permanently renegotiated, but attitudes, dreams and even the rooms itself is set in motion. The piece was built around an oversized Monopoly board and incorporated gameified moments of interactivity in which the audience members were able to affect the outcome of each performance.
"The American director Brian Bell chose the Monopoly board not only as a metaphor for capitalism, but also as laboratory where not every line is scripted. That alone is tons of fun – as the four perfectly cast, dynamic young actors are quick-witted and switched-on . . .they ponder about religion and culture, debate hotly, and go to battle in slow-motion. Until the “Tabula Rasa” makes clear, completely unpretentiously, that in the end the only way out is to work together. Theatre can hardly be more valuable."
-Chemnitzer Freie Presse, 11.11.19
Photos: Nasser Hashemi © 2019
