Serge

In the organizer's words:

Serge - by Yasmina Reza - translated from the French by Frank Heibert and Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel - German premiere on March 18, 2023 - Schauspielhaus, Kleines Haus - Drama

The Poppers, a Parisian family: Marta, the mother, survived the Holocaust in Hungary as a little girl. Edgar, the father, a Viennese Jew, lost his father, grandmother and aunt in Theresienstadt.

Serge, Jean and Nana, the children, are growing up with stories of their family that they either can no longer hear or have never heard. On the other hand, the children didn't ask for them either. And when first Edgar dies and then later Marta, their granddaughter Joséphine wants to travel to Auschwitz with her whole family. This puts the Poppers' sense of family to the test. Yasmina Reza's montage of the disparity of the simultaneous, the distance between the past and the present, is very funny and painful at the same time, clever without reproach. The story of the three siblings, their parents and their children continues after the journey....

"The Popper family's visit to the camps is an important part of 'Serge,' but not the core of the book," author Reza said in an interview. Yasmina Reza is best known to theater audiences for her internationally successful plays "Art" and "God of Carnage." She loves language, keeps it moving - and thus also keeps the whole already completely neurotic Popper family on its toes. That's the joke and wisdom of "Serge": as long as we talk, we live, at almost any cost. As long as we talk, we remember.

Selen Kara is directing for the first time at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. The successful director works, among others, at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Nationaltheater Mannheim and the Schauspiel Dortmund. Starting in the 2023/24 season, she will direct Schauspiel Essen together with Christina Zintl.