MEDIATHEK

I still get goosebumps when I think about Shawn saying during the match: “I’m sorry, I love you” as he pinned him with tears in his eyes. -Wrestling expert K. York
 
In CATCH3000, musical theatre goes wrestling! Christians vs Muslims, women vs men, Spongebob vs Patrick; a duel right up to massacre is what Teutonic knight Tancredi and Muslim Clorinda have in mind. Wrestling expert Roland Barthes: “For a real professional wrestling aficionado, there is nothing more beautiful than witnessing the revenge-seeking wrath of a betrayed fighter who’s passionately throwing himself upon the picture of unfairness.”

The next match stars Achilles and Penthesilea. Heinrich Kleist’s heroes are so infatuated with each other that Penthesilea simply devours her beloved. Kissing, biting - what’s the difference? In the end they just live within a system that suggests they can only find true happiness by vanquishing the other.

COMBATTIMENTO has 3 characters: the narrator Testo, Tancredi, a teutonic crusader, and Muslim Clorinda. They tell us a deluded story of crusader romanticism. A narrative where only the forced baptism of dying Clorinda grants her a fulfilled death and entry to the kingdom of heaven.
 
One form of fight that celebrates combat as show is wrestling. The myth of unrehearsed fight, the combatants brutality and their passionate dilettantism makes the allure of wrestling complete and a profound theatrical subject matter. We found wrestling to be the hotbed for new musical theatre.