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

ISLAND
Oh, that void, that dreadful void
Based on the novel of the same name by Joachim Meyerhoff
INSEl Theater
Sunday, November 29, 2026, 6:00 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30 p.m.)
Admission: 18/8 (advance tickets, fees included) and 20/10 (B.O.)

Free admission is available for visitors under 21. If you’re interested, please send us a short message at post@insel.news.

With Anne Müller
Piano: Matthias Flake
Director: Jan Bosse

Ages 15 and up
Duration: 2h 00, no intermission

“There was always talk of this void, this longing for the world, for real emotions! Oh, this void, this dreadful void that I feel right here in my heart! That’s where everything that troubled me lay.”

Against all expectations, Joachim is accepted at the age of twenty as a drama student at the renowned Otto Falckenberg School. Since he can’t afford his own room, he temporarily moves in with his grandparents, in a villa in magnificent Nymphenburg. That “temporary” stay quickly turns into three years, during which Joachim lives in two worlds that could not be more different: On the one hand, the sheltered, upper-class world of his grandparents—as if frozen in time and structured around alcoholic rituals—and, on the other, the acting school, which is geared toward breaking down and reshaping a person’s personality. Plagued by self-doubt and the contradictions of dogmas and expectations—“be authentic,” “be yourself,” “recite *Effi Briest* as a hippopotamus”—Joachim must seek his liberation in the exploration of the other and the unfamiliar and find himself through acting. For it is precisely in the “gap”—in the ambivalence, uncertainty, anger, and feeling out of touch with oneself—that the strength and potential to find one’s own identity lie hidden.

Jan Bosse is one of Germany’s most sought-after theater directors. He regularly directs productions 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 adapted Thomas Melle’s novel *Die Welt im Rücken* into a brilliant solo performance. The production from the Burgtheater was invited to the 2018 Berliner Theatertreffen. Jan Bosse also has a long-standing working relationship with the exceptional actress Anne Müller. While still a student of acting, she was already a member of the ensemble at Schauspiel Frankfurt, where she played the young Gertrud in Armin Petras’s 2008 production of *Gertrud* and was named “Up-and-Coming Actress of the Year” by the theater magazine *Theater heute* for her performance. 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 drama productions.

“Director and Meyerhoff specialist Jan Bosse, together with actress Anne Müller, proves that the work and the author can be perfectly separated. Their performance is a grand solo and, like the original, a hymn to the theater.” (nachtkritik)

“An impressive one-woman show” (SWR 2 Kultur)

An event presented by INSEL.