Online Talk and Reading with Emre Akal
In the series of talks entitled #variousartists, Aron Woldamlak of the Schwankhalle’s program team meets different artists and cultural producers for discussions. What are the themes that they are engaging with in their work and what artistic strategies do they pursue? What would they themselves like to see on stage? And who do they actually address with their art?
In this issue, Woldamlak talks with the Munich-based writer and director Emre Akal about his working method, the internal and external realities of the theater, and migration to the digital sphere. Emre Akal brought along excerpts of his new play ›Hotel Pink Lulu‹ which was awarded the Exil-Dramatiker*innenpreis 2020 and will premiere next fall at the Schauspiel Leipzig.
Emre Akal counts as one of the most relevant voices of a new generation of theater-makers seeking to politically and aesthetically change the existing institutional theater landscape. In 2019, he and 85 other artists from throughout Germany founded the “Ayşe X Staatstheater” as a possible future model of an intersectional, diversified theater practice. ›Hotel Pink Lulu‹ tells of the digital pervasion of our lives spanning all strata of society. ›Hotel Pink Lulu‹ is a digital ark promising its inhabitants total freedom and escape from the world. Here, they can cast off their imperfect bodies along with their biography and origin and finally be whoever they want to be. But what happens when the escape into the digital sphere doesn’t remain a temporary condition and instead becomes a new reality that feels more authentic and right than analog life? ›Hotel Pink Lulu‹ is a reminder of how overtaxing digital migration and the present we actually live in can be.
Stage rights ›Hotel Pink Lulu‹: S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main