Dislocation (Versetzung)

Ronald seems to have everything. Privately, his wife Kathleen has wonderful news to share, and at work, he is about to take over as headmaster from Schütz, who is going into retirement. Ronald is the perfect teacher: genuinely respected while also being chummy – loved by his students and needed by his colleagues, respected by parents and valued by his boss. He is charismatic, intelligent and a good talker. But Ronald has a secret, an illness that defined his past and threatens his future.And of course he also has weaknesses, people who envy him, and adversaries. When suddenly things begin to slide, Ronald is left standing at the abyss.

Based on the autobiographical novel The World at Your Back (Die Welt im Rücken), in which he chronicles the experience of suffering from manic depression, Thomas Melle injects the same fate into the main character of Dislocation. In this commissioned work for the Deutsches Theater, he superimposes universally valid questions onto the projection screen of Ronald’s bipolar disorder: questions regarding accountability and participation, responsibility and trust, success and reputation. How does our performance-oriented and health-obsessed society react when one of its participants is evidently mentally ill? What is reality and what is not? Is everything truth or lies? Where does the norm lie? Who are we? And when it comes down to it, would we rather be victims or perpetrators?

Nominated for Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis 2018
Invited to Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2018