A play by Franzobel
about beer, love, rockets and a concentration camp

In 1943, the SS took up position in the sleepy brewing village of Redl-Zipf and began building a satellite camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp on the brewery site and in the surrounding area. Zipf became one of the places where the “final victory” of the National Socialist German Reich was to be achieved after the long lost war.

2,500 concentration camp prisoners dug a system of tunnels and bunkers into the Hausruck soil under the cruelest conditions. Among other things, a branch of the organized Nazi counterfeit money production “Kommando Bernhard” was to be housed there. However, the tunnels were mainly used as bomb-proof housing for parts of the V2 rocket production. Numerous prisoners died during the highly dangerous engine tests, succumbed to the stresses and strains of the work or were murdered by SS henchmen.

Franzobel’s play “Z!PF oder Die dunkle Seite des Mondes” (Z!PF or The Dark Side of the Moon) uses eyewitness accounts to explore the fates of the victims and the ambivalent behavior of the local population, condensing the material into a gripping theatrical text. Although it brings historically
verified personnel onto the stage, it does not attempt a historical “retelling”. Instead, the text takes on an almost metaphysical level, working with associative images, dreamlike and nightmarish figures and scenes. “Z!PF” is a play about the ludicrous and murderous excesses of human thought and action, but also a play about touching, comical and even grotesque situations in the midst of horror during a period of Austrian regional history.

Text: Franzobel
Director: Georg Schmiedleitner
With Martin Semmelrogge, Julia Cencig, Alexander Strobele and Franz Froschauer as well as 100 amateur actors from the region
Stage: Stefan Brandtmayr and students from the University of Art and Design Linz
Make-up and costumes: Cornelia Kraske
Music: Rupert Schusterbauer, Bergknappenkapelle Kohlgrube and musicians from the region
Artistic Director: Chris Müller
Commercial Director: Roland König