What the latest play by Nobel-Prize winner Peter Handke is about cannot be reduced to a short, snappy formula. In a kind of poetic journey of exploration, a poet traverses the world and it traverses him. In this encounter, language is what happens, a song, or rather a song in search of an echo, a counterpart. "Or maybe not." The person on stage speaking non-stop, making silly jokes, dreaming and marvelling – he's playing with us. Until he disappears and someone else takes over.
A coproduction by the Salzburger Festspiele and the Berliner Ensemble.
A person wanders around, amidst all the complexity of the world, not a clearly defined character, but one that traverses both inner and outer landscapes. In search of a 'you' – "or maybe not"? A self-interrogation perhaps, a farewell melody possibly. How do you speak about the world without exerting control over it? Peter Handke has always taken a new measure of the world – using language and in defiance of its deterioration. In this new play too, he remains faithful to this poetic form of exploration – perhaps more radically, more delicately than ever, but not without humour, that self-deprecating irony he uses to nonchalantly undermine his own seriousness. All "yesterday’s news"? And what if it is?
The person dances with language, allows themselves to digress and be silly, loses themselves very deliberately – until that one person speaking non-stop steps back, departs, disappears and someone else takes over.
Peter Handke, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2019, revolutionised the theatre with works such as "Publikumsbeschimpfung" ("Offending the Audience") and "Immer noch Sturm" ("Storm Still"). His latest text will now be produced for the very first time at the Salzburger Festspiele – directed by Jossi Wieler. A "song without a refrain" about seeing, questioning, enduring and rejoicing in the moment of disappearance. "Or maybe not."
- Jossi Wieler Regie
- Anja Rabes Bühne & Kostüme
- Biber Gullatz Musik
- Steffen Heinke Licht
- Sibylle Baschung Dramaturgie
