In 1986/87 the company
mounted the world premiere production of Fassbinder's Trash, the City
and Death in a new translation by Gabriele. After a long back and forth
with the Fassbinder estate, including a face to face visit in Germany,
the company managed to secure the rights and to mount the world premiere
of the play, which had thus far eluded even Fassbinder himself. The play
was written in 1974 but had remained unproduced due to protests that the
play was anti-semitic. One of the characters is named "The Rich Jew".
The play involves the destructive effects of real-estate speculation in
the city of Frankfurt. Fassbinder had stipulated that the play must premiere
in either Frankfurt or New York. It opened at ABC No Rio [a Manhattan Lower
East Side performance space. (This production was the company's second
cooperation with ABC No Rio, which had been squatted and "stolen from
the city" by a group of artists. In 1982, its directors invited Thieves
Theatre to bring Fracaro's Travelling Light from it's performance
venue, W.P.A. in Chicago) . As Trash was being performed, the city
was locked in debate about the massive redevelopment of the Lower East
Side. Thieves Theatre felt that the play's alleged anti-semitism was no
reason it should not be produced, that a society's wounds must first be
exposed before they can be healed. The script's political incorrectness
was one of its appeals. Or as Nick said to a reporter from Der Spiegel
, "Antisemitism? Yes, alright, fine, that, too." In this day
and age, the politically incorrect is the new outlaw.
"If I examine my
work, I now perceive in it,"
patiently pursued, a will to rehabilitate
person, objects and feelings reputedly vile...
I was involved in the rehabilitation of the ignoble."
-- Jean Genet