THE MAGIC FORMULA OF ZURICH

Winter after winter, the Schauspielhaus invites all generations to the family play at the theater. On stage, costumed adults perform fairy tales and legends. But what if children invented and performed their own stories? And what if they drew inspiration from the utopias and fictions of politics: the fairy tale of eternal growth, equal opportunities for all, security through gun ownership and border fences, a life on Mars? In a time when politics invents fairy tales, maybe it’s children who should tell the truth.

Rimini Protokoll brings people aged 9 to 13 onto the big stage. Through investigations at the Federal Council in Bern, they discover the magic formula and experiment with what it means to govern as a collegial team — from the bottom up. As future leaders, they set off to luxury villas and illegal waste dumps, factories and other hotspots of globalization. They return as reporters for their generation — as messengers who speak about the world in their own words on stage.

On stage, they recreate the world as a film set, where young and old overlap, and within it they shoot a live documentary fantasy game using musical instruments and miniature models. The result is stage science fiction where both children and adults get to see the future take shape.