March 13, 2022. In Luis Buñuel's Oscar-winning film, a class of society revolves so much around its primary needs that it never manages to satisfy them.Director Claudia Bauer includes the sociotope with Peter Licht's and SE Struck's overwriting in today's prosperity-neglect.Frankfurt, March 13, 2022. It's not just the start that's furious: a container-like house lit in sunny yellow turns to French swing and a crowd of people in impossibly patterned clothes form a contemporary we.This we rides through the night on urban arrow e-bike cargo bikes and wants to have fun.Always fun.In between, eat healthy and breathe properly.Exhausted, this we is habitual, plagued by nothing but fatigue syndrome.The weary bourgeoisie of our day.At Claudia Bauer they fool around in a fabulously excited way.Also here: great cinemaWhile the staff in Luis Buñuel's Oscar-winning film from 1972 lives up to the discreet charm of the title with their ghostly acting, the ensemble in Frankfurt throw themselves into the scenes like a child into a ball pool.Nothing is discreet here, everything is great cinema.At the beginning, the We forms up on a staircase in front of the container and competes to beam, while they shake their Farrah facet blow-dried hairstyles and look ravishingly stupid out of the laundry.Lizzy, the star of the evening, is waiting in the container, oiled by Anna Kubin with a splendid blinking of her eyes and a squeaky voice in the greatest exaggeration volts à la Anke Engelke.The troupe rings her bell a day too early, and this blunder, like in the film, is the starting signal for a series of strange scenes.When the bourgeoisie rings at the container © Birgit HupfeldBuñuel's surreal classic eyes a social stratum so revolving around its primary needs that it never quite gets around to satisfying them.People tend to gather here to eat rather than get full.You want sex right away, but the circumstances aren't like that.The overwriting of PeterLicht and SE Struck maneuvers the whole thing into a prosperity-neglected today.The colorful people on the stage are primarily interested in getting full and at most protest against dust mice.They have mastered the empty phrases of our present.They murmur "I like", "Freu", "Nerv", "I love it" and their moral conscience seems as abbreviated as their expressions.When in doubt, they will do anything with anyone for money.Just like the shady cultural attaché of an equally shady desert state, played by Sebastian Kuschmann.Tofu sausages, pickled in self-knowledgeMost of them should still be able to distance themselves quite well from his machinations, rather less from the highly energetic bubble talk phrases.Mostly it's about the food, party blah blah, the advantages of different diets, less meat of course, no red meat of course, eat little in the evening, no milk, tofu sausages etc. pp. Everything has been heard before, most of it has probably also been thought of, some even said it myself."I know that!" Not only the characters on the stage make sure, but also the floor murmurs.The same is true of the perpetually weary self, the carefree lifestyle, the overprivileged in most respects, the yoga retreat, the worship of mindfulness, and the condescension ennobled as friendship toward real workers.The evening holds a dirty mirror in front of our faces and it does so rigorously and cheerfully.A round thing, even if everything could have been a bit shorter, like the length of Buñuel's film, around 100 minutes.That would have been perfect.Frozen amazement and wide open eyesAs usual, Bauer works with a live camera, which captures what is happening inside the container and projects it onto an outside wall.There we see the cleaning lady Tatti (Philipp Alexej Voigtländer) scrubbing the toilet and the real prompter Christine Schneider sitting in the corner leafing through the text.The container has a large window, a porch and a roof terrace, and the characters walk from here to there, staring and grimacing uncontrollably directly at the camera.Katharina Linder likes to have frozen amazement on her face, Andreas Vögler wonderfully angular blasé, Mark Tumba with a great advertising smile, Lotte Schubert with a wide-eyed look.In between, the gifted nonsense maker Fridolin Sandmeyer shines in roles of all kinds.Exclusive insights © Birgit HupfeldThe evening follows Buñuel's sequence of scenes, but dispenses with its religious components.Which is only logical in view of the distance from God in our present.One of the greatest scenes in the film is also a highlight in Frankfurt.Once again, the company gathers for a meal and suddenly realizes that they are sitting on the stage of a theater.A gag that of course sparks more sparks in the theater.The proverbial fourth wall crashes out of the container so that the dinner party can look out into the audience.A moment of recognition.Buñuel is also about social anxiety, which manifests itself in all sorts of nightmares and in concrete dangers.The next generation, which also uses force of arms for its truths, is personified by Claudia Bauer in chubby-cheeked correctness dolls that look cute but still shoot sharply.The dreary end of fun society, and an absurdly entertaining evening that glares at the uneasiness of our lifestyle.Anyone who doesn't feel caught has other problems.The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie according to Luis Buñuel Adapted for the stage by PeterLicht and SE Struck Director: Claudia Bauer, set: Andreas Auerbach, costumes: Vanessa Rust, music: Peer Baierlein.Video: Jan Isaak Voges, video collaboration: Rebekka Waitz, dramaturgy: Katja Herlemann, lighting: Marcel Heyde.With: Anna Kubin, Sebastian Kuschmann, Katharina Linder, Fridolin Sandmeyer, Lotte Schubert, Mark Tumba, Andreas Vögler, Philipp Alexej Voigtländer, Benjamin Lüdtke, Rebekka Waitz (live camera) and Janine Kaiser, Antonia Kruschel, Karina Salmen, Steven Marc Fischer , Daniel Hartlaub, Ruben Hausmann (extras).Duration: 2 hours, no break www.schauspielfrankfurt.deThe "individual acting performance" is "not important" this evening, writes Claudia Schülke in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (March 14, 2022)."Rather on the overall presentation, the self-forgotten ensemble performance."The ensemble masters "a difficult text that burns in the audience's ears because of its monotonous repetitions".But if in the end one of the "container walls" breaks, an "echo chamber" opens up, "the bubble bursts": "face to face with the audience, those who refuse to accept reality are frightened by reality."Director Claudia Bauer "visibly enjoys prescribing a good-natured permanent grin to the actors under their 80s hair dryer hairstyles and putting them in caustically patterned cheerful clothes," recognizes Bettina Boyens in the Frankfurter Neue Presse (March 14, 2022).This reviewer also found great praise for the ensemble, including above all Fridolin Sandmeyer, who acted "unrivalled" in "picturesque multiple cast".On the theater stage, things are "more rustic, silly and clearer" than with Buñuel, says Judith von Sternburg in the Frankfurter Rundschau (March 14, 2022).The text was "very cleverly" adapted to our present by PeterLicht and SE Struck and Claudia Bauer staged a "technically spotless fun".At 120 minutes, the evening was "about half an hour too long", but there was "a really good atmosphere" in the Frankfurter Schauspiel.Claudia Bauer stages grand gestures by an elite that always end up being ridiculous, says Natascha Pflaumbaum on Deutschlandfunk Kultur (March 12, 2022).The absurdity and the exaggeration of the characters are fantastic."In the guise of comedy there is quite a bit of philosophy and through the dreams a lot of theatrical aesthetics and theatrical debate."This is how life issues are negotiated.All this with such great lightness that one would have to experience the entire complexity of the evening one more time.Peter Licht's overwriting of Buñuel makes the historical and artistic distance between 1972 and today unmistakably clear, says Christian Gampert on Deutschlandfunk (March 14, 2022).Everything here is caricature and satirical, and for that very reason frighteningly true: "The constant screaming of the characters, the wordy hysteria get on your nerves over time. But then you catch yourself thinking, 'It has to be like this'. The new, diverse eco top layer can only be pinned down by constantly overspeeding."This type of person can be found mainly in Berlin.At the Schauspiel Frankfurt, however, "director Claudia Bauer is now making every effort to present herself as the better Réne Pollesch with fast speaking and virtuoso video use - and maybe that's what she is."In any case, the theater installation is a two-hour comical-polemical total work of art and strongly suspects the Theatertreffen.