Performed at Bryant Lake Bowl, Minneapolis, the Edmonton Fringe, Alberta, and at the Minnesota Fringe Festival
Chosen among City Pages Best Theatre of the Year 2000
ZAP! KUNST!, a dance/theatre mockumentary, is a raucous lampoon of the performing arts as told through the lives of internationally unknown performing artists Arthur Zimmerman and Zelda Aufgehefferstadt, a Cold War Romeo & Juliet, who triumph over adversity (and a lack of any real talent) to conquer of the world stage.
Credits
Created and Developed by Jennifer Ilse and Paul HerwigProject Initiators – Jennifer Ilse and Paul Herwig
Scenic Design - Paul Herwig
Text and Dramaturgy, Sound, Lighting - Jennifer Ilse and Paul Herwig
Cast - 2, Jennifer Ilse, Paul Herwig
Duration - 65 min.
Reviews
City Pages Review"ZAP KUNST is a parody built on grand physical gestures and a terrifying energy... Writer performers Paul Herwig and Jennifer Ilse propel their story with such verve that when their characters meet at the Berlin wall they simply crash through it. Long scenes play with virtually no dialogue and an abundance of sight gags, resembling some expressionist silent comedy. All the while, Herwig & Ilse bring to their performances an endearing lack of guile. Even when Aufgehefferstadt and Zimerman's failed attempts to break into theatre cause them to abuse both household pets (in a frightening parody of "Tap Dogs") and Shakespeare (in a production titled "The Burgermeister of Dusseldorf") they remain eternal innocents, lost in their desire to be great artists. The pair fumbles repeatedly in one hilarious sequence after another until they discover performance art, "an art form for people who can't do anything else." Their resulting sketch involves God, flushing toilets, and awkward acrobatics in a virtuoso display of wretchedness that leads to an ecstatic, ridiculous moment of triumph. For a moment we believe that even bad art can elevate the human spirit."
- Max Sparber, Minneapolis City Pages, April 5th, 2000
City Pages Top Ten Best
"Z.A.P.! Kunst, the Theater Gallery Performers Paul Herwig and Jennifer Ilse offered up a feat of comic inventiveness in their parody of performance art, following two hapless and supremely untalented German artists in their misbegotten attempts to create something beautiful. This was joyous and occasionally transcendent comedy, made all the more surprising by the fact that it seemed to be created entirely out of children's toys, cardboard, and frenetic movement. At the end of a performance, one got the sense that Herwig and Ilse could pack their entire act in a suitcase and toss it in back of one of those tiny European three-wheeled cars. Which would have been appropriate: After all, this play was likewise a miniature, absurd wonder."
- CITY PAGES, THE TOP TEN BEST THEATER OF THE TWIN CITIES - 2000 #6