Buy yourself a child
| Musical dates | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Buy yourself a child |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Thomas Zaufke |
| Lyrics: | Peter Lund |
| Premiere: | June 23, 2007 |
| Place of premiere: | Neukölln Opera Berlin |
Buy yourself a child is a musical by Peter Lund (text) and Thomas Zaufke (music). The themes of the musical, which makes extensive use of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio and his science fiction variant AI by Steven Spielberg , are upbringing, child trafficking and changing the given gender roles.
content
In the not too distant future it will be possible to fulfill the desire to have children by purchasing a lifelike robot child. Kristin, a successful career woman, and her husband Mark also make use of this option. But soon after the purchase, her artificial seven-year-old son Pino is confronted with "information that is not system-compatible", as the friendly service employee Felicity explains - he thinks the prostitute Kitten is his mother. So Pino arrives in the demi-world of the red-light district, in which the pimp King soon has hopes of doing the business of his life with the artificial child. The forced community of Kristin and Kitten can prevent the sale to "perverse academics" at the last second, but Pino is destroyed in the fight for the child. Once again repaired, a future seems to be waiting for Pino with the now single parent Kristin - but he returns to Kitten.
Performances and criticism
Buy yourself a child was written by Lund and Zaufke for students of the musical / show course at the University of the Arts . As part of the cooperation with the Neukölln Opera , the piece premiered there on June 23, 2007 and ran there for two seasons. In contrast to the large audience approval, the reviews were divided. The city magazine Zitty found Kauf Dir ein Kind to be a “slightly inclined musical routine”, while the rbb Kulturradio made a “stroke of genius”.