400 ASA
Brecht's 'Kleines Organon' meets Lars von Trier's 'Dogma'

The independent theatre group market is quenched, they say; nothing new, nothing exciting in view. Wrong. 400 ASA, is what the most versatile Swiss theatre group calls itself. Founded around the author Lukas Bärfuss and the director Samuel Schwarz, the group presented its film 'Aufstand der Unanständigen' (Revolt of the Inappropriate), four years ago. Their play 'Meienbergers Tod' (Meienberger's Death) is running in Basel and they directed the celebration for the 1st of August Swiss national holiday at the Expo 02.

Whatever 400 ASA touches, it is extremely light sensitive. They performed Euripide's 'Backchen' in complete darkness, aside from a few infrared sequences. Still, they provide an awareness of form that never dominates. For Ödön von Horvath's 'Italienische Nacht' (Italian Night) they chose to do a staged reading and the outcome was a mixture of 'folk-theatre' at its best, and Brecht's epic theatre. 400 ASA extended Horvath's anti-faschism to an anti-apartheid movement with Tracy Chapman's hymn 'Talkin' Bout a Revolution'. They went on tour with the play and documented their trip on film, talked about art and politics to theatre people, anti-faschists and autonomes.

Niklaus Meienberg, one of their models, also takes art and politics as his central themes. He freed himself in 1989, as Jean Amery says. The project 'Meienbergers Tod' does not take place in the Switzerland of the 80's, but in the bored salons of pre-revolutionary France. 400 ASA trusts the harmony of contradiction: the further away the 'art figure' Meienberg is taken, the closer the 'human' Meienberg moves.

400 ASA works at established theatres, but also there where they originated, in the independent szene. Stylelistically, they hover between Brecht and the early Wooster Group. Their Medea version starts off like a modern rock concert, but they do not perform Euripide's Medea, they perform Dogma-founder- Lars von Trier's film. Being told, is the classic mythology of the woman, who, because infertile, is banned by her husband Jason. The whole thing is performed in a mixture of danish, english, high- and Bern german.

Great stylistic changes

Brecht's V-Effect is the central stylistic medium, yet 400 ASA is not a conservatory of old geysers at work, but an inspired group with which one can rediscover the great B.B. as he once was: young, wild, and presumptuous. They present great stylistic changes, from the manners of expressionist silent film to moments of great truth. Nothing stays obvious for too long, the next break is sure to come, through the constant double lighting of stage and film. Yet the more they lead the audience astray, the clearer everything finally becomes. Paradoxically, through this reverse method they get to the center of the Medea story: A mother hangs both of her children.

One must not understand the greatness of ruthlessness to act it. And one must not understand a character to be touched by it. At 400 ASA, Brecht's 'Kleines Organon' meets Lars von Trier's 'Dogma'. And that's great!