“No one makes themselves. (...) We all make and unmake one another.”
Naomi Klein – Doppelganger
Where do we begin? Literally where do we, the thing that we think of as us, and the thing that you think of as you, where does that begin?
Doppelgänger/Doppelganger is a journey down the rabbit hole into a hall of mirrors where everything we believe ourselves to be – unique and unmistakable – starts to unravel and multiply. In a world of duplication and projection, of forgetting and remembering, and of eternal self-mythologising, the performers of Gob Squad find themselves stuck in a seemingly endless party. But no one seems to remember what exactly there is to celebrate. Wasn’t it someone’s birthday? There’s cake and balloons, and everything is captured on camera: someone has taken a photograph, and it looks like they’re having a good time.
Trapped in a party loop, Gob Squad turns to the audience for reasons to celebrate, searching for possible doppelgangers, to expand themselves, to confront themselves, to switch themselves off entirely or to dissolve into many. The dance with the self begins but who is leading whom here, and through whose story? And who decides what happens next?
The party tips over into a surreal vision full of unexpected twists, in which different identities and voices fight relentlessly to be heard, and our shared responsibility for something that is greater than ourselves strikes us as a utopian déjà vu.
Concept Gob Squad Devised and performed by Johanna Freiburg, Sean Patten, Tatiana Saphir, Sharon Smith, Berit Stumpf, Sarah Thom, Bastian Trost, Simon Will Sound design Sebastian Bark, Julio Zúñiga Video design Miles Chalcraft Set and costume design Nina von Mechow, Amir Baltić Light design and technical management Chris Umney Dramaturgy and production management Christina Runge Dramaturgical advisor Pauli Patinen Artistic collaboration Katharina Joy Book, Ben Goldby, Simon Kernen Assistance set and costume design Tina Hübner Company management Heleen De Boever, Caroline Gentz, Talea Schuré, Grischa Schwiegk
Production Gob Squad Coproduction Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) I Free Republic of Vienna, HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, &Espoo Theatre
Funded by the Capital Cultural Fund (Germany)
Gob Squad Arts Collective are funded institutionally by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
With special thanks to Annika Schaper, Robert Richter and all test audiences at rehearsals in Berlin and Wien.
World premiere June 2026, Vienna Festival (Wiener Festwochen) | Free Republic Vienna