THEATER MUST BE - The 12s' performance of Woyzeck

The auditorium of our school. Loud voices, amplified by the sound. Everyone is running back and forth. Bruno shows Valentin how to aim a gun. Magnus beats up Finja. Marvin and Alex whittle sticks together. Till and Arne run hand in hand and sing like little children. But what is happening here? These are the beginnings of our production of "Woyzeck" by Georg Büchner.

Is theater in contemporary schools a waste of time or a modern expression of education? Of course, one could criticize that acting only keeps students from doing school "properly" and is therefore just a waste of time, but we think that this is exactly where its strength lies.

Breaking away from the boring school routine forces pupils to deal with new problems and to explore themselves and their environment in a new way. We experienced this by having to memorize text and act out how you slowly go crazy if you only eat peas.

You get to know the characters and have to embody them. Woyzeck embodies a "madman" who endures suffering in order to feed his family, he suffers from hallucinations as a result of pea therapy and is betrayed by his lover Marie, with whom he has an illegitimate child; he gradually becomes more and more "mad" until he finally kills Marie.
When you have to think yourself into a character in this way, you get to know new perspectives and can come out of your shell. This is particularly beneficial for shy or reserved pupils, as they can rediscover themselves and develop in a familiar environment. For example, the actress playing Woyzeck allowed us to experience a completely different facet of her personality when she screamed, threw herself on the floor and ultimately murdered her fellow actress with a foam knife. Woyzeck becomes "crazier" as time goes on, which was portrayed particularly well by the actress Finja, who seemed increasingly confused and loud, but this made some passages unclear and difficult to understand, which suited the role well. The actress playing Marie, who was plagued by a guilty conscience, also embodied this well with her facial expressions; as a viewer, you could understand the situation. And the doctor in particular made a professional impression and was convincing with his facial expressions and gestures, not forgetting the emphasis and expression of the individual passages.

Our play was a success, as we were able to experience language, music, visual arts and dealing with the unexpected very well and convey this to our audience. The audience also reported back that they got to know many new sides of us that they had never seen before. Thanks to the incredible work of the directors, who worked in all areas of the theater, from lighting to rehearsal organization to sound, the play was polished from a rough diamond to a sparkling jewel. This made the play a real experience not to be missed:

"The audience were caught up in the play and left at the end with smiles and enthusiasm, not only that, but they applauded loudly at the end and some even stood up.
It was impressive and unexpected, everyone seemed positively surprised, the play also attracted a lot of attention and amazement afterwards."

So we can conclude: Yes, it was very time-consuming project work and it was very different from the way we usually teach. But the rehearsal work demanded a lot of self-assertion, self-organization and self-discipline from us and therefore it is fair to say that theater belongs in our school.