JAKOB VON GUNTEN

A participatory musical theater based on the book “Jakob von Gunten” by Robert Walser



“We learn very little here, we lack teaching staff, and we boys from the Benjamenta Institute will achieve nothing, that is, we will later be very humble and subordinate people. ” From the very first sentence, the tone is set. Jakob von Gunten left his family to attend the Benjamenta boarding school of his own free will, where you learn only one thing: to obey without argument. It is this discipline of the body and soul that gives him curious pleasure: being reduced to nothing while simultaneously violating the sacrosanct rules. Jakob describes his classmates, goes out into the city, observes the authoritarian, brutal director, and his sister Lise, an embodiment of gentleness. Everything he sees nourishes his thoughts and dreams, while the Benjamenta Institute slowly loses the qualities that made it so attractive and the narrative slowly converges into a drama.