Mario and the Magician - Badische Landesbühne

A theatrical adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella

Italy in the 1920s: a family is on holiday but encounters nationalism and discrimination everywhere. For the sake of the children, they stay and attend a performance by the illusionist Cipolla. He turns out to be a brilliant hypnotist who renders his audience helpless. The family watches with fascination and dread as the show unfolds, until the charged atmosphere explodes into deadly terror.

Thomas Mann's 1929 novella is a psychological portrait of a society that abandons responsibility, reason, and morality, seduced by fascism.