Philosophy
Old Queen Ellib visited the Moorts for the last time:
I still have one question. Say, what is the soul?"
"If I tell you, you won't believe me," the moorts replied.
Ellib insisted on an answer.
"The soul is the child you once were and who never left you," whispered the Moorts.
From the Moran Chronicles
About the poetic
"Poetic is the name given to any thing whose nature or character lends itself to poetry," writes Johann Georg Sulzer in his book published in 1771 on the General Theory of Fine Arts. The poem is free of everyday language. It attempts perfection and beauty, in word as well as in form.
Thinking theatre like a poem - a condensation into beauty. The focus of our poetic understanding of theatre is not pain and conflict as in drama, but reconciliation, hope and the kindling of longing, combined with a smile on the visitors' faces. If he comments on the theatre with a "That was nice!", he often expresses that the experience did him good. "D joma anuar lolo ta", beauty cures many ailments, say the Morans. Who would not want to believe them?
Poetic theatre is the attempt to counter the coarseness in the world with artistic means and to prepare a place where many people have the opportunity to encounter the subtle and beautiful and to be transformed by this experience.
Theatre of Encounter
When theatre leaves the theatre building, the audience must be considered anew in every staging concept. The theatre becomes an adventure for the theatre-maker as well as for the audience - as in our walk-in theatre worlds. The audience becomes the visitor. They are not left on the outside, but enter into the action. As a traveller, he can be very close to the individual play stations. This closeness enables the encounter between player and visitor - a new quality that does not exist in classical theatre with its "ramp" as a fourth wall. In our productions we create offers of encounter - from the look, to the smile, from the touch to the joint play. What is special about this is the non-exclusivity. There are no closed rooms with us, several thousand people can experience our theatre installations every play evening. They meet our characters, decide for themselves about closeness and distance, get involved in the play or watch others doing it. Those who get involved experience a different quality of theatre.
Storytelling
Theater Anu sees itself in the tradition of storytelling. We believe in the power of stories, but we are also aware that other stories are needed. The American mythologist Joseph Campbell proves in his work that myths in all parts of the world are based on the same pattern: the hero's journey. These stories fulfil(ed) an important purpose: to introduce people to society with its values and rules and to prepare the young man in particular for life as a warrior. Even if Hollywood always produces its heroic stories, the vision of a peaceful world reveals the need for new patterns that differ from the message "Life is a battle! A poetic dramaturgy needs to be established.