All of it
2024 \ theatre play \ State Theatre Cottbus \ German Premiere
Text Alistair McDowall (German translation by John Birke) Director Rafael Ossami Saidy Set, costume, video designer Susanne Brendel Music Simon Kluth Dramaturg Franziska Benack with Sophie Bock, Nathalie Schörken, Lucie Luise Thiede, Susann Thiede Assistant director Elisa Freigang String quartet for musical recordings (members of the philharmonic orchestra) Anja Velea, Jana Jannaschk, Uwe Jannaschk, Dan Constantin Velea
A whole life in fast-forward. With ALLES (All of it), Alistair McDowall has created a text that literally follows the path of its protagonist from the cradle to the grave.
The text focuses on the inner language of a woman, in a direct and pure way: the first baby sounds, the gradual discovery of the world, puberty, first love, first sex. Her studies, the start of her career. Books, movies, songs. Vacations and the daily routine. Getting married, having a child, getting divorced and saying goodbye. Career plans, hopes and disappointments, illnesses, retirement, the gradual disappearance, and at the end the same rushing as at the beginning, now no longer full of promise, but richer in experience.
In the German-language premiere, this text comes to life in the backstage area of the theater. Walking through the theater, struggling, pushing, wandering, discovering, and wafting on, the text here becomes the basis for the passage of a life. From birth to death, from the canteen to the big stage, the theater makes the stages of a life tangible, with the means of the theater in all places of the theater.
Photos © Bernd Schönberger