Dancing Idiots

Goldie is doing what she loves most: remodeling her house. Her joy in doing so is as contagious as it is disturbing, for Goldie is seriously ill. Despite knowing her impending mortality, she refuses to acknowledge it and plans a future that no longer awaits her. Her cat, Apollo, enjoys her increasing weakness—finally, he can lie on top of her undisturbed and snore to himself. Goldie shares with him all the things that aren't normally spoken to people—often terrifying truths.


Then the doorbell rings unexpectedly: Goldie's father, newly in love, is at the door with his lover. On their way to the sea, they make a spontaneous stop. Unexpectedly, the father, bursting with joy, finds himself at his daughter's deathbed. While he believes he's understood everything, Goldie ultimately struggles with her fate.


Over the course of the evening, the audience experiences the bittersweet farewell with Goldie: wild kayak rides, sleeping cats, boisterous sauna sessions, dancing people, the scent of fresh wood, hardworking construction workers, forgotten baby memories, and the dream of a moon landing.


The American author Denis Johnson, whose prose has been hailed by luminaries such as Jonathan Franzen, Philip Roth, and David Foster Wallace as "goosebump-inducing," "unpretentiously direct," and "brutally funny," once described his characters this way: "I would describe my characters the same way I describe myself: We're dancing idiots."


Since the mid-1990s, director Thorsten Lensing has worked on independent productions and collaborative projects with renowned theaters and festivals such as the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Sophiensäle Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Mousonturm Frankfurt, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, the Münchner Kammerspiele, and deSingel Antwerp. He maintains a permanent ensemble of outstanding actors.

Following successful novel adaptations such as Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" (Friedrich Luft Prize 2014) and David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" (invitation to the Theatertreffen 2019), the premiere of his first play, "Mad for Comfort" (2022, Salzburg Festival), initiated his collaboration with the Berliner Festspiele. This collaboration will continue with the premiere of "Dancing Idiots."



Texts by Denis Johnson and original quotes from NASA's Apollo missions to the Moon


World Premiere

(In German)