It's not funny

As a child, the American choreographer Meg Stuart dreamt she was acting in a film that was being shown in a cinema without an audience. At the same time she was trying to escape from the picture and also to be able to watch it, driven by the impossible desire to observe herself. After all, isn’t it by watching films that we practise for real life?

In It’s not funny, Stuart moves into the realm of the entertainment industry. Inspired by comic Hollywood musicals, she puts six performers on stage who don’t know when to stop. The show must go on and everyone keeps on laughing. After all, life in a musical is dazzling: beautiful, perfect, unblemished people dance and sing without ever showing their real selves. There is no such thing as failure, unless as a lesson in life and a step towards true success. Shyness and shame are unknown to these people... or so it seems.

Meg Stuart created It’s not funny for the Salzburger Festival in summer 2006, when its theme was humour. With a sharp scalpel she dissects the cliches and fake reality of cheerful entertainment. De