Welcome to the cotton candy land of smiles! Where the birds chirp, they don’t hear “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” or something similar. Since Sunday, Disneyland has been in the middle of Linz, on the studio stage in the Schauspielhaus, where the premiere of “Celebration (Florida)” by Felix Krakau, who was born in Hamburg in 1990, invites you. The setting is the real city of the same name in Florida, which was founded by the Walt Disney Company in 1994, complete with a 70-page “Bible.” From the height of the lawn to the pastel color of the houses – almost everything is regulated and planned in Celebration. There’s just one thing not: the murder in 2000. Whereupon the Disney Company quickly sold its reputation-damaging Utopia.
From Bambi to Mickey
As a scholarship holder of the “Drama Lab” of the Wiener Wortstätten, Krakow spun the real thread in his play. The drama studio of the State Theater and Bruckneruni premiered it on Sunday, directed by Mechthild Harnischmacher from Munich. It all begins in the foyer, where the audience is invited to dream with their eyes closed. Anyone who closes their eyes in Celebration and the following 100 minutes will be relentlessly pursued: acoustically by birdsong or Disney soundtracks. The cotton candy scent is also something special: designer Stella Lennert has transformed the stage into a white bubble bath.
The skin color of the residents, who are only allowed to speak English, is also white, which the “town manager” watches over like a hawk: Vivian Micksch swings her scepter all the more energetically the more the idyll crumbles and the promise of salvation is scratched. What doesn’t take long for a young couple, new to Celebration: “Celebrate A” (Hubert Chojniak) stirs his cotton candy with an increasingly tired expression, while “Celebrate B” (Alexandra Diana Nedel) bravely struggles for a little longer to smile. Until it becomes dead quiet in Celebration. Only the cotton candy with which the body bags are quickly covered crunches like rotten timbers.
By then, the native youth had long been struggling with their fate: Kevin Bianco pretentiously dressed up as “La Daisy”, “Bambi Boy” Jonas Hämmerle had perfect mastery of the doe’s eyes and body shake. Dana Koganova is a feisty, clever “Queen Jasmin”. The latter also lend their fistula voices to Mickey and Minnie, which become increasingly shrill as the words become more and more brutal. From her production, which skilfully and detailedly parodies the Disney film universe, Harnischmacher reveals the underlying aggressions of life frozen in perfection. As the waves get higher and higher, the idyll sways like the ship in the sunset of a scene. The crew happily navigates the cathartic Disneyland shock. After these 100 entertaining minutes, you probably don’t want cotton candy anymore.
Conclusion: An aptly exaggerated and therefore somewhat exhausting Disney parody that warns against promises of salvation of all kinds.
Bis 21. 6., landestheater-linz.at
Author
Karin Schütze
Culture editor
Karin Schütze
