Theatre of the Real

In terms of theatre, perhaps it is only at this moment in history that we can have a documentary without documents because theatre that presents reality by means of specific citations has become an operative idea, a mindset, a familiar way of framing the world that tells us this happened, this is real, this is the truth, or at least a part of the truth because ‘we are dealing with reality here’. […] Kamp depicts a day and a night in Auschwitz-Birkenau using 3000 puppets, each the size of a finger (approximately eight centimeters), dressed in black-and-white concentration camp uniforms. Kamp simultaneously stages the Holocaust in the theatre and on live-animation film during the performance. Both the live performance and the film take place in real time. The live-animation film consists of sequences shot with four small cameras, whose images are projected on a large screen behind the playing area. Diminutive puppet faces are enlarged on the screen and give a more personal identity, and by extension, survival, through this technical magnification. Spectators see the puppets’ faces and the events that happen in Auschwitz-Birkenau in close-ups captured by the camera and at a small distance in the theatre from the vantage point of looking down on many tiny puppets manipulated by the three puppeteers. The two domains of Kamp’s simultaneous live and virtual staging of the actions of emaciated, exhausted, and dehumanized puppet people inform one another. What is collectivized and perhaps dehumanized live is powerfully individuated on film.