Antigone. Der Abschied

Chris wants to finally put the past behind him. Together with his new partner and her child, he wants to start a new life. Also living in the house with them is Issy, his late brother’s daughter. To finally be able to make a fresh start, Adam’s ashes are to be buried. The family is just waiting for Chris’s good friend, who is also overseeing the renovation of the house—and, above all, for Annie, Adam’s older daughter. But when Annie finally returns after years of absence, she brings with her something that stands in the way of this fresh start: the demand for justice. Injustice that has been suppressed for years is coming to the surface.

A struggle erupts between Annie and Chris over the true nature of memory, over whether to draw a line under the past or to confront it, and over the possibility of finally making peace with the past.

With the German-language premiere of his play “Antigone. Der Abschied,” British author and director Alexander Zeldin returns to the Schaubühne and continues his exploration of social and familial relationship dynamics.

Inspired by characters, themes, and conflicts from Sophocles’ tragedy “Antigone,” the play tells the story of people trying to assert their place in a world whose social and emotional orders have become fragile. As in “Beyond Caring” and his productions “LOVE,” “Faith, Hope and Charity,” and “The Confessions”—which were presented at FIND (Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik)—Zeldin once again turns his attention to what often remains invisible in life: vulnerability, dependence, and the subtle forms of violence within family and social structures.