Schöne neue Welt

In the organizer's words:

If you can have everything at the touch of a button, including and above all happiness, what wish remains unfulfilled? In 1932, one of the most important utopian-dystopian novels of the 20th century was published, a classic that is still read all over the world today, its title a catchphrase. Aldous Huxley actually set his "Brave New World" 500 years in the future. But what was then a vision of the future is now (almost) the present. Sex, liberated from all morals and feelings, undesired, always available happiness, born of chemistry, and what is perhaps even more fantastic: a new world, specially designed for us, which fulfills all our desires and reliably distracts us from everything it cannot - or does not want to - offer. We have created a 'brave new world' whose satisfactions, appointments and algorithms have penetrated us so deeply that we hardly notice them anymore. Those out there who live outside our ideal society, whose archaic lives belong more in the realm of history and stories.

John Savage grew up in such a community, on a reservation on the edge of civilization. A place where hope is often in vain and frustration is the reality. Savage embodies everything that the "Brave New World" has left behind. When Savage returns, his sordid existence only proves once again that a world in which he does not exist is a better one.

But is this person really "the other"? And really the only one who is different? Is all individuality erased in a state of compulsive, always available, nightmarishless bliss? Is there no longer a right to be different?

Following his successful production of "Transit" based on Anna Seghers, Iranian author and director Amir Reza Koohestani reloads a well-known story with his own experiences for a second time for Thalia Gaußstraße and rewrites it for today together with his co-author Keyvan Sarreshteh.

Duration 1:30h, without intermission

Premiere January 26, 2023, 8 pm, Thalia Gauss