Ich, Antonin Artaud – Le Mômo (UA)

"He was possessed by a kind of frenzy that spared no human institution," wrote André Breton about Antonin Artaud - and in doing so he fails to recognize the French poet and theater artist who had become a myth in equal measure: Artaud is a nervous feeler who, while rebelling against social norms, follows a path of poetic unbendingness - in search of absolute unity. This path also leads him to the Tarahumaras, an indigenous tribe in Mexico, where he first finds this unity. 
This evening is dedicated to the visionary theater man, but also to the victim of dubious psychiatric treatments. Against his own pathologization, but also against a world that defines and enforces rules, Artaud struggles throughout his life: "I am a fanatic, not a madman." A provocateur and troublemaker, "le mômo" - as he calls himself: the foolish child who contradicts narrow conventions and who instinctively rebels in boundless surrender of his own self. Roberto Ciulli approaches in an intimate work this radical spirit, who in his great sensitivity was above all an uncompromising seeker of another reality: a reality in which unity, purity and devotion merge: "I suffer, not only in spirit, but also in the flesh and in my everyday soul," Antonin Artaud said in a letter. "I could truly claim that I am not in the world."

Actress Simone Thoma is also no longer in the world - she died during rehearsals for this play. With her image and in her voice, with which she brings Antonin Artaud to life on stage, she is nevertheless present for us this evening.

Deutschlandfunk KULTUR HEUTE, Dorothea Marcus

„Beeindruckend ist, wie hier eine heitere Verbindung gelingt, mit einer Welt hinter den Dingen, ins Jenseits. Bis ganz kurz vor ihrem Tod hat die Schauspielerin Simone Thoma an dem Stück mitgewirkt und so wird diese Inszenierung zum Vermächtnis einer Künstlerin, die sich dem Tod widersetzt; weil der Mensch eine tiefere, auch künstlerische Vernetzung mit der Welt hat, als nur ihre kapitalistisch koloniale Ausbeutung.“

WAZ, Jens Dirksen

„Kaum jemand kann derart dichte, surreale, fantasierende Bilder für die Bühne schaffen, die mit Sprache, Musik und Gesten, mit Requisiten, Licht und Einfällen der Welt draußen vor der Tür eine andere entgegensetzen. In ihr sind Festlichkeit und Kritik an den Verhältnissen miteinander vermählt, Genie und Ver-Rücktheit, Utopie und Ekstase.“

Ruhr Nachrichten, Klaus Stübler

„Nach intensiven 90 Minuten gibt es demonstrativ viel Beifall.“
„Ciulli zeigt Theater zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn.“