Scenes from Boy With A Suitcase taken in Mannheim during its premiere in April 2011. Only 11 days left until the joint production of Schnawwl Mannheim and Ranga Shankara Theatre Bangalore will be on stage in India for the first time:

17 June 2011 Premiere “Boy With A Suitcase”, Ranga Shankara Theatre, Bangalore

Mit reduzierten Mitteln inszeniert Andrea Gronemeyer mit einem indisch-deutschen Ensemble eine packende Geschichte

Fast täglich hört man diese Meldungen: Wieder ist ein Flüchtlingsboot gekentert, vor Lampedusa zum Beispiel. Einige wenige konnten sich retten, viele sind ertrunken, die genaue Zahl kennt niemand. Im Mannheimer Schnawwl bekommen zwei dieser Flüchtlinge Gesichter und Geschichten. Es sind Menschen wie Krysia und Naz, die sich unter Lebensgefahr auf dem Weg in die scheinbar bessere Welt machen. Mit dem Wanderlust-Partner, dem Ranga Shankara Theater aus dem indischen Bangalore, entwickelt Regisseurin Andrea Gronemeyer grandioses Erzähltheater: “Der Junge mit dem Koffer”.

Zwei Schauspieler, ein Mensch: B. V. Shrunga als junger Naz und David Benito Garcia als Erzähler.


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“We made it to the other side of the world.”

"Boy with a Suitcase" © Nationaltheater Mannheim / Schnawwl

As our characters Naz and Krysia have travelled half across the world in search of a better life in London, we have travelled 2 months to arrive on a common playground, which is our joint production of  “Boy with a Suitcase”. As always in a coproduction, we all started from different lands – aesthetically, working style wise and language wise.  The journey brought us along a sometimes bumpy road to a much deeper understanding of what theatre means to each one of us and how we inegrate it into our lives – 4 hours a day for joy or 8 hours a day to make a living? A place to think and play or a place to work? A place for perfection or a place for taking risks? Interestingly, we could never agree on what is “Indian” or “German” as  all of us come from a different theatre background within our cultures.

"Boy with a Suitcase" © Nationaltheater Mannheim / Schnawwl

Our two costume designers Amba from Delhi and Evi from Mannheim went on the wildest journey. They had to jointly design and make the costumes for Boy.  They are not only two artists in their own rights, they are also two very differently paced human beings. Where Amba feels and smells fabric and thinks of the larger philosophies behind patterns and colours, Evi has made 7 drawings, bought 5 pairs of funky sunglasses and tried them on the actors.  So these two set off in the early rehearsals in Nrityagram and the road was narrow and windy and sometimes their bus seemed to fall over the steep edge. But it never quite did.  On top, at the pass between two rugged mountain peaks, after heated discussions and some tears:
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Das Mannheimer Jugendtheater Schnawwl bringt in “Das Lied von Rama” einen indischen Mythos auf die Bühne

Das Lied von Rama © Staatstheater Mannheim / Schnawwl

15 lange Stoffbahnen begrenzen den Raum, sind mit dem Teppichboden verwoben. Niemand darf dieses Bühnenbild mit Schuhen betreten. An den Seiten der Spielfläche sitzen Musiker. Die Sitar kennt man vielleicht noch, die anderen Instrumente sind schon spezieller. Esraj, Dilruba, verschiedene Trommeln und Schlagzeuge. Die Musiker schaffen einen fernöstlichen  Klangraum  für die deutschsprachige Erstaufführung “Das Lied von Rama”, einer Bearbeitung des neben dem “Mahabharata” wichtigsten Epos der indischen Literatur. Aber die Musiker stammen nicht aus Indien, die große Koproduktion des Mannheimer Jugendtheaters Schnawwl mit der indischen Bühne Ranga Shankara aus Bangalore kommt erst im weiteren Verlauf der Spielzeit. Die übrigens ganz unter dem Motto “Fremde Freunde” steht.


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There is an exercise that is mostly used as an Ice Breaker, where two strangers sit in front of each other, describe each other precisely and then fantasize about each others life.  Within the last week that the Indian collegues have come to Mannheim, this exercise has started to take up more and more workshop time and crept into leisure time, we find doing it in the tram and sometimes even missing the station. We have spent a week of getting to know each other, which happend while wokshopping, walking, changing hotels, dragging extremely big suitcases with saris all over the place, watching plays and swimming. Language does play a huge role – in the workshop and in the rest of our time. The actors Shrunga and Pallavi say “Danke” and “Leitungswasser” and in the workshop we listen to the actors speak in Kannada, Russian, Spanish, Swiss German, French, Kannadised English, Russian sign language and creative Bharat Natyamised Pantomime – as of today I know what jogging looks like in Bharat Natyam (a classical Indian dance form).
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