Wandervogel

WANDERVOGEL Heinz Rutha. Have you ever heard that name before? You have not? Never mind. Nobody will remember you in a hundred years either. Unless the Wandervogel – a group of charming young men with an elderly leader – pick up your story to rehearse a tale of love, friendship and fascism for you. The year is 1918, and the Sudeten Germans find themselves in a state they loathe. Who will protect their sacred homeland from the Czech aggressor? Heinz Rutha takes up the quest and trains an elite group of young boys – the Männerbund – destined to ensure the nation’s emancipation and become the ruling class of the future Sudeten German state.

The life of the Sudeten-German nationalist Heinz Rutha, involuntarily involved in the biggest homosexual scandal of the pre-war Czechoslovakia, serves as the background story for a stage composition combining the elements of documentary and physical theatre. An intimate war diary, authentic police reports and historical-political speeches intertwine with the performers’ personal experiences, inducing a tension between the past and present meanings of the concepts on which Rutha built his ideas of an ideal community. What is the current perception of sexuality, the body, the state, fascism, nature or beauty?

“Let six of our best and most beautiful boys carry my coffin. Before I have to go, leave me alone with them for an hour or overnight. While I am among them, I know that I’m alive even though my body’s dead.”

The production is inspired by Mark Cornwall’s book The Devil’s Wall.