The student Nivedita can't believe it: her professor Saraswati – her role model in questions of identity politics – is white! Up until this news, a new world had opened up for Nivedita, who was born in Germany to an Indian father, in the seminars of the supposed person of color.
In the very first hour, the professor directed white students out of the room, wrote "Decolonize your soul" on the blackboard and discussed the origins of and how to deal with identity struggles. And now Saraswati's career is said to have been built on one big lie?
A complex and highly emotional debate ensues: Nivedita posts on Twitter under the pseudonym Identitti, and her friends organize demonstrations against this incredible case of cultural appropriation. Meanwhile, Professor Saraswati thinks through all the arguments, so that soon no one knows what "person of color" actually, really means.
Identitti Receptionista is a play about the reception of the widely read, much discussed and also adapted in many theaters novel Identitti by Mithu Sanyal, who asked in 2020: who is who and who can speak for whom?
A question that we keep asking ourselves in the theater: Who can credibly play a white professor who posed as a person of color? The cultural business of theater is sometimes an identity-political powder keg, which, however, is made to conduct identity negotiations.
The production thus invites you to become aware of your own contradictions and to further discuss the political issues surrounding the material.
- A takeover of the production from the Schauspielhaus Graz.
Additional information
after the novel Identitti by Mithu SanyalDirector: Simone Dede Ayivi
Participating artists
Simone Dede Ayivi (Regie)
Lani Tran-Duc (Bühne)
Mariama Sow (Kostüme)
Katharina Pelosi (Sound und Musik)
Hannah Mey (Dramaturgie)
Vernesa Berbo
Katrija Lehmann
Alexej Lochmann
Iman Tekle
Chen Emilie Yan
