All the world’s a mega construction site: Rimini Protokoll’s Gesellschaftsmodell Großbaustelle

Theatre and work not only show many similarities but have since a long time influenced one another. The following paper aims to investigate how contemporary German theatre – specifically the work of the theatre collective Rimini Protokoll – deals with the representation of work in performative and interactive plays. Focusing first on the general approach of the group on this subject and then on the performance Gesellschaftsmodell Großbaustelle it will be shown how, by exploiting affinities between work and theatre and also ironically recurring to different theatre traditions, Rimini Protokoll’s theatre aims to counteract the alienation and de-personalisation brought about by the mechanisms that regulates post-capitalist labour in order both to rehabilitate work – also theatrical work – as a truly productive dimension of mankind and to urge a reflection on condition of the (post)modern homo laborans.