Susanne Kennedy
Die Selbstmord-Schwestern (The Virgin Suicides)
Based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
“You are now to begin a great adventure, a journey out of your mind.”
Timothy Leary
A conservative, devoutly religious family in North America. Five teenage sisters and their smothering parents. Their home is an enclosed world with no exit in sight. Every juvenile desire or escape plan is crushed under the parents’ all-watching eyes. The Lisbon sisters’ growing sense of suffocation will end in disaster. In the house across the street, a group of boys are spying on the girls, watching the unfolding drama. The mesmerized male gaze transforms the turmoil of the confined sisters into an attraction, a spectacle to be consumed. Susanne Kennedy, a major up-and-coming voice of German theatre, adapts Jeffrey Eugenides’ popular novel (also turned into a film by Sophia Coppola) for the stage. Kennedy employs the technique of voice-over to reconstruct the coming-of-age story of the five doomed sisters from the perspective of the now adult men sifting through their memories and struggling to piece together the details leading to their death. The audience shares the men’s voyeuristic gaze and mentally embarks on their trip down memory lane. This Volksbühne and Münchner Kammerspiele co-production follows the structure of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and incorporates texts by the American psychologist and LSD guru Timothy Leary.
With Greek and English surtitles
4 July / Post-performance talk with the director
Supported by
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Duration 80'
Peiraios 260 (H)
- 04/07 until 05/07/2019 at 21:00
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