Vater

André is eighty years old, a widower and father of two daughters. He notices changes – things disappear, he hides objects, feels threatened, pursued, he loses his orientation in time and space… Looking for traces of himself, the old man is caught up in a world where his life’s story and the relationships it created no longer hold, because the reality that created them is going under, becoming extinguished.

Director Tilo Krügel takes the play by French dramatist Florian Zeller as a point of departure for a multimedia theatrical exploration of the connection between past and present, the continuity of people and knowledge and the question of how we want to grow old in our society. The story of this reduced family of father and daughter is exemplary for the situation of this much quoted nucleus of our society, which is expected to give warmth and yet unable to withstand the outside pressures. Neither the private nor the social realm seem to provide room for the inverse chronology of a life that comes with ageing.

Tilo Krügel has been a member of Schauspiel Leipzig’s acting company since Enrico Lübbe became the theatre’s artistic director. Previously, he had been engaged as an actor at Schauspielhaus Chemnitz, where he was also head of the acting institute “Hans Otto” Leipzig. During this time, he also staged productions in Chemnitz, Gera, Altenburg and Zittau. In 2013, Krügel and his fellow actor Hartmut Neuber founded “Club ü31”, a participatory theatre acting club at Schauspiel Leipzig. Until 2016, Krügel / Neuber created three devised plays with the club.