mehdi moradpour
a slow noise of a new people atbreakfast buffet
(das langsame rauschen der neuen menschen am frühstücksbüfett)
2m, 2w
SYNOPSIS
In the play of the originally Iranian playwright (in 2001 he emigrated to Germany) a group of people meet at an unspecified place at breakfast buffet (the table stands in the centre of the stage and the position of the replicas on the page defines the position of the speakers at the table). There are “the not yet exhausted guide”, “the not yet melancholic activist”, “the not yet choleric politician”, and “the not yet indifferent vociferator”. The characters do not lead dialogues with each other, we rather observe intertwined parallel monologues that together create a refined poetic or musical structure of the text. The most mysterious character is the guide: it is probably he who invited the others to the “banquet”, which is held in his honour. In his monologues he addresses them as “journey participants” and it might seem for a long time that they are just ordinary tourists. However, gradually darker tones appear until it finally seems that he is guiding them to a far more tragic goal. It might be connected to the plans of the politician, who makes big plans about the resurrection of the European continent and its civilization by way of “new creation”. The two female characters seem to represent the point of view of the opposite side of society. It is true especially for the vociferator, who is trying - in her own words – to “integrate” into society and also into the work process. Her language is the most simple, she uses only short phrases (exclamations), but gradually her speech disintegrates and nonsensical structures and newly formed words appear. The activist uses the most colourful (and most poetic) language: she is an intellectual, who is trying to capture the reality around herself in very complex images, yet she does not realize that she is slowly drowning in poetic and intellectual clichés and that her speech finally becomes as empty and nonsensical as the other monologues.