Sechs Personen suchen einen Autor

A family barges in on a theatre rehearsal. Six characters of an as yet unwritten play, who demand to perform their tragedy. Since the lack of a good play had made the rehearsal pointless so far, they are invited to proceed.
The drama of a premodern patchwork-family unfolds: When the father found out about an affair between the mother and his scribe, he insisted that she leave him and their mutual son. In her relationship with her new husband, the mother had three more children. Years later, the father runs into his oldest step-daughter at a brothel. A family reunion is attempted, but the son refuses all contact with his mother, his step-sister and her two younger siblings, who finally come to a tragic end – but whether this is in the play or in reality becomes a matter of wild debate between the family and the theatre people. 
    The six characters feel unfinished, neglected by their author. The father demands that the “drama within them” finally be completed – and the director decides to turn their family history into a play. But it proves hard to find common ground. They get lost in arguments – not understanding that one party talks about life, while the other is looking for the perfect illusion.
How real is reality? “People have the need to fool themselves continually by the creation of a reality that reveals itself to be vain and illusory”, Pirandello wrote. With his most famous play, first performed in 1921, the Sicilian Nobel Prize Winner for Literature revolutionised the theatre by creating an absurdly comical amalgamate of play and reality. Pirandello chose the theatre itself as a subject for the theatre and not only revealed the playing of roles as the theatre’s illusion, but also life itself as a theatrical game with roles and masks, which sometimes shroud the naked void.
Moritz Sostmann studied puppetry at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch“ in Berlin. After years of working as a freelance actor for film, television and theatres like Theater Basel, Schauspielhaus Wien, Hebbel Theater and Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, he now works predominantly as a director in Berlin, Halle, Lucerne and Dresden, among others. His work combines acting with puppetry, with an interest in exploring the rivalry between people and dolls, naturalness and artificiality, reality and projection. Since the 2013/14 season, Moritz Sostmann has been associate director at Schauspiel Köln.