THE MERCHANT OF STUTTGART
Play written by: Joshua Sobol
Stage and Costume Design by: Malte Knipping and María Angélica Guerrero
Design stage and costume design for the play by Joshua Sobol, "Der Kaufmann von Stuttgart". It is about the judicial murder of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer. Süss, a talented businessman in the service of Duke Karl Alexander, advocates more tax justice and finally falls to the anti-Semitism of the ruling class.
So this perspective on Sobol's play led us to the idea of conceiving the stage as a place that stands symbolically for this socio-political setting in which Süss strategically fails: a place that is constantly in motion, not to say, it only revolves around itself; a place where change is not really desired; a place where there is no place for Süss.
That's why we decided to design the stage in such a way that almost all scenes can take place on the revolving stage, it rotates continuously for the entire duration of the production without interruption. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. Except twice. When Süss makes his tax plans public and later when his protégé Duke Karl Alexander dies. When Suss finally fell victim to the lynch law and the old order was restored, everything went back to normal. The world just keeps turning.
The costumes are contemporary, eclectic.
The costume design indicates social affiliation via color. The Jewish community wears gray costumes. The majority of society wears monochrome colored costumes, which also differentiate different groups within this society through certain colors
