OSKAR WERNER - Kompromisslos in die Wiedergeburt

In the organizer's words:

Guest performance by Bernhard Dechant

Directed and written by Sophie Resch | Concept and text by Bernhard Dechant | Music by Stefan Sterzinger | With Bernhard Dechant

"I was allowed to sit at the table of the gods," said Oskar Werner about his life. But how much God can a single person take without breaking? And who were these gods at whose table Werner sat? A table at which the highly sensitive artist ultimately drank himself to death in front of his audience.

In life as in play, Oskar Werner was excessive and uncompromising. Bernhard Dechant, Sophie Resch and Stefan Sterzinger follow this maxim to take a closer look at myth and reality and the interplay between genius, addiction and sensationalism. A homage to the artist Oskar Werner derails into a merciless examination of how Austrian society deals with the popular drug alcohol. Do we want to sit at Oskar Werner's "table of the gods" or lie under it? "In failure lies the greatest truth and only the love of truth creates miracles." The evening fails, but the glass remains half full.

For ten years, the actor, director and alcoholic Bernhard Dechant has repeatedly invited the actor, director and alcoholic Oskar Werner to join him on various stages and they argue about art and intoxication. Is intoxication the sine qua non of genius? What about the birth of tragedy from the womb of intoxication or is it better to go to therapy?

The text is a collage of quotes from video recordings, films, biographies and sound recordings of Oskar Werner, from interviews with colleagues and psychologists, peppered with Bernhard Dechant's personal experiences with addiction. The slightly cheerful Viennese song mixes with the texts of alcohol advertising that promise home and bliss and poses the question of the personal and social function of legal and illegal drugs and our ambivalent approach to them.

Through the eyes of Oskar Werner, we are able to look at an ideal of alcohol and masculinity that has been handed down for generations, but has also been modulated and modified in each generation, and to shed light on its potential for change. Failure and the search for truth are two central motifs that accompany us throughout the evening.

Together with director Sophie Resch, Dechant's ten-year confrontation with his dead and/or immortal colleague has now been condensed into a gripping, harrowing, challenging monodrama, subtly accompanied and enhanced by the musical counterpoint of Stefan Sterzinger's accordion.