Mathias Tretter

Sovereign “Sovereign is he who decides on the state of exception.” – Carl Schmitt was also such a bigmouth, otherwise he wouldn't have become Göring's eggnog. Germany's most infamous advocate wrote that famous sentence in 1928, and we've been chewing on it ever since. Barely a hundred years later, there's a state of exception around every corner – but who is sovereign? Some say this, others: the people, the truth, as always, lies somewhere else entirely. Mathias Tretter finds it once again with his friend Ansgar: “Being stoned is a state of exception, and I’ve chosen it.” Democracy may gradually be losing its grip, but that’s no reason to lose your self-control. Unless you wet yourself laughing – but isn’t that the most sovereign thing of all? “You’ll neigh,” says Tretter, who, since the Salzburger Stier 2023, has now definitively been awarded every cabaret prize. Nevertheless, his latest piece is his funniest: “You’ll smirk, snort, gasp for air, and go home invulnerable in the end.” In other words: Sovereign. The name says it all.