OUROBOROS live stream

A production of fringe ensemble/Türkei GbR, Bonn and Şermola Performans, Istanbul.

Concept of Home-Editon Annika Ley, Frank Heuel
Direction, Performance Frank Heuel
Technical realization Annika Ley
Dramaturgy Claudia Grönemeyer
Assistance Jennifer Merten

Mirza Metin has been living in the Rhineland for two years and works, among other things, as a writer for the fringe ensemble. His latest piece is a monologue. The title, OUROBOROS, refers to an ancient Egyptian symbol of ambivalent fascination. The ouroboros is a snake that bites its own tail. As a circle symbol, a classic symbol for recurring, natural cycles, but also for death and rebirth, self-sufficiency and self-destruction; a closed system that is self-sufficient – and from which there is no escape.

Mirza Metin plays with these associations in OUROBOROS: The protagonist is a composer, the camera is directed at him and he reports a confused dream while rhinoceros slumbers in the bed next to him. The boundaries between dream and reality quickly become blurred: on a private trip to an undefined foreign country, the protagonist gets more and more into trouble, meets people who resemble him in an absurd way and seem to pursue him at the same time, seeks safety with authorities who distrust him, checks into hotels that don’t exist, and loses more and more the safe ground under his feet. Ignorance and fears act as accelerants and reflections in a story where all certainties are fading and those triggers only seem to potentiate. Metin skillfully plays with how the levels of the unconscious and the conscious influence each other and lead into a maelstrom of fears, actions and opinions. Rhinoceros has long since become Ali, and whether the camera is still running or not, the dream narrative ends there or not, contact with reality in the present has been established.

The premiere at the theater was held on March 12, 2020. Now we have created a home edition for our audience.