On the day my flatmate and her mother went to see Les Miserables in the West End, it was decided that without English, not everything would be understood. In 20 minutes, Brian performed a condensed adaptation of the 3 hour music extravaganza with 8 stuffed animals (for each of the central characters), a bottle of heinz ketchup (for blood), a pile of musicals on video (for set pieces) and babelfish.com‘s simultaneous English- German translation.
Explaining Les Mis to my Flatmate’s German-Speaking Mother using Stuffed Animals, Ketchup and a German-English Dictionary is a celebration of small events, language, translation, age, cultural connection, Hackney, Germans and Americans, Jews and Germans, queers and straights, parents and children, mothers and daughters’ ridiculous artist friends.
Performance dedicated to Hannah Braun, all photos by Christa Holka. (It's one of my favorite performances of all time, still trying to find the high-res photos.)
