Escape Love

In the organizer's words:

Play by Elisabeth Pape

World premiere on February 14, 2025

In German language

Age recommendation from 14 years

Escape Love, if it leads you up a ladder of illusions, find instead the true love that climbs every step.

On a far too hot summer's day, Marie, Maximilian and Sofie find themselves unwillingly in an empty swimming pool. The theme for their school's hiking day is "Escape Room". But the puzzle the three of them have to solve there is harder than expected. Together, they have to search for "true love". The three of them could hardly be more different: While Maximilian always wants to merge with his "favorite person", Marie thinks little of giving herself up for someone else. And Sofie has given up on love for the time being anyway. But how can they manage to leave the pool? The supposed help they receive time and again is not very helpful: Soppy songs, cheesy movie kiss scenes and even old poems by Walther von der Vogelweide. The three quickly lose their bearings in the pool of love illusions. It becomes clear that in order to free themselves from it, they must first start with themselves and question their own concepts of love.

With Escape Love, Leonhard Frank Fellow Elisabeth Pape has written a romantic comedy for young people: "What narratives have Marie, Maximilian and Sofie been at the mercy of in pop culture, on the internet, in capitalism? What is the 'favorite person' supposed to fulfill in life, and what is the 'favorite person' supposed to be?" Existing relationship narratives are lovingly dissected. The big question is always how it is possible to turn the 'I' into a 'we'.