Man in the Holocene (Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän)
Based on the story of the same name by Max Frisch
"A path is a path, even in the fog."
Is that a crack in the floor? And what about that big crack running through the grounds? With a dreamlike alertness that stems from loneliness, Mr Geiser keeps an eye on his surroundings. It has been raining for weeks. What if there’s a landslide and the house, the village, the whole valley are buried for all time? Mr Geiser starts to collect: information that mustn’t get lost; dates, facts, lists, notes – to try and fill the increasing gaps in his memory. He suddenly breaks off his night-time attempt to escape to his old home in Basel and returns to his mountainside house. Or had he even been away? You cannot escape your own disappearance.
Max Frisch’s inspiration for Man in the Holocene (1979) was the misfit and hermit Armand Schulthess, who created an encyclopaedic garden in Ticino and attempted throughout his life to reconstruct the human universe. In his first work for the Deutsches Theater, the Swiss director Thom Luz and his ensemble take an associative, musical approach to Frisch’s text, which has taken on fresh relevance in our uncertain times. An attempt at carving an ordered reality out of natural chaos, a dramatic take on the inevitable deterioration of the human body and the inexorable disappearance of the world.
An adaptation by Thom Luz and David Heiligers.
Is that a crack in the floor? And what about that big crack running through the grounds? With a dreamlike alertness that stems from loneliness, Mr Geiser keeps an eye on his surroundings. It has been raining for weeks. What if there’s a landslide and the house, the village, the whole valley are buried for all time? Mr Geiser starts to collect: information that mustn’t get lost; dates, facts, lists, notes – to try and fill the increasing gaps in his memory. He suddenly breaks off his night-time attempt to escape to his old home in Basel and returns to his mountainside house. Or had he even been away? You cannot escape your own disappearance.
Max Frisch’s inspiration for Man in the Holocene (1979) was the misfit and hermit Armand Schulthess, who created an encyclopaedic garden in Ticino and attempted throughout his life to reconstruct the human universe. In his first work for the Deutsches Theater, the Swiss director Thom Luz and his ensemble take an associative, musical approach to Frisch’s text, which has taken on fresh relevance in our uncertain times. An attempt at carving an ordered reality out of natural chaos, a dramatic take on the inevitable deterioration of the human body and the inexorable disappearance of the world.
An adaptation by Thom Luz and David Heiligers.
Director Thom Luz
Music Mathias Weibel
Set Wolfgang Menardi, Thom Luz
Costumes Sophie Leypold
Dramaturgy David Heiligers
Stage lighting Matthias Vogel
Premiere September 23, 2016
Coproduction with the Theater Basel
Coproduction with the Theater Basel
Ulrich MatthesMr Geiser
Judith HofmannElsbeth
Franziska MachensCorinne
Leonhard DeringSon-in-law
Wolfgang MenardiA German solar researcher
Daniele PintaudiArmand Schulthess
Margitta AzadianVisitor
Mohammed AzadianVisitor
Martin HeiseVisitor
Till-Jan MeinenVisitor
Sarah Maria NeugebauerVisitor
Valentin OlbrichVisitor
Nina PhilippVisitor
Thomas ReimannVisitor
Mr Geiser
Elsbeth
Corinne
Son-in-law
A German solar researcher
Armand Schulthess
Margitta Azadian, Mohammed Azadian, Martin Heise, Till-Jan Meinen, Sarah Maria Neugebauer, Valentin Olbrich, Nina Philipp, Thomas Reimann
Visitor
What's on
With English surtitles
Director: Claudia Bossard
DT Kontext: After the performance lecture and talk with Rainald Goetz
DT Bühne
19.30 - 21.50
Introduction at the Rangfoyer
sold out
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
Revival
With English surtitles
Forever Yin Forever Young
A Funny van Dannen Evening
Director: Tom Kühnel and Jürgen Kuttner
Kammer
20.00 - 21.30
sold out
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
perh. remaining tickets at evening box office
[...] Thom Luz is a director who listens in to the original rather than slavishly (and chronologically) recreating it.
The actors roam as shadowy forms around a whitewashed stage, on which an early-morning mist obscures the props: the countless pianos around the edge of the stage, the high platform with the open facade of a house at its centre. The ominous space is partly intersected by searchlights (fantastical light compositions by Matthias Vogel).
Ulrich Matthes brings the personal, concrete, human, and tragic touch to this far-ranging yet deeply insightful evening. Just as the piano occasionally produces just a single tone reminiscent of the chime of a church bell, so Matthes subdues his form of expression as if in the thrall of minimalism.
Thom Luz has given the Deutsches Theater (in cooperation with the Theater Basel) a poetic stage fantasy, a soft, floating season opener with unforgettable lines: "Time has never stopped just because a person is standing at the window and doesn’t know what he’s thinking." This applies to physical time. But in art it sometimes seems as if time stops. In a moment of happiness. What a start to the season at the Deutsches Theater!
[...] Thom Luz is a director who listens in to the original rather than slavishly (and chronologically) recreating it.
The actors roam as shadowy forms around a whitewashed stage, on which an early-morning mist obscures the props: the countless pianos around the edge of the stage, the high platform with the open facade of a house at its centre. The ominous space is partly intersected by searchlights (fantastical light compositions by Matthias Vogel).
Ulrich Matthes brings the personal, concrete, human, and tragic touch to this far-ranging yet deeply insightful evening. Just as the piano occasionally produces just a single tone reminiscent of the chime of a church bell, so Matthes subdues his form of expression as if in the thrall of minimalism.
Thom Luz has given the Deutsches Theater (in cooperation with the Theater Basel) a poetic stage fantasy, a soft, floating season opener with unforgettable lines: "Time has never stopped just because a person is standing at the window and doesn’t know what he’s thinking." This applies to physical time. But in art it sometimes seems as if time stops. In a moment of happiness.
The final scene is really powerful: we see the introverted Geiser standing in the window frame as one semi-transparent curtain after another is lowered between him and us, until he appears to completely disappear. "The final scene is really powerful"
The final scene is really powerful: we see the introverted Geiser standing in the window frame as one semi-transparent curtain after another is lowered between him and us, until he appears to completely disappear.
[...] All these shreds of paper and notes, his little end-of-time bon mots, are cleverly distributed by Thom Luz among different actors and speakers. Ulrich Matthes remains at the centre of the piece, quiet, withdrawn, already slightly broken, but still able to marvel.
Luz does not illustrate the text by Max Frisch, he illuminates it. With a powerful light beam, for example, which repeatedly deflected by the mirrored music stands of the pianos, dissects the room in sharp zigzags (lighting concept Matthias Vogel). [...]
Sometimes it comes across as portentous, but for the most part as supremely poetic, and the way in which Mr Geiser, after an hour and a half, almost disappears before our eyes, is moving. [...] Director Thom Luz has time, or rather takes the time he needs. The Deutsches Theater opens its new season – under the motto "Keine Angst vor niemand" (No Fear of Anyone) – with an eccentric, musical and dreamily beautiful evening. Courageous, because it manages almost entirely without a plot.
[...] All these shreds of paper and notes, his little end-of-time bon mots, are cleverly distributed by Thom Luz among different actors and speakers. Ulrich Matthes remains at the centre of the piece, quiet, withdrawn, already slightly broken, but still able to marvel.
Luz does not illustrate the text by Max Frisch, he illuminates it. With a powerful light beam, for example, which repeatedly deflected by the mirrored music stands of the pianos, dissects the room in sharp zigzags (lighting concept Matthias Vogel). [...]
Sometimes it comes across as portentous, but for the most part as supremely poetic, and the way in which Mr Geiser, after an hour and a half, almost disappears before our eyes, is moving.
[..] In his first work for the Deutsches Theater, the 34-year-old [director] delves into the highly symbolic Geiser universe with achingly beautiful compositions from Bach, Beethoven and Bartók, as well as a stage set perfectly cast in mist: all permeating a well-tempered melancholy. [...] "Humans remain amateurs," says Mr Geiser – managing to imbue this in principle sobering realisation with a sense of astonishment. Because in the way that Ulrich Matthes plays Geiser – very quiet, centred, and somehow also reconciled with himself in his existential crisis – he makes the sentence about dilettante homo sapiens sound almost uplifting.
[..] In his first work for the Deutsches Theater, the 34-year-old [director] delves into the highly symbolic Geiser universe with achingly beautiful compositions from Bach, Beethoven and Bartók, as well as a stage set perfectly cast in mist: all permeating a well-tempered melancholy.