“BLACK COFFEE” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Trøndelag Theatre, Norway 1991

Rainer Werner Fassbinder rewrote “THE COFFEE-HOUSE” by Goldoni. By using Goldoni’s play that was written in 1750 he shows us the timeless aspect of commercial value. Everything can be sold or bought; love, friendship, wars… I found the time-exceeding aspect interesting as we often think that this phenomenon is typical of our time or our capitalist system. The theatre was transformed into a high class shopping arcade, the architecture was contemporary neoclassical but the objects in the shop windows and the costumes came from the time of Goldoni. The program was an exclusive paper bag just filled up with publicity from the the sponsors of the theatre…