Rimini protokoll: Adolf Hitler: Mein kampf, vol. 1 & 2: Il Teatro di fronte alla Storia

Abstract

Within the sphere of contemporary performative theatre – where the text cedes its leading role as bearer of the author’s message, in favour of the equivalence of various expressive codes – lies the work of Rimini Protokoll: a German team of author-directors that has been active in Europe for more than fifteen years with traditional and interactive theatre, installations, sound and radio plays. Rimini Protokoll’s work is also an expression of German documentary theatre, which reflects on the problematic nature of history by focusing on unresolved issues in the present. In this framework, this article proposes an analysis of Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 & 2, an example of a performance that is centred on a burning contemporary topic: the end of the copyright on Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the subsequent problem of its reprint. On the stage there are six “experts” – not professional actors – who examine their personal relationship with the book and most of all investigate its influence on the present. This starting-point is an opportunity for a wider, more articulated reflection on social and historical issues that go beyond Germany in the Nazi period, but spread across time and space. The urgency is not the reconstruction of the past, but its repercussion on the present. The performance is furthermore a reflection on the role of books in the collective imagination and on their connection with other media.