Tags: Karl Svenk

Dress rehearsal in Terezín of a bitterly funny absurdist allegory mocking Nazism and the evils of prejudice: Cyclists (Jews) are the victims of lunatics (Nazis) who escape their asylum to persecute bike riders. Many ridiculous misadventures later, the schlemiel of a hero defeats the lunatics by accidentally sending them to the moon on the rocket ship they had built to be rid of him, the last remaining cyclist. He tells the audience, “Go home! You are free!” but his girlfriend objects: “Only here on the stage is there a happy ending. Out there, where you are, the rule of madness continues.”