Hotel Pink Lulu (UA)

// Winner of the 2020 exil-Dramatists‘ Award

Joachim chose a Norwegian wood-cabin. While inside the flames crackle in the fireplace inside, the snow is falling softly outside. Claudia has made herself at home in a pink room furnished entirely in plush. She enjoys a well-stocked sushi-belt that revolves around a bed made of marshmallows and chooses her cocktails to match her moods. Ayla and Najib’s Syrian pistachio farm, on the other hand, boasts a picturesque landscape, the calming rustling of the wind through the leaves and a stream beside the veranda. The rooms at Hotel Pink Lulu are designed to match their occupants’ wildest dreams. Add to that a Lulu-avatar and none of the guests’ needs are left unfulfilled. All their wishes are granted, even before they become aware of them. Beneath their VR-goggles and in a cosy digital comfort zone, the satisfied clients are ready for their analogue hibernation. No wishes, no needs, no will. This would be the ideal scenario.

But whenever doubts about this idyll are raised or the higher purpose of it all is questioned, the national authority for bridging time takes decisive action. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to enjoy this virtual luxury. Some have drawn the short straw and have to work hard to keep the digital exile Pink Lulu up and running – a stable, controlled system. But when one of the Lulus’ pink algorithms becomes tangled into an actual feeling, the entire programme is in danger of a short circuit.

In 2018, a call for the exil-Dramatists’ Award of WIENER WORTSTAETTEN was first issued in cooperation with Schauspiel Leipzig. The prize entails a world premiere production at Diskothek and is awarded bi-annually.

Emre Akal works as an author for theatres including Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin and Landestheater Niederösterreich. He has directed plays, including his own, at Bakirköy Belediye Tiyatrosu and Tatavla Sahnesi in Istanbul, at HochX in Munich and at Theater in der Drachengasse in Vienna. His interdisciplinary works are located in the field of performance, choreography and image composition. Together with 85 other artists from across Germany, Akal founded the Aye X Staatstheater in 2019, a proposal for the future of the institutionalised theatre scene.

With this production of Emre Akal’s play “Hotel Pink Lulu”, Schauspiel Leipzig continues its working relationship with director Pia Richter. Her staging of “Ein Berg, viele” by Magdalena Schrefel, which is still in repertoire at Diskothek, was invited to the Heidelberger Stückemarkt. Richter’s works have also taken her to Landestheater Schwaben, Landestheater Tübingen, Theater Regensburg and Theater Koblenz.