Tom, a sporty entrepreneur and millionaire in his late 50s, and his wife and ex-assistant Sue have invited us to a sponsorship talk over the weekend. Their impressive property is located high up on the mountain, in a cell phone black hole. Sophia, a young art shooting star, comes "from the ghetto" like her lover Jared. She is hoping for funding for a huge art project: "A moving mountain of garbage, a burning wave of garbage rolling down the riverbed. A crack. A gaping wound. The tear through the world."
The contrasts, initially hidden under politeness and intellectual discussions, become more and more apparent as the evening progresses.
Alcohol flows, glasses clink, sexual attraction overcomes class differences, images and dreams of biblical plagues seem to haunt everyone like a curse. The clairvoyant maid Maria observes all this from a distance and already senses the end of civilization.
In the subtitle, the author calls his play "170 fragments of a failed conversation". In a virtuoso manner, he dissects the plot and the conversations through time jumps and repetitions, interrupted by nightmares of the evening party. The result is a kind of collage of escalation and we... watch with relish.
Schimmelpfennig is considered one of the most frequently performed German playwrights of the present day, whose plays are performed in around 40 countries.
"The author is a master of the mixture of tabloid and major social themes."
- Die Deutsche Bühne
Price information:
The usual discounts at our hotel apply