Das Erdbeben in Chili, Heinrich v. Kleist

In the organizer's words:

Secret sex in the monastery garden, a birth on Corpus Christi and a natural disaster that absurdly makes everyone happy - Kleist's text is full of ambivalences, contrasts, paradoxes and the seemingly irresolvable. For him, the natural disaster of the earthquake is a catalyst for happiness and knowledge. Kleist archaically tells us that the truly threatening quake takes place within us humans. This gives rise to irreversible spirals of violence, love and submission to authority.

Past meets future - seemingly without the possibility of a present that takes its time - love meets rage, seemingly without revelation in the mind - again and again in the ritual exchange of seduction, which becomes social control.

Ruben Sabel and Christian Freund bring Kleist's novella to playful life in the Rabbit Hole, freely following Kleist's basic understanding:

"Why, I thought, does the vault not sink, since it has no support? It stands, I answered, because all the stones want to collapse at once - and I drew from this thought an indescribably refreshing consolation, which always stood by my side until the decisive moment with the hope that I too would hold on when everything let me sink."

Direction, stage, lighting: Christian Freund / acting, costume design: Ruben Sabel / music: Paul Brauner