• myth post festum
• anti-hero
• underdog

No one has thought of her for three thousand years, her life has been forgotten, as has her death: unredeemed, Ismene finds herself in an intermediate realm, after an existence without content and a death without memory. Everything about her seems to be determined by others - by the ancient heroes of her family, her father Oedipus, the belligerent brothers Eteocles and Polyneikes, but especially by her sister Antigone, who rebels against the tyranny of her uncle Creon in exemplary fashion - a heroic path that Ismene does not follow. Now, three thousand years later, Dutch author Lot Vekemans has sought out this figure in oblivion and brought her out of the shadows. After an eternity of silence, Ismene confronts her story.

The fact that Susanne Wolff, after her brilliant portrayal of Creon in Ödipus Stadt, also directed by Stephan Kimmig, now plays this role is more than just an irony of theatrical fate. Creon is the man who kills half of Ismene's family, sends her father Oedipus into fatal exile and condemns Antigone to death. After the great Antigone drama, however, there is no bitter confrontation between Creon and Ismene in Lot Vekeman's adaptation of the myth. On the contrary. Both live on in quiet seclusion and when Creon falls seriously ill years later, she patiently nurses him until his death, and so they, the survivors of the myth, form a kind of post-apocalyptic couple in spirit.

Susanne Wolff was nominated for the German Theater Award DER FAUST 2022 as Ismene in SCHWESTER.VON, a film by Jim Rakete based on the production Ismene, Schwester von (director: Stephan Kimmig), Deutsches Theater Berlin, in the category Best Actress.