ODYSSEY

Roland Schimmelpfennig

ODYSSEY

Drama
The new SND building, Drama hall
14. 6. 2019 19:00 h - 20:45 h

Homer’s Odyssey is Europe’s earliest major epic about colonisation and its consequences. As Horkheimer and Adorno pointed out, it also reflects “memory of history when settlement, the prerequisite for every home, followed after the era of nomads.”

The decade of wandering of the mythical Odysseus whose trick decided the result of the war against Troy, who then sailed through the Mediterranean and sought the way back to his native Ithaca, shows how a war abroad turns colonists into nomads and migrants. Odysseus has become his own stranger, whilst also having estranged himself from his homeland and wife Penelope. As an alien he is making a return – but where to?

Roland Schimmelpfennig, whose texts give rise to a new form of drama literature and are widely staged internationally outside German-speaking world, has been commissioned by the Staatsschauspiel Dresden to write anew the Odyssey. Similarly to Homer, in Schimmelpfennig many events do not represent direct narrative of the storyline, but are a description of events that did occur in the past or are a fiction. Penelope loves a teacher who lives in a small car, the teacher keeps on telling always a new story of Odysseus until the latter returns to Ithaca. On the way there, Odysseus and his companions ask a question about what home actually means and whether there is such thing as fundamental right to home. They encounter Cyclop who wants to destroy the intruders, whilst others receive them and celebrate along, though the intoxication of homecoming is bound to be short-lived.

Directed by: Tilmann Köhler
Set design: Karoly Risz
Costumes design: Susanne Uhl
music by: Jörg-Martin Wagner
lighting design: Michael Gööck
dramaturgy: Jörg Bochow

CAST
Luise Aschenbrenner, Albrecht Goette, Eva Hüster, Moritz Kienemann, Hannelore Koch, Philipp Lux, Karina Plachetka, Matthias Reichwald

Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes No interval

Subtitles: sk
Hosted at SND

Note

Hosťovanie Štátnej činohry Dražďany v rámci Festivalu Eurokontext.sk