"To contrast reality with parallelism"

Boris Mercelot realises theatre-affine formats in the Ruhr area. His "99cent Theatre" made a huge splash in Bochum's Goldkante pub until it led him and his team on a discovery tour through the Ruhr area. His theatre project "Eintagsfliegen" [flash in the pan; translator's note] swarm out on a day, practice another day, perform for one day - in six cities of the Ruhr area. An interview.

 

What is your job title?

I would say I'm a director to people outside the theatre industry. I'm not even on stage - or at least rarely. I instruct actors such as with the 99cent theatre. The projects take form in my head.

 

How long has 99cent Theatre been in place?

We celebrate our fifth anniversary this year. The project developed from an experiment. We started in a small pub in Bochum. We had originally planned about five episodes as a series every two weeks on Thursday nights at 10 pm. The usual pub scene took place before and after.

With a friend of mine who is a scriptwriter, I developed a setting. There were two main characters and a guest. As I said, we had originally planned five episodes but more and more people came to watch the show. At first, it was 15, then 20, then 25 and they just kept coming. They stayed, had a few beers and came back again. There were elements from soap operas and sitcoms, the plot was a bit absurd.

It was about a girl who wants to become a serial killer. She hadn't killed anyone at the time but picked out her first victim. Yet she wants to get to know the victims first. During a talk, her first victim "Schumann" claims to be an alien. She demands that he brings her a new victim because she doesn't want to kill him and that's how the story gets going.

 

How long did it run?

It went on for two years. In the second year, we even received some funding from the city. We then performed "The Hour of Disquiet" inspired by Fernando Pessoa. It was a one-man piece that was performed in a shop window entirely - the audience sits behind the shop window and looks to the outside. The entire play contains only three sentences. We performed at different places and last year we continued with "Eintagsfliegen". And there were some smaller projects in between.

 

This is what you make a living off?

Not exclusively. I work on projects with adolescents. Lately, I've been working at the Duisburg theatre.

 

What's important to you in terms of developing theatre forms?

I find it important to become involved with the current reality of life. It's about the development of parallelism. When it comes to the "Beautiful Disquiet", this means: I don't have to comment on what you can see through the shop window as it's real everyday life. What happens on an artistic level has to have its own aesthetics.  Theatre has to cater to reality, not redouble it.

 

So it's about relating to everyday life but to contrast it with its own aesthetics?

Exactly. In order to revive reality in a way that a change of perspective occurs - a parallelism with defined aesthetics.

Thank you for the chat!