In 1974 Dieter Roth publishes Murmel (Marble), a book measuring 18 x 11.5 cm with 176 pages on browned paper. It contains one word: "Murmel", in x variations. In 2012 Herbert Fritsch will release Murmel Murmel at the Volksbühne Berlin, a ninety-minute performance with 11 performers in colourful costumes. They speak one word: "Murmel", in x variations. – Now, after a triumphal procession halfway around the world, the ingenious production finds a new home in Bochum with its turbo-slapstick. The original! At Schauspielhaus Bochum! Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel Murmel

Invited to Theatertreffen of Berliner Festspiele 2013

 

 
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  • Duration: 1:30h, no break
  • First performance/Premiere: 29.11.2018
  • Language: Language: no problem
All people
Press voices

Director Herbert Fritsch has never focused on text. In Murmel Murmel, Fritsch is finally consistent enough to free himself, the actors and the spectators from the burden of words and meaning: ninety minutes of acrobatic body theatre, famous slapstick and rhythmic dance gymnastics, supported by the musician Ingo Günther and his marimba. Anyone who wants can see in it a satirical commentary on the hysterically over-excited turbo society, which says nothing with infinite blah blah – but one also gets along well without if one simply enjoys the sensational happening on stage, Victoria Behr‘s garish sixties costumes, Fritsch‘s psychedelically swelling up and down stage design, which dances along and sets the rhythm for the Dadaist art trip. Fritsch reminds us of what theatre is: a colourful show with living people. Despite all the hysteria, the constant murmuring of the actors, sometimes solo, sometimes in the choir, can also be meditative sometimes.
Jury statement Theatertreffen Berlin 2013

A play consisting of only one word is not very promising at first, but on this evening you can learn how different a single word can sound and what different stories you can tell with it, depending on how you literally put it in your mouth. Sometimes the evening looks like a minimalist opera, sometimes like a big show from Las Vegas.
Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Andrea Gerk

That this doesn‘t get a bit boring for an hour and a half, but on the contrary refreshes the courage to live, enlightens the head, touches the heart, makes you happy and in a good mood, is a real theatre miracle. This evening is a blessing of emptiness, but it was worked on very hard and very precisely.
Berliner Zeitung, Ulrich Seidler

More press voices

Basically, one has to imagine the whole thing as if Charlie Chaplin and Marcel Marceau encountered a psychedelically decelerated Tarantino style. In a congenial scenario, designed by Fritsch himself, consisting of coloured stage walls arranged one behind the other, which can be moved as desired and thus define new spaces within seconds.
Der Tagesspiegel , Christine Wahl

Imaginative, crazy and ravishingly sweeping. Really sensational-hilarious.
FAZ , Irene Bazinger