Imitation of Life
The performance is available in English.
Conceived, directed and designed by: Boris Nikitin
Performers & Texts: Beatrice Fleischlin, Malte Scholz
Dramaturgy: Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt
Stage Design: PanteraPantera/Thomas Wüthrich, Jens Müller
Production Management: Hendrik Unger
Thanks to Jürgen Harksen and Dirk Baecker.
Produced by Boris Nikitin/Paraform. Cocomissioned by Kaserne Basel/Treibstoff Theatertage 2009 and HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin.
Nikitin makes clever work that not only prompts some interesting questions around the "live" theme, attaching it to more existential ideas rather than just the semantics around performance terms or non-terms, but he also sets a bar for performance. His work is more complex and rounded than any of the others at the festival.
Fake diaries, fake images, fake secret service reports, fake scientific protocols, fake biographies, fake documents – at some point they were all believed to be real. Only when they were revealed to be fakes did it become clear that reality can deceive. Boris Nikitin thinks about fiction and reality in a documentary show about fraud, manipulation and the power of affirmation. Two actors and a counterfeiter are the central figures in this play. They are imitators who are able to impersonate somebody else. “Imitation of Life“ is a theatrical balancing act between certainty and uncertainty about information. A profound piece which points to the origin of our suspicion that things might not be what they appear to be.