Der Entrepreneur (THE ENTREPRENEUR)

«After the financial crisis that began in 2007, there were claims that property was over. This didn’t happen but the next crisis did – and the one after that. However, there is the insidious and at times rampant phenomenon of white fragility which reveals that the status quo cannot be maintained. And so there are people who give everything away and snub their next of kin completely. And, no, this isn’t just bad weather, this is the climate.» Kevin Rittberger

While in German economic terminology, the word «syndicate» means a group of businesses that combine to improve their profitability, similar to a cartel and with potentially criminal connotations, in Spanish and French it is a word for trade union. The entrepreneur of the title triggers this spectrum of interpretations when, after much thought during lockdown, he turns his traditional company into a syndicate, a business that is owned by all its workers in equal shares, and hierarchies are largely abolished. While the former boss now works by the hour for the common good and against deforestation, experiments with drugs and mainly enjoys the new free time he has, he triggers incredulity and horror in those who used to benefit from his previous wealth. Most of all in his ex-wife and daughter, who was counting on an inheritance and is in no way willing to accept her father forcing her to downgrade her standard of living. Time and again, the ex-boss is asked why he is suddenly more interested in trees than profits. With sharp-witted and pleasurable writing, Kevin Rittberger demonstrates why climate targets will never be achieved under the current economic regime, that work is self-defeating if it makes people ill and that the model of blood-based kinship is outmoded due to the current state of medicine and technology. The world premiere of this commissioned play is directed by Resident Director Nora Schlocker.