Ausschliesslich Inländer

In their first performance at the Schauspielhaus, puppeteer, puppet maker and director Nikolaus Habjan and successful Austrian band Franui will dedicate an evening to the Viennese composer, cabaret artist and poet Georg Kreisler. The piece will focus on Kreisler’s years in Switzerland. Living in Basel between 1992 and 2007, Kreisler took a critically humorous approach to Switzerland during this period. “In my opinion, his absurd verses, with their profound sense of comedy, are among the best in the genre of German chanson. They are so topical that you could think they were written yesterday,” says Nikolaus Habjan.

The piece is set in a disused border station. The figures of the Kreisler cosmos encounter one another in this no-man’s land and place of transition; memories are reawakened, and stories of love and death, yearning and enmity, surprising relationships and strangely happy moments unfold. Together with his puppets and members of the Schauspielhaus ensemble, Nikolaus Habjan has developed an entertaining, socio-critical piece of musical theatre on the basis of Georg Kreisler’s texts and songs.