Odyssee

In the organizer's words:

Odyssey - by Pavlo Arie freely adapted from Homer - A production with people from Ukraine and Düsseldorf - In Ukrainian and German with respective surtitles - Premiere on February 10, 2023 - Schauspielhaus, Kleines Haus - Stadt:Kollektiv

Not in the present day do I live.
I live for the day that will come.
Strangers are in your house!
Odysseus, return home now!
- Pavlo Aria

Penelope waits ten years for the war to end in faraway Troy. Penelope waits another ten years for her husband to return home. At home, her son Telemachos grows up without a father. At home, countless suitors harass her. Strangers are in the house, home no longer offers them protection.

The "Odyssey" knows the waiting for times to come and the longing for times past, but no fulfilled present. The new poem by the Ukrainian playwright Pavlo Arie takes a current look at the great myth of European culture and places Penelope at the center. The production tells from a female perspective very topically and poetically of the madness of war, of homesickness and of the endless waiting for an uncertain future.

This "Odyssey" is a joint narrative by people from Ukraine and Düsseldorf. The text takes up motifs from Homer and is based on interviews with the players, with refugees and with those who remained in Ukraine during the war - in many voices and musically it tells the story of 14 women and girls and two boys, all between the ages of 11 and 56.