Imagine a city with 30 000 inhabitants or so, where everyone seems to be a fan of their local football club. Now imagine almost fifty of them on stage that they share with ten or so fans of the Viennese football club in honour of the place of the performance. “Stadium” tells a story of a small, working class town through the shared passion for the game. In that sense it's a refreshing approach to the topic often present in many performances seen before at Theatertreffen and Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Unfortunately the performative choices of “Stadium” are quite primitive: long video-interviews and shorter ones on stage that are both at least pretended to be unrehearsed, are mixed with definitely agreed-upon speeches and some songs and dances. It does give an insight to the functioning of the fan club (and to a lesser extent to the city as well) but more often than not the speeches (and written texts on a video-screen) feel over-explanatory, leaving too little room for the audience to conclude by themselves. In the second act, after an intermission where the audience is invited to buy fries and beer from the kiosk on stage, “Stadium” does make a most welcomed shift towards a more figurative approach (all you need is some music and a guy with a huge flag, to really pause and think about what's shown) and the speeches also get more personal and social at the same time, but it's a bit too little too late. The best part of the show is the ending, when everyone on stage just walk out in the middle of the applause, drums banging and fans cheering, to the street in front of the theater and continue their party there where it should be held.
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