In principle everything is possible. The idea, taken to the point of absurdity, to let this evening play about life, suffering and death in the bare functional system of order of office gray perforated walls speaks for itself: The entire stage width of the Munich Residenztheater, including the doors on the short sides, is in the black and white dotted suggestion of infinite opportunity dressed like variability, to find a hold in some - among countless surplus - holes. There is not a single hook or hanger. And because the hard tubular steel benches have no backrests, the protagonists crouching on them as if in waiting positions of an athlete reserve are the only wall decorations; their speeches are the clues from which an individual judgment can be formed in the end.A green and a red card are already waiting - what a ridiculous choice given the abundance of cases, opinions and holes in Volker Thiele's set.
"Gott" is played, after "Terror" the second dramatic coup by the Munich-born lawyer and author Ferdinand von Schirach, at the end of which there is a public vote on an ethical dilemma.
In the case of “God”, following a public meeting of the ethics council, a decision is made: Should a doctor comply with the wishes and will of his mentally healthy patient to give him a lethal drug?
Material theater on television
The new ninety-minute non-fiction theater format was each made popular by a television event (70.8 percent of “Gott” voted “Yes”). So it is fitting that director Max Färberböck, known for "Tatort" episodes, for example, returns with exactly this explosive material three times: to the theater, to Munich and as director of Juliane Köhler ("Aimée & Jaguar", 1999). The topicality of Ferdinand von Schirach's topics is indisputable. When the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on February 26, 2020 with the abolition of Paragraph 217 that assisted suicide was no longer punishable, the author revised his didactic piece. The relevance remains, as politicians have not yet recognized the release of the deadly drug.
There is no legal obligation to live. So when did a person “live their life to the end”? Elisabeth Gärtner is 68 years old and completely healthy, well-off, socially embedded, but sad. She does not want to go on without her husband Richard, who had died three years earlier. “He's gone and I'm still here. That is not right. Not after 42 years. ”That’s why she’s sitting there and asking with passion: Who determines the value of life? The right? The medicine? The church? Who plays god Or rather: who will replace him, who in the end remains accused of the incomprehensible?