First performance in the National Theater: Menasses inspires the expansion!

First performance in the National Theater: Menasses inspires the expansion!

Mannheim, Deutschland - On May 23, 2025, the premiere of the play "The Expansion" took place in the Nationaltheater Mannheim, which is based on Robert Menasse's novel of the same name. The piece, which was staged by the director Anna-Elisabeth Frick, takes up central topics of EU policy and addresses the challenge of expanding the European Union, especially in relation to Albania.

"The Extension" was awarded the European Book Prize in 2023. Menasse, which is also known for his former novel "Die Capital", combines current political questions with literary fiction in this new work. In history, a cruise ship called "SS Skanderbeg" is constructed to convince EU decision-makers of the need to include Albania in the Union. The name of the ship refers to the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg and suggests a connection to the national romantic symbolism.

politics and human weaknesses

The staging addresses politics as a field characterized by human weaknesses. Menasse expresses that the relevance of class interests and ideologies is often neglected in this context. The Albanian Prime Minister "ZK" is presented as a subtle allusion to the current head of government Edi Rama. Frick's staging should bring politically complex approaches back into the discourse and present the text deconstructed.

The abstract stage of Martha-Marie Pinsker uses innovative video titles to visualize location and time changes. The piece takes 1 hour and 40 minutes without a break and offers a line -up, which includes Maria Helena Bretschneider, Paul Simon, Rocco Louis Brück, Maria Munkert, Sandro Šutalo and Matthias Breitenbach.

A look at the EU and national challenges

menasse, who lived in Brussels for several months and spent a long time in Albania, is devoted to contradictions within Europe in “The Extension”. He criticizes that many politicians in the EU countries often take an EU-critical attitude, while candidates such as Albania represent an EU-friendly position. This illustrates the challenges associated with the EU expansion, especially with regard to necessary judicial reforms.

menasse as a great idea, which is poorly managed. With his reading trip to the presentation of "The Extension", which leads through two dozen German cities by the end of the year, he would like to raise awareness of the different perspectives in Europe and examine the national and European narratives in more detail. The author describes his work as a mixture of tragedy, satire, love stories and historical lessons, whereby he combined both facts and fictions and has apologized for past historical inaccuracies.

The premiere in Mannheim is part of a greater cultural dialogue about the future of Europe, in which menace formulates its vision of a European Republic. He sees opportunities for change in the current crises and consistently pursues his European dream.

For more information about this production and Robert Menasses work, you can href = "https://nachtkritik.de/nachttritiken/dedeutschland/baden-wuerttemberg/mannheim/nationaltheater-mannheim/die-erwehrung-nationaltheater-mannheim-elisabeth-frick-- Robert-menasses-schluesselroman-zur-politik.de and visit.