With Contre-enquêtes, Stemann made a piece based on the novel The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud, in which the nameless Arab who is killed in Camus’ The Stranger is given a name. He asked himself: who am I, who are we to tell this story? Nearly sixty years after Algeria’s independence, Contre-enquêtes uncovers the blind spots and hypocrisy in an open and accessible manner that challenges assumptions about ‘ourselves’ and ‘strangers.’
Kein Licht (2011/2012/2017), a ‘thinkspiel’ from Stemann in collaboration with composer Philippe Manoury, based on a text from Elfriede Jelinek, takes place immediately after a nuclear disaster. The third part was rewritten, making the piece as a whole resonate with current events in 2022.
For Sonne, the director went to work for one day with musicians and actors on another new text from Jelinek about man-made climate disasters. The result was then presented as a stage reading of sorts. Stemann: ‘Jelinek made a text in which she views and mocks humans from the perspective of the sun. She describes things we find hard to imagine, but it’s important that we try anyway.’ The project was made especially for this occasion and brought together Dutch and German theatre makers and musicians, such as the Dutch musician Wiek Hijmans, singer Olivia Vermeulen, actress Manja Topper and the German actress Alicia Auerbach. Stemann played keyboard himself, and they were joined on stage by the Firefighters’ Choir Zuid-Holland Zuid.
