The world is spinning faster and faster, everything has to be optimized even more, even higher, even faster, even better, even more perfect. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Director and Nestroy Award winner Felix Hafner has really turned the "speed" screw together with the ensemble of the Linzer Phönix.

The clock is ticking - in fact, every second is visibly counted in the industrial-chic stage set (Jenny Schleif), as the actors have the task of completing the play in exactly one hour, 28 minutes and 34 seconds.

Running along in the time experiment
Martin Brunnemann, Gina Christof, Karina Pele, Melanie Sidhu and Lukas Weiss prance onto the stage like boxers in racing suits, warming up for the time experiment.

What follows is a remarkable exploration of the factors of tempo, speed and stress - and all of this at least in laboratory perfection. Occasionally, however, this avalanche of text overwhelms you, and even as an audience member you find yourself panting here and there.

Partly a text bulge
As an audience member, you have to listen very carefully - and admire the performers. Not only for this bulge of text, but also for the way they scurry across the stage in Vasna Aguilar's choreography: as scientists, air traffic controllers, workers. What they all seem to have in common is the fidget(a)-syndrome. When it comes to "time travel", at one point in the text it says "It all gets extremely complicated". How true!

Drums set the pace, playback is great
The "tempo" is also driven by the two drummers Moritz Jakob Lindner and Matthäus Schnöll from the Institute for Jazz and Improvised Music at Linz's Bruckner University. The two literally set the pace (composition by Herbert Pirker), very self-confident, quite versatile and not at all quiet.

They also score extra sympathy points with a comedic playback number to Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time". And rightly so!

"Tempo" - or, as the subtitle says, "A Piece of Rhythm" - is a clever period piece, not a feel-good Christmas drama, but a production that can be debated and has a long-lasting effect. You can't say much better about theater.

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