In Zurich, a bizarre cultural debate has escalated: a theater group wanted to stage the play “Mario and the Magician” to celebrate Thomas Mann’s 150th birthday and requested 30,000 Swiss francs in funding.
However, the city rejected the application. The justification? The lead actor is a “white cis-man” and therefore not suitable to portray the mechanisms of discrimination convincingly.
This has naturally caused outrage. The director emphasizes that the actor is not only homosexual, but also a migrant. Despite this, the cultural commission reduced the actor to his external characteristics and thus did exactly what it was supposed to prevent: discrimination based on his identity.
This whole affair really calls into question the cultural policy in Zurich. While the large, politically correct institutions like the Schauspielhaus or the Rote Fabrik take in millions, smaller theaters are being pushed out due to questionable diversity criteria. The Keller62 theater, which has been offering a diverse program for years, had to tremble because it was accused of not addressing enough gender themes.
Even FDP city councilor Flurin Capaul is criticizing this trend – and references William Shakespeare in the process.
“Something is rotten in the theater landscape of Zurich” he says.
The audience numbers of the Schauspielhaus have been declining since the 1990s, from 184,000 to 70,000, while the subsidies remain constant. A problem that is increasingly in the spotlight: instead of promoting the best plays, it seems that the focus is on political correctness.
The city of Zurich is defending its decision, saying it wants to promote a diverse cultural landscape. However, the question arises, where diversity ends and ideological censorship begins. Art and theater should be places of freedom and open debate – a stage where different perspectives are discussed and new ideas are tested. But if the political line takes precedence over the quality of the art, then the cultural freedom is at risk.