Electronic City
by Falk Richter
US-English translation by Daniel Brunet
Publisher: S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt

Falk Richter
was born in Hamburg in 1969 and studied directing with Jürgen Flimm at the University of Hamburg. He has worked as a director, playwright and translator at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Staatsoper Hamburg, the Schaubühne Berlin, the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, the Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Seven Stages Atlanta and the Schauspielhaus Zurich. His first play Alles. In einer Nacht (Everything. In a Single Night) premiered at the Hamburg Kammerspiele in 1996. The same year saw the premiere of Kult! Geschichte fuer eine virtuelle Generation (Cult! Story for a Virtual Generation) at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. Other plays include Gott ist ein DJ (God is a DJ),  which has been translated and produced in over 15 languages, Nothing hurts (invited to the festival Berliner Theatertreffen in 2000 and awarded the radio play award of the German Academy of the Arts in Berlin 2001) and PEACE (commissioned by the Schaubühne Berlin 2000). He was Resident Director at the Schauspielhaus Zurich from 2000 to 2004 and directs regularly at the Schaubühne Berlin, where he realized the tetralogy DAS SYSTEM (The System) as well as Chekhov's The Seagull. In December 2006 his newest play, Die Verstoerung (The Disturbance), successfully premiered under his direction at the Schaubühne.

Plays (Selected): God is a DJ, Nothing hurts, PEACE, Seven Seconds (In God We Trust), The System.

The Play
Falk Richter's Electronic City is a fairy tale of electronic times. It takes place in the electronic Metropolis, a global city, completely controlled by the ubiquitous service industries. This world calls for the flexible human being, slowly dissolving between digital communication (always within reach, always attainable) and global standardization (everything looks the same, everything tastes the same). All that remains is someone who can only identify himself as a 0 or 1 in ever changing chains of numbers. The only chance to escape the endless flow of data and capital is a power failure, an error in the system, the hysterical idle motion that suddenly kicks in when everything fails.

"Richter's play comes to life through the precise observation of details. It is one big declaration to all global managers to either fall in love immediately and give up their jobs or to shoot themselves in the lobby. At the same time cynical and clear, with remnants of romantic sentiment, Richter succeeds in dissecting the desolate lives of functionary elites.“ (Berliner Tagesspiegel)