The Airship

An ageing drag queen ponders her memories in an attic like the poet von Spitzweg in a retro-futuristic future. Her whole life is packed in suitcases, and not just because of the lack of space in Metropolis’ precarious housing situation. The atmosphere is also apocalyptic and an unspecified mob on the streets of Metropolis is on the hunt for freaks, as they call them. After the treatment of refugees at the Metropolis border and all the fences and walls, there are no longer any open escape routes for those fleeing Metropolis. All that remains is the air.

One by one, friends of the drag queen appear in the increasingly crowded attic. They are partly dolls, partly projections of avatars in black and white manga style, partly flickering souvenir videos showing the imaginary group of friends.

The friends, a photographer without a face (but instead of a face with a cloud of cigarette smoke), a black samurai (who brings the idea of an up-load of memories into a cloud) and the two twin sisters Sophie and *-ja (who have taken their cosmetic body design into their own hands) talk and sing. They tell and sing themselves.

In the very cramped attic room, all trapped in the same small boat, or in the trap for the mob, they rebel against the threat of being forgotten with their memories. They are stories of being lost, escape and violence and awaken their mutual solidarity. In a final frenzy, the drag queen and the other fugitives imagine an airship to rescue them.

This is when the drag queen’s drag family appears. Another initially imaginary network of relationships, but one that has temporarily become a social reality in the drag queen’s life.

The airship arrives with the drag queens.

TEXT X Schneeberger
KONZEPT, REGIE, TON Astride Schlaefli
PERFORMANCE Michael Wolf
Florence Schlumberger