Do the Right Thing

In their new performance “Do the Right Thing” Ariel Efraim Ashbel and friends examine current political circumstances and the interdependencies of action (“DO”), ethics (“THE RIGHT”) and materiality (“THING”). Borrowing the title of Spike Lee’s film from 1989, Ashbel questions whether theatre can live up to the often self-imposed demand to do “the right thing”. Alongside the performers and musicians he places objects on stage as equal actors. Together they trace the history of political abstraction, opening up new possibilities for a theatre that no longer puts people in the centre. Starting from the primary colours red, yellow and blue and the basic geometric forms of circle, square and triangle, “Do the Right Thing” converts the traditional Bauhaus palette into bright neon colours of warning signs and security notices. The Bauhaus master Oskar Schlemmer once asked: “Humans and space each have different laws of order. Whose shall prevail?” The performance here goes beyond the pure confrontation of space and humans, allowing for an empathic and colourful revision of the role human beings play in dominating the world of objects.