In the 20th century people were shipped between the continents like barrels of oil. The documentary-theatre piece “Bodenprobe Kasachstan” (Soil Sample Kazakhstan) sets out in search of oil with a cast of individuals able to talk about the resource in terms of personal history. The biographies brought together on the stage trace the route of the pipelines from Germany back to Kazakhstan then below the ground. The oil trail is pursued by: a retired Russian-German tank truck driver who is also an impassioned choir singer; an East German engineer who drilled for oil in Kazakhstan as well as Iraq and Texas; a young Kazakh who trades in mineral oil and solar cells in Germany; a woman who lives in Hanover but grew up by Baikonur; a beautician and bank clerk raised in Dushanbe during the Tajik civil war. The theatrical result is a simulated Kazakhstan, a celebration of the trails of the steppe, the paths of people’s lives, of oil, and of power.