“Pension Sch\u00f6ller”, in a version by Thomas Jonigk – freely adapted from the comedy by Wilhelm Jacoby and Carl Laufs.<\/p>\n
Staatstheater Kassel, premiere July 2, 2021<\/p>\n
Alfred Klapproth needs money. His uncle, the landowner Philipp Klapproth, offers it to him – but not without something in return. The uncle has traveled to Berlin especially to attend the soir\u00e9e of a mental hospital – and to experience “real lunatics” for once. The nephew, however, lacks the appropriate contacts and so he promptly declares the Pension Sch\u00f6ller, including its eccentric guests, to be an insane asylum with associated patients. Much to his uncle’s delight, he has a great time and immerses himself voyeuristically in the general madness. With fatal consequences – because: “to consider oneself completely normal is the mildest form of insanity” …
\nThe premiere of Pension Sch\u00f6ller took place in Berlin in 1890, was filmed several times and has since regularly caused tears in the theater, of course with laughter. Thomas Jonigk subjects the play to a fundamental adaptation and transports the supposedly harmless comedy into our Federal Republic reality, in which the boundaries between delusion, grotesquerie, nightmare and political everyday life can often no longer be drawn.<\/p>\n