Demons

Theatre/Live film
Theater Basel
2022

“Incredibly good. (…) Everyone is asking themselves, what was that all about, but everyone agrees: 'Demons' is an incredibly impressive document of its time. Where it says 'youth' on it, youth is rarely in it, but here the promise was exceeded. 'Demons' is not a vessel, it is an organism, a huge, insane, pumping organism that you leave with a surprising sense of confidence after three hours of 'Hopelessness!!!': A world with such youth is not lost. Far from it.”
— Bajour

“Sometimes everything comes across as casual and everyday, as in the Nouvelle Vague, sometimes it has the wit and aggression of Tarantino films. (…) An intoxicating scene event, precisely planned and rehearsed, dance of death and exorcism in one.”
— Deutschlandfunk

“The actors impressively work out the ambivalent feeling of life in this 'crazy chaos' that is the world, awake, in a thoughtful setting, with an absolutely intoxicating energy.”
— SRF 2

“Rarely has theatre so formally convincingly and forcefully brought people in search of something like identity closer to each other, who ultimately distrust even their view of reality and yet retain their sense of humour.”
— nachtkritik

Events

- 23 June 2023
- - Schweizer Fernsehen
- 11 June 2023
- - Theater Basel
- 9 June 2023
- - Theater Basel
  - Premiere
- 27 May 2023
- - Theater Basel
  - Premiere
- 6 May 2023
- - Theater Basel
  - Resumption
- 8 October 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 1 + 2 October 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 24 + 25 June 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 10 + 11 June 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 3 + 4 June 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 27 May 2022
- - Theater Basel
- 26 May 2022
- - Theater Basel
  - World Premiere

A group of young people moves into the night. They are the grandchildren of the 68ers, who already know about the fading of the 68 movement. They live in a multicultural world, but not in a just one. They do not believe in one God. They may no longer have any religious faith at all, nor do they believe they can influence the world, the powerful constellations of capital, nation states and the globalised market in any way. They have the vocabulary of contemporary discourses, but what is a future if the lesson of the past is that it can no longer be reinvented.
On this evening, they have something in mind. Nothing is taken for granted in the city where all corners are actually familiar. Perception is sharpened as if it were the last evening.

"Demons", a three-hour live film projected onto a large screen in Basel's Schauspielhaus, while the action outside in the city is increasingly pieced together to a feverish stream of consciousness, was celebrated by the press and the audience and developed into a cult show in Basel. The work is the first collaboration between the two directors Sebastian Nübling and Boris Nikitin.

Concept & directed by: Boris Nikitin, Sebastian Nübling
With: Elisa Dillier, Dominic Hartmann, Elif Duygu Karci, Ann Mayer, Boris Nikitin, Sven Schelker, Julian Anatol Schneider, Lukas Stäuble
Texts: das Ensemble, Boris Nikitin
Video, Live camera: Robin Elias Nidecker
Set Design: Dominic Huber
Costumes: Ursula Leuenberger
Sound: Adolfina Fuck
Video assistance & Live camera: Jelïn Nichele
Assistance director: Lousia Raspe, Nora Maritz
Set design assistance: Tobias Maurer
Dramaturgy: Inga Schonlau

A production by Theater Basel in cooperation with Junges Theater Basel.