We owe the psychologist Barry Schwartz the insight that it is important to have the choice because it makes us feel self-determined and free. But if there are too many choices, we feel just as unfree as if we had no choice at all. We become passive or unhappy or both. And unfortunately that is what has now happened to the Cologne theater audience under its new director Kay Voges.

The game show parody You have to decide! is a single decision inflation. The audience decides using a QR code on their cell phone whether Putin should be murdered, whether old people should be allowed to receive expensive medication or when solidarity will end. This is supposed to lead to startling decision-making conflicts, but so much morality makes you tired, and so the two and a half hour election show quickly becomes a torture show.