Sibylle Berg 2019
HASS-TRIPTYCHON – WEGE AUS DER KRISE
By Sibylle Berg (DE)
2 F / 5 H – variable cast size
Comedy
German original text, Swedish translation
They live in isolation, close to the highway. They don’t have much to say to themselves or to others. Their memories aren’t worth mentioning, the future certainly isn’t either and all conversations with the children, neighbours, cats were broken off long ago. The homo europaeus of all genders and ages in Sibylle Berg’s new play have gotten snagged in a queue of automatic replies to the search for meaning. But there are ways out of the crisis!
Berg puts a society in psycho-tectonic precariousness on her therapist’s couch. His name is “Hassmaster” and, in three lyrical flaps of a wing, he leads his patients from analysing misery through recognising anger to resolving all problems. A vicious farce as a Singspiel with music composed by Beni Brachtel.
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Sibylle Berg is a German writer and playwright. She was a puppeteer before she left Weimar for West Germany in 1984. She studied for a short time at the artist’s school Scuola Dimitri in Tessin and eventually worked in a number of jobs. In 1984 she started her career in Hamburg with contributions to various magazines, among them “Die Zeit”, with former chancellor Helmut Schmidt as co-editor. Some of her novels translated into English include: “Sex” (1998). “America” (1999), “Gold” (2000), “The Journey” (2007) and “Man, asleep” (2009). Her plays “Victor’s Life” and “Dog, Woman, Man” were nominated in 2001 and 2002, respectively for the most prestigious award for German speaking playwrights, the Mülheim Dramatists’ Award. In 2008 she was awarded the Wolfgang Koeppen Prize, an award given by writers to writers. Several of her plays have been translated and produced in various countries.
