Ajax und der Schwan der Scham

In the organizer's words:

We have forgotten him. If you google his name, you come across a soccer club, a household cleaner, an asteroid, even an armored personnel carrier - Ajax the Great is only found much later. Among the Greek heroes before Troy, Ajax is only the second best, the second strongest, always in the shadow of the greatest Greek: Achilles. Ajax accepts his role and radically puts his well-trained body at the service of the cause. In the end, it is he who retrieves Achill's body and his mythical armor from the battlefield. But instead of rewarding him for his efforts, the Greeks give the armor to Odysseus, the rhetorician with the winning smile on his face. Ajax cannot bear this insult. He runs amok. Ajax becomes an armored personnel carrier, an asteroid, a household cleaner who scrubs the floors bloody.

But is it really Ajax who is doing the killing, or are other forces at work here? Is it not rather the gods (who are nothing other than the authors) who wield Ajax's sword to show us where hubris must always lead? For after the frenzy, shame awaits. A bottomless shame into which Ajax plunges - and finally into the sword.

Ambition, hubris, humiliation, shame. Perhaps we should meet Ajax earlier in the search results, he would probably have a lot to tell us. Christopher Rüping dedicates his new work at the Thalia Theater to the proud forgotten man and, together with his ensemble, explores the "Ajax complex" from today's perspective.

World premiere January 15, 2025, Thalia Theater