»How I succeeded, how I could ever actually succeed in pulling myself out of the misery and insanity of my family, out of those depths that couldn’t be any deeper or more abysmal or miserable, and managed to become a halfway normal person, I was never able to fathom.« The story begins with a dark brown woollen sweater.
Image gallery
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Eurotrash | Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
The first-person narrator Christian Kracht buys it in Zurich in Parade Square, at a stall selling hand-knitted items. Later, back at his hotel, he finds a brochure in the shopping bag – the knitting commune is in the same place as he was born. And so he and his eccentric, gravely ill mother set off on one last road trip together.
With a taxi and 600,000 francs, plenty of vodka and sleeping pills, a Zimmer frame and a colostomy bag, they head into the Swiss Alps and simultaneously on a journey into their own family history – a history shaped by a glamorous jet set, Nazi past, abuse, sickness and addiction. The encounter between mother and son curdles into a shared – but also, frequently competing – act of remembrance. What should be brought back to life and revealed? What should remain unspoken, forgotten and repressed?
In his first production at the Schaubühne, Jan Bosse is adapting Christian Kracht’s latest novel for the stage as a two-hander with Joachim Meyerhoff and Angela Winkler in the leading roles.
