A box. A button. Press it – and the show begins. Puppets, driven by an automatic mechanism, in short comic-like sequences, present important stages in the life of the late mediaeval Emperor Charles IV. The delicate puppets and scenery created by Susanne Jacob are reminiscent of the famous soft style of the late Gothic era, and at the same time of modern French comics. This is the third time (after “Dürer”/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-kWrAB67UI and “Wagner”/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CxBTcXJbNQ ) that the team around director, Frieder Zimmermann, has produced a 9-minute short play for mechanical theatre. The brief is: the play has to be historically correct, it needs to have a link to the present, and – as all good Punch-and-Judy-shows – it may also provoke. So curtain up for the exciting life of Charles IV, for a power play about life and death! The location: Europe and … Nuremberg!

Idea and sound: Frieder Zimmermann

Text: Tanja Mette-Zimmermann, Dr. Reiner Zimmermann

Stage and figures: Susanne Jacob

Speakers: Martin Ellrodt, Hans Grasser, Heiki Ikkola, Boris Schwiebert

Translation: Chris Abbey, Dan Wesker

Music: Frieder Zimmermann, Ron Andrico & Donna Stewart

Production: Quohren MPG

Manufacturing: Hüttinger Interactive Exhibitions