Theater Patati Patata - Gustav, the flying bike builder

This event is part of the socio-cultural, political festival "The Good Life for All", which takes place at FABRIK from May 12 to 18, 2025. Find out about the many events taking place as part of the festival in good time on the FABRIK and Vorderhaus website.

a narrative and object theater about the dream of flying, inspired by the life of Gustav Mesmer, known as "Icarus of the Lauter Valley".

In a workshop, a woman builds a very special bicycle, a flying bicycle, and uses original texts to tell the story of Gustav Mesmer, the tinkerer and spinner, the collector of worthless junk and his dream of flying. "I want to fly with my bicycle from village to village at the height of the trees".
It is a play that tells of being different and of the power of the imagination as the engine of life and survival. Gustav is not bitter, even though he spent 40 years in a psychiatric ward. The play also tells the story of a person who was locked away and whom the world only released into freedom and accepted as an artist many decades later. Gustav's story is also a play about the last century and a piece of local history.
It tells of a childhood without schooling, of two world wars, of the strict life in a monastery and, of course, of the many years behind walls and bars, in which Gustav constantly dreams of freedom, of flying: "quickly invent a pair of wings, they shall lift you free, you shall soar through the air, oh, if that were your happiness" (Gustav Mesmer)

Play: Sonka Müller

https://theaterpatatipatata