Cypressenburg

Everybody is talking about Titus Fox, a young arthouse filmmaker who politicises such issues as diversity, racism and identity and opposes the stigmatisation of Black people. Now he has a new idea for a film and is hoping to get financial backing from his uncle, Carl Carl, the legendary film and music producer and boss of Cypress Hill Studios. But Carl Carl is not impressed by his nephew’s big plans. His superstar Sal O’Myé recently made her first Hollywood film, which was ripped to shreds in the reviews. Cypress Hill is up for sale, and the buyer is a foreigner, of all people. The live band that has been engaged by the long-established studio since the beginning is always on standby for recordings, rehearsals and incidental music. While dancing with Titus, Sal O’Myé discovers his entertainment talent, but he feels superior to the studio’s commercial star from an artistic point of view. But Titus increasingly gets caught up in his own opinions and falls in love with his – much savvier – co-star. Meanwhile, the Countess of Cypressenburg, a grand dame and favourite granddaughter of the company’s founder, hatches a plot to save the studios. The chaos that ensues would do Nestroy proud. In their production “Sistas!”, Golda Barton and Isabelle Redfern transferred Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” into 1980s West Berlin, thereby creating a “savage rollercoaster of punchlines directed against all kinds of one-size-fits-all identity impositions” (Theater heute). Now they are tackling Johann Nestroy’s farce “Der Talisman”. Nestroy himself transposed the plot of a French comédie vaudeville into a new setting and assimilated the original work musically as well by swapping the chansons for popular cabaret-style songs.