Doctor Alici

The focus is on the increasing anti-Semitism, which is exploited by numerous opponents of the protagonist Professor Bernhardi, who is Jewish, to pursue their careerist goals. The Catholic religion only serves to cover up their unscrupulous and selfish actions. In “Professor Bernhardi” Schnitzler negotiates a battle between enlightenment, rationality and dogmatism and focuses on the question of the possibility of “doing the right thing”.
In her piece DR. ALICI, Olga Bach takes up Arthur Schnitzler's conflicts and questions and translates them into the present. Where are the lines of conflict between ethics and politics today? How far are people willing to go for their career? And how do decisions made today affect the future?
With bizarre characters and in a dystopian setting, she takes a critical look at our present. The hospital becomes the police headquarters, and Professor Bernhardi becomes Doctor Alıcı. A man becomes a woman, Judaism becomes Islam. The conflicts do not proceed in the same way, just as the past does not repeat itself - but the gradual change in human coexistence and cooperation, the subtle mechanisms by which racism becomes socially acceptable and the corruption of the political establishment find their contemporary counterpart in DR. ALICI. And this in Bavaria in 2023, two months before the Bavarian state elections...

Photo credits: Armin Smailovic