About Interrobang - What

„The interrobang
is a nonstandard punctuation mark
intended to combine the functions of the
question mark and the exclamation mark: ‽
A sentence ending with an interrobang asks
a question in an excited manner, expresses
excitement or disbelief in the form of a
question, or asks a rhetorical question.”

We develop new performative formats to examine current socio-political issues, phenomena and questions. For this we create unusual, often installative theatre spaces as well as participatory immersive game settings, in which the audience can test and experience new scenic models of communication – like, for example, in our spaces based on a language laboratory or a call centre. In this way, playing with a theatrical community becomes a play with actual and possible future societal forms and value systems.

We like to adopt means of expression and materials from other, primarily auditive forms of art and media like the radio play or feature, and place them in new, performative contexts. The collective space of theatre interests us as a microcosm of society, in which the reflection and transgression of existing social and economic structures and regulations becomes possible.

Central to our works are multiple options: our performances hardly ever follow a linear path but offer possibilities for branches, different outcomes and unforeseen dramaturgies. Crucial decisions are made mostly by the audience, thus our projects are always also about democratic processes: about the possibilities and limits of participation as well as the (un)freedom of choice within a given system.

Our interdisciplinary theatre occupies a place beyond the old-fashioned separation between dramatic and post-dramatic theatre. Our forms of performance are also always experiments with text, fiction, narration and illusion. Performance is for us both a social and participatory present, full of real risks and unpredictable side effects, and a space for the experience of the fantastic and utopian. Game, fiction and narration serve us as a means of emphatic questioning – as an interrobang‽

Preenactment series

For the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons we are testing a new performance format: the Preenactment. Different to the backward-looking idea of reenactment, the Preenactment explores exemplary present-day phenomena and, using performance and theatrical means, transposes them into the future. Current political and social tendencies, that effect our daily life are thus amplified, exaggerated and together with the public acted out and tested in a communicative set-up – the future as experience. The Preenactment series is part of our Doppelpass-partnership together with Sophiensæle Berlin.