Mrs. Zucker wants world domination

Musical dates
Title:	Mrs. Zucker wants world domination
Original title:	Mrs. Zucker wants world domination
Original language:	German
Music:	Wolfgang Böhmer
Lyrics:	Peter Lund
Premiere:	October 13, 2011
Place of premiere:	Berlin, Neukölln Opera

Mrs. Zucker wants world domination is a musical by Peter Lund (text) and Wolfgang Böhmer (music) and was created as a co-production of the Berlin University of the Arts and the Neukölln Opera .

content

The musical transports a story based on Hansel and Gretel into the present day, where the disaster does not happen in the gnawing house, but in a tenement house. The house community there has no idea what is going on in the apartment of their neighbor, Ms. Zucker. In general, the adults know little about each other - and even less about the suffering the children go through: that Hansi is beaten, that Tinchen cooks for her depressed mother (Mrs. Rossi) in order to maintain the appearance of being taken care of when the office comes, because the mother is unable to do so. And nobody suspects that Ms. Zucker is actually a child hater - as a modern variant of the wicked witch in shrill clothes and red updo - which is only so sweet and sweet so that the children visit her and from the neighbors as a perfect, free one Babysitter is noticed. The truth is, Mrs. Zucker is planning evil. Your shower is a tool for doing this, because it contains the most modern technology, with the help of which it can rob children of energy, but which turns them into tired, boring adults. The reason is simple: Mrs. Zucker hates children profoundly, and besides, there is as much energy in every child as in four hundred million tons of crude oil . If the lights in the house start to flicker, it's because so much energy is overloading the grid.

In collaboration with Dr. Toxic (a child psychotherapist who also treats adults) , Ms. Zucker plans to suck the energy out of as many children as possible. Miss Dr. In truth, only a ten-year-old but highly gifted child is poisonous, who - because they were not allowed to play in the past - wants to punish all children and therefore developed this apparatus. However, due to clothing and habitus, the others do not notice this. Her assistant Mrs. Zucker seduces the children with games, all the freedom one could wish for and lures them into her apartment with her famous apple strudel with vanilla sauce - in the latter, however, there is occasionally a sedative , which is the undoing of the neighbors Tinchen Rossi and Hansi Marotzke seems.

Sooner or later, almost everyone in the piece by small pills that taste very sweet, sedated (the children) or in a state of bliss (rather even indifference) offset (the adults) . The Toxig & Zucker team takes care of this and is supported by the representative Mr. Braasch, who always has such a sweet pill ready in his briefcase for all children. But even Mr. Braasch himself has to be regularly supplied with these pills, since he was robbed of his childhood by the two of them and otherwise falls into an infantile state. The machine cannot really do one thing: create the mental maturity of an adult.

The culprits are exposed by Meg, a very imaginative but also extremely empathic and responsible girl who has just moved into the house with her parents. She is the heroine of the play. Meg's parents (Tessa and Stefan) believe, however, that their daughter is lying or even insane, and she is not believed in their speculations about what is going on in the neighboring apartment. Meg's mother in particular , who is a controller by profession , is very analytical and cannot understand her daughter's stories at all. She rarely feels any tension in her life with a feeling of coldness - for example when she gives herself to the babysitter Pauli in a fit of passion. This one, however, a milky-faced boy, believes in everything that has to do with conspiracy theories and therefore also in Meg's seemingly absurd claims.

The desired world domination of Mrs. Zucker is ultimately prevented by Meg's persistence, and the modern fairy tale, which is described by the author as "very free after the Brothers Grimm" , ends as one would expect from a fairy tale: The viewer experiences the final world reconciliation through the Establishing the primal states of normality, where children are allowed to be children and in the meantime apathetic adults take responsibility for their children again. Thanks to the shower that has been converted into an execution machine, the bad guys are punished and the victims rehabilitated. The apparatus in the shower can not only electrify children - the machine also works the other way around as a fountain of youth, which then consumes energy and does not generate it. So the piece is not only a tragic-comic musical, but also a fairy tale.

premiere

Mrs. Zucker wants world domination was written especially for graduates of the Berlin University of the Arts , at which the author and director Peter Lund works as a professor. The musical, which the author of the play himself describes as a family grusical , had its world premiere on October 13, 2011 in the Neuköllner Oper, Berlin. There has been a successful cooperation between the UdK and the Neukölln Opera for a long time.

Text and music

Text: Peter Lund
Music: Wolfgang Böhmer

occupation

Musical direction: Hans-Peter Kirchberg / Tobias Bartholmeß
Choreography: Neva Howard
Director: Peter Lund
Set design: Daria Kornysheva
Video animation: René von der Waar

Ensemble of the first season

October 13 to December 31, 2011

Nadine Aßmann (Dr. Toxig)
Maria-Danaé Bansen (Tinchen / Christina Rossi)
Angela Bittel (Mrs. Hiltrud Zucker)
Walesca Frank (Meg)
André Haedicke (Hansi Marotzke)
Nikolas Heiber (Meg's father Stefan)
Valerija Laubach (Meg's mother Tessa)
Rupert Markthaler (representative Mr. Kevin Braasch)
Christina Patten (Tinchen / Christina Rossi)
Andrea Sanchez del Solar (Mrs. Rossi)
Nicky Wuchinger (Pauli, the babysitter)

List of songs (selection)

Children have too much energy
Take care of yourself
Sugar waltz
Child hatred duet
who's to blame
A spy
Pill Waltz / Terzett
Not angry
The transformation
Who is to blame (recapitulation)
Pill quartet
Everything that scares you
The best for everyone
Child hatred
tension
final

Press reviews

"Wonderfully affected and naive-clumsy" ... "... a funny and entertaining piece [...] with all sorts of amusing directorial ideas and sometimes hilarious dialogues." (Friederike Schröter, "Musical: Tell me Hiltrud!" , Berliner Zeitung from October 14, 2011)

"The level of the year, Lund's art of giving everyone in the ten-person cast an (always used) intense moment for self-expression (...) With the cheeky, self-confident Meg, the stunningly present Walesca Frank creates the real Lund type of the cheeky, unimpressed, is amazing Girl-heroine, while Angela Bittel as Frau Zucker, Nadine Assmann as her vicious client Dr. Toxig and Rupert Markthaler in the role of a smoothly grinning wind-up representative ensure shrill slapstick. " (Carsten Niemann, "Die wilde Frau Zucker von Neukölln" , Tagesspiegel - October 14, 2011)

"Let's be honest: Who can stand Rigoletto's fuss about his Gilda? Nobody needs that. What we need are operas for child haters. (...) Great!" ( "Die wilde Frau Zucker von Neukölln" , Berliner Morgenpost - October 15, 2011)

"Every note is right here, every polyphony is right, every dance is synchronous." ... "an easily digestible, happy show, in which calm sounds are not lacking." (Julia Hoffmann, Musicalmagazin, October 16, 2011)

"The impetuous joy in playing and the enormous energy of the young actors are a visual experience in and of themselves. Most of the participants in the musical / show course at the UdK Berlin show an almost perfect performance in a choreography (Neva Howard) that is coordinated down to the smallest detail and in terms of dance, the characters are polished down to the smallest gestures. " (Opera House Blog, October 18, 2011)