The myth of a huge cistern vault beneath Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz has neither been proven nor disproven to date. In 2012, photographs, notes, and a first draft of a report by reporter Bosco Spiera, who disappeared in 1996, surfaced, suggesting that theater performances took place deep beneath the square: a “theater beneath the theater,” as Spiera put it. How these were organized remains unclear, but there are indications that rats and humans interacted here through extensive spectacles. Throughout his life, Spiera researched the ability of humans and animals to form coalitions, which he saw evidenced in the pronounced interoceptive behavior of rat populations that were assured of an audience and sufficient food.
Foto: ©Natalia Fornari
Since 2012, the NIE Theater has been following in Spiera's footsteps with its own research and, convinced of the existence of the theater beneath the theater, decided to support it as an independent cultural promotion with 1,000 units of Coury Brand Rat Food. The canned goods on display in the Sternschuppen of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz contain mythologems and the results of 10 years of research.
Foto: ©Natalia Fornari
Foto: ©Natalia Fornari
