© Hanna Lippmann
"Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel were both born in 1969 and graduated from the Gießen Institute for Applied Theatre Studies. They joined forces with Stefan Kaegi in 2002, since when have worked together in various constellations under the "Rimini-Protokoll" label, attracting attention with their sharp-witted interventions in the public sphere and documentary plays. Almost without exception, their performers are 'everyday experts', who are brought into dramatic contexts as ready-made actors with their own biographies. Reality is not depicted or artistically dramatised, but imported onto the stage - an approach that is as consistent as it is captivatingly simple. For instance, a whole sitting of the German Bundestag was recreated live with 200 residents of Bonn under the title Deutschland 2 (Germany 2) for the 2002 Theatre of the World festival. Deadline (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg) featured five experts in the Central European way of death (invited to the 2004 Berlin Theatertreffen). In Brussels, they recruited seven victims of the bankruptcy of the Belgian airline Sabena to put together Sabenation - go home and follow the news, which has since been performed throughout Europe. In spring 2005, they created Call Cutta, a tour through the Kreuzberg area of Berlin guided live by mobile telephone from an Indian call centre. In 2006, Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel were, among other things, invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen and the Autorentheatertage at the Thalia Theater Hamburg with Wallenstein - eine dokumentarische Inszenierung (Wallenstein - A Documentary Staging) (Mannheim Schiller Festival/Nationaltheater Weimar). In 2007, their project Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Erster Band (Karl Marx: Capital, Volume 1) received the Dramatists' Award and the Audience Award at the Mülheim Theatertage."(Mülheim Theatertage 2007)
Awards, Honours:
- 2002 Impulse Festival Award for "Shooting Bourbaki"
- 2005 Jury Prize at the Politics in Fringe Theatre Festival for "Mnemopark"
- 2005 Nestroy Theatre Prize nomination in the Special Prize category for "Schwarzenbergplatz"'
- 2006 Invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen with "Wallenstein"
- 2007 Dramatists' Award and Audience Award at the Mülheim Stücke 07 festival for "Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Erster Band"
- 2007 Faust Theatre Prize (Special Prize)
- 2008 European Theatre Prize (New Realities in the Theatre category) (to be presented in April 2008, Thessalonica)
- Radio Drama Award of the War Blind for the radio version of Capital
