Jedermann Reloaded 2.0 - Philipp Hochmair, the Electric Hand of God & Kurt Razelli

Philipp Hochmair is Everyman. In a passionate feat of strength, he slips into all roles and transforms Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play into a multi-voiced monologue. A dialogue with two microphones. One for Everyman and one for the others. His Everyman is a rock star. Driven by guitar riffs and experimental sounds from the band Die Elektrohand Gottes and mashup maestro Kurt Razelli, the Viennese acting star turns the 100-year-old mystery play into an apocalyptic spoken concert.

"The story of the life and death of the rich man" becomes an intense overall experience and makes Everyman recognizable as a contemporary who burns up in his insatiable greed for money and intoxication. The theme is timeless and eternally valid: What remains of my life when it comes time to die?

Started as an experiment at the Hamburg Thalia Theater in 2013, Hochmair and his band have since continued to develop the performance. Work in Progress. Spontaneous guest appearances by Patricia Aulitzky, Ulrike Beimpold, or Johannes Silberschneider emphasize the idea of a jam session and continually open up the concept of the monological structure anew.

Highlights of the engagement included performances at the Vienna Burgtheater and the benefit concert at St. Stephen's Cathedral in the autumn of 2018. Hochmair's long-standing intensive engagement with Hofmannsthal's original text enabled him to step in overnight for the ailing Tobias Moretti in the summer of 2018 and, celebrated by both press and audience, take on the role of Everyman at the Salzburg Festival. In the summer of 2024, Philipp Hochmair celebrated a triumphant "Everyman comeback" at the Salzburg Festival, again in the lead role, and he also returned for a new season to the Domplatz in Salzburg in 2025.

"While Hofmannsthal wanted to make the present visible in the past, our interpretation, in the attitude of a rock concert, brings forth the ephemeral in the present." (Philipp Hochmair)