In the heart of the theater

Let's start with a simple question: What is Nesterval?

Martin Finland That's probably the most difficult question! Because you have to experience us to understand the concept as a whole. We do immersive theater, which means that the audience doesn't sit in front of us in the dark, but is right in the middle of it. People stand right next to us and are part of the evening, wandering with us through different spaces. So we are a theater without a stage, a theater that performs in entire buildings - and in several venues at the same time. So you can follow one performer for an evening or choose different scenes with different performers as the mood takes you. This means that you always experience different, new versions of the basic plot on several visits.

Theatergoers may have already experienced a similar approach in the works of Paulus Manker. In the sense that you can build your own story and find yourself between the performers, without a defined stage and without an auditorium. What is the difference between the different ways of playing?

There is a fundamental difference. We see the audience and perceive them. It is "played to". And I think that gives us an absolutely unique selling point compared to other forms of theater. We can involve the people in the room when the situation is right. We sense nuances and react to them. Of course there is a script and a storyline, but we are not dogmatically at the mercy of it. If I notice that my counterpart is moved and suddenly bursts into tears, then I break out of the text construct and respond to the person. We experience such intense, personal scenes again and again. An audience member suddenly opens up and starts talking about their own life in front of everyone present.

Do you also experience the opposite? That someone is simply reluctant to participate?

To be honest: Yes, of course. After all, we haven't invented the egg-laying theater wool-milk sow. So there will always be one or two people who don't like our concept or don't want to be involved. However, we have spent years practising which guests will be included - and which will not. We only involve those who want to be involved. You can feel who that is in your gut and also notice it in the other person's behavior. So on the one hand, it's about challenging the audience, that's what makes it fun. On the other hand, we won't show anyone up or involve them against their will. I myself have a big participation trauma from my childhood: one of my worst experiences was when I was called into the circus ring by the clown as a child. I stood there, completely against my will - and hated it. That's why I won't do that to anyone. Anyone can say to us: Sorry, but I don't want to do it right now!

"Basically, anyone who doesn't want to leave the world a little better than they found it would give me pause for thought."

Your new project is based on Wagner's Götterdämmerung. How did you come up with this work?

There is an extensive collection of themes, ideas and projects that I want to realize. An opera has been on the list for a long time. When the State Opera called and asked if we could perform in the new venue, I quickly realized that it had to be Götterdämmerung. Incidentally, the alternatives were Mozart's Magic Flute and Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. Ultimately, however, it was a gut decision without much thought.

How much of the original text and music is in your version?

The music accompanies us throughout the piece. Not in the original orchestration, of course, but there are central themes that will always be audible and resound through the house. The text also contains passages from Wagner's libretto - but of course it also contains a lot of new material from us. After all, it's not the opera plot that you experience 1:1. It's a play with the material and an adaptation of the events.

Your Götterdämmerung is not set in the past, not in the present, but in a dystopian future, in a world that is fighting for water. Are the gods still gods in your work? Is Wotan - in your case a woman - a goddess? Or is she, for example, the president of the supervisory board of a global company?

Yes, they are! The goddesses are goddesses. They live among us, some participate in the human world, others have withdrawn. They are transcendental beings and remain so.

The new plot is set in the near future. After the first Vienna Water War that you invented. So people are fighting over the scarce commodity of water. Apart from the obvious climate crisis, what overarching idea guides the evening?

It is about the realization of how quickly a community can disintegrate when resources become scarce, how quickly there is not much left of social charity. Cohesion in our society is fragile, and we have certainly seen in times of coronavirus how quickly and against our better judgment selfishness can prevail. This starts with the excessive hoarding of the often-mentioned toilet paper and extends to many essential areas of our lives. Suddenly, society is changing - and we haven't even experienced a real, threatening emergency yet. This gave rise to the thought experiment: What would we do if water became scarce? What if Lower Austria realized that the water in the Danube actually belongs to it? And wanted to use it for its fields and meadows first? What if Styria asked why it allows so much spring water to flow to Vienna? For us, it's not about the water itself, but about the break-up of civil society. This is the story we want to tell.

Wagner's Twilight of the Gods ends with the burning of Valhalla, the castle of the gods, and the people gazing into the flames. It is up to them to make the world a better place after the failure of the gods. A utopia that inspires you?

In our version, we are already one step further. In our version, Erda hands over the world to the humans - and the gods should not interfere if possible. But the humans - that's our audience - have to decide how the world continues. That's why the ending is open every evening, because we don't know what the audience's position will be. But because you mentioned utopia: There is always a glimmer of hope for me - the symbol of the ring. There is no beginning and no end. The story always tells itself anew and always continues.