Ach, diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke Nach dem gleichnamigen Roman von Joachim Meyerhoff

ISLAND
Oh, this gap, this terrible gap
Based on the novel of the same name by Joachim Meyerhoff
INSEl Play
Sunday / July 12, 2026 / 6 pm (admission: 5:30 pm)
Admission: 18/8 (VVK incl. fees) and 20/10 (B.O.)

Free admission for visitors under the age of 21. Please send us a short message to post@insel.news if you are interested.

With Anne Müller
Piano: Matthias Flake
Director: Jan Bosse

From 15 years
Duration: 2h 00, no intermission

"There was always talk of this gap, this longing for the world, for real feelings! Oh, this gap, this terrible gap that I feel here in my bosom! There was everything that drove me."

Contrary to expectations, Joachim was accepted as an acting student at the renowned Otto Falckenberg School at the age of twenty. Unable to afford a room of his own, he temporarily moves in with his grandparents in a villa in the magnificent Nymphenburg district. The "temporarily" soon turns into three years in which Joachim lives in two opposing worlds that could not be more different: The sheltered, upper-class world of his grandparents, which seems to have fallen out of time and is structured by alcoholic rituals, and on the other hand the drama school, which is geared towards breaking and straightening a personality. Plagued by self-doubt and the contradictions of dogmas and expectations - "be authentic", "be yourself", "play Effi Briest as a hippopotamus" - Joachim must seek his liberation in exploring the other and the strange and find himself through acting. For it is precisely in the "gap", in ambivalence, insecurity, anger and being beside oneself that the power and potential to find one's own identity is hidden.

Jan Bosse is one of the most sought-after German theater directors. He regularly directs at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Burgtheater in Vienna, the Deutsches Theater Berlin and most recently at the Schaubühne. Together with Joachim Meyerhoff, he has brought Thomas Melle's novel "Die Welt im Rücken" to the stage as a congenial solo. The production from the Burgtheater was invited to the 2018 Berlin Theatertreffen. Jan Bosse also has a long-standing working relationship with the exceptional actress Anne Müller. She was already a member of the ensemble at Schauspiel Frankfurt during her acting studies, where she played the young Gertrud in Armin Petras' production of Gertrud in 2008 and was voted "Young Actress of the Year" in the theater magazine "Theater heute". The production was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen. Since 2009, she has been a permanent member of the ensemble at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and most recently at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has also appeared in numerous film and television productions such as "Babylon Berlin", "Der Parfumeur", "Jenseits der Spree" and "Sisi & ich" and can be heard in many radio play productions.

"Director and Meyerhoff specialist Jan Bosse and actress Anne Müller prove that the work and the author can be separated perfectly. Their evening is a great solo and, like the original, a hymn to the theater." (nachtkritik)

"Impressive one-woman show" (SWR 2 Kultur)

An event of the INSEL.