We Ain’t No Barbarians is a contemporary play written by the swiss playwright Philipp Löhle.
There are four characters, 2 couples: Barbara/Mario, Lina/Paul. They are living in the same apartment building. The setting doesn’t change.
Another Character appears after Barbara’s death. It is her twin sister Anna, she should be played by the same actress as Barbara.
There is also a character which is not shown. He only exists from the chitchat of those main characters. It is not clear how this character looks, which langauge he speaks and so on. What we know is that this person is male, black and strong.
The play starts with a choir ad it’s named HEIMATCHOR which can be translated as home land choir. This choir speaks about how a German person is or has to be. This choir reappears interruptive throughout the play.
Barbara and Mario are living in this apartment for a longer time. Linda and Paul are moving into the new house without knowing that their former tenants killed each other.
The new neighbours get to know each other and start liking each other. Then on Barbara’s birthday someone knocks on their doors. It is a male person of color. Barbara lets him in and lets him live at their house. The other characters are concerned about this situation. They can’t understand him. Bobo/Klint are two versions of his name.
Barbara disappears suddenly together with Bobo/Klint. After a while they find her dead. Everyone believes Bobo/Klint is her killer. Anna, her twin sister, is the only one who does not believe this and thinks he is innocent.
The HEIMATCHOR eats up Anna in the end as they want her to become one of them. Mario moves out and new tenants come into their room. The conversation which Mario and Barbara had in the beginning of the play repeats, but now Linda and Paul are speaking.
The choir in my design is interpreted as other tenants in the house. So I created a surreal surrounding of a turned staircase where all players live. This staircase is build of three separate parts which can be moved left, right, to the front and backwards. Behind those parts there is framework where some players can move and hang their heads for couple of seconds.
The play is full of voyeuristic references. I translated this with movable screens which will show some tenants from the choir who look suspiciously through their window or door (fisheye) when some loud scenes appear. Also the backwall will be mapped to the peephole from those three staircase parts where we can see some people watching over them.
The four main characters are leaned on the four temperaments. So I designed their costumes to their kind. Paul is the funny one. His costume is leaned on a clown costume. He has some tricks in his jacket which he pulls out in weird moments. Barbara/Anna is the melancholic one. Her dress is based on some nurse. Linda is the phlegmatic person. Her dress is simple and she has some sneakers on, so she can run away quickly. Mario is the choleric person. His head is big and his dress light, so it can be in contrast to his skin color when he gets mad.
All the costumes are leaned on a horrorfilm seventies look. Their dress is neat but something’s wrong with those people. You can see this straight away.
Bobo/Klint, in my version, is a phantom. Hence I designed two characters, male and female, who wear some non-realistic costumes with masks, so they remind us on Shakespearean fairies. Two exotic characters who disturb the action, but are invisible for the other players. Their outfits are see-through so you can see their dark skin through.