Why do I write? A strange question for which there is just one conclusive answer: Why not?
I cannot explain my pieces so I’m happy to borrow terms used by others, terms like dark comedy, farce or grotesque which I can well relate to. When I look at the pieces of the last ten years, it would appear that my main interest is to address the limited means available to the individual to transcend social boundaries, the conditioning by the social environment and doomed acts of denial.
Rebekka Kricheldorf 1974 born in Freiburg im Breisgau, lives in Berlin. She studied Romance philology at the Humboldt University Berlin (1995 – 1997) and then Creating Writing for the Stage at the Berlin University of the Arts (1998 -2002). In 1999 she attended an internship at Theater Lüneburg/Germany and in 2004 she was in-house author at Nationaltheater Mannheim/Germany. She was artistic director and in-house author at Theaterhaus Jena/Germany (2009-2011).
Theatre works
2002 / Schade dass sie eine Hure war, (‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore) by John Ford, 2002, translation commissioned by Theater am Neumarkt, Zurich.
2003 / Prinzessin Nicoletta, (Princess Nicoletta), 2003; first staged: 2003, Stadttheater Giessen, Germany.
2003 / Kriegerfleisch; (Warrior Meat), first staged: 2004, Städtische Bühnen Münster, Germany
2004 / Floreana, 2004; commissioned by Theater am Neumarkt, Zurich.
2005 / Die Ballade Vom Nadelbaumkiller; (The Ballad of the Pine Tree Killer), 2005; commissioned by Staatstheater Stuttgart.
2005 / Schneckenportrait; (Portrait of a Snail), 2005; first staged: 2009, Theater Osnabrück.
2006 / Rosa Und Blanca; 2006, commissioned by Staatstheater Kassel, Germany.
2006 / Landors Phantomtod; (Landor’s Phantom Death), 2006, commissioned by Nationaltheater Mannheim
2006 / Hotel Disparu, in collaboration with directors Erich Sidler and Ingo Kerkhof, 2006; first staged:13.09. 2006 at Theater am Neumarkt, Zurich, on 21.09. 2006 at Sophiensäle Berlin.
2007 / Weisse Teufel, (The White Devil) by John Webster, 2007; translation and stage adaptation for Theater Bonn.
2007 / Neues Glück Mit Totem Model; (A New Life With The Dead Model), 2007; commissioned by Staatsschauspiel Dresden.
2009 / Der Kopf Des Biografen; (The Biographer’s Brain), 2009; commissioned by Theater Osnabrück, Germany.
2009 / Das Ding Aus Dem Meer; (The Thing from the Sea), 2009; commissioned by Staatstheater Kassel, Germany.
2009 / Mechanische Tiere; (Clockwork Animals), 2009; commissioned by Stadttheater Bern.
2009 / Villa Dolorosa; 2009; commissioned by Theaterhaus Jena, Germany.
2009 / Ein Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) by William Shakespeare, 2009; translation and stage adaptation for Staatstheater Kassel, Germany.
2010 / Robert Redfords Hände Selig; (God Bless Robert Redford’s Hands), 2010; commissioned by Staatstheater Kassel, Germany.
2010 / Gotham City I – Das Stück; 2010; Theaterhaus Jena, Germany.
2011 / Murder Ballads; 2011; Stadttheater Bern.
2011 / Gotham City II – Der Film; 2011; Theaterhaus Jena, Germany.
2011 / Gotham City III – Das Musical, 2011; Theaterhaus Jena, Germany.
2012 / Der Grosse Gatsby von Scott F. Fitzgerald; (The Great Gatsby) by Scott F. Fitzgerald, 2012; stage adaptation for Schauspielhaus Hamburg
2012 / Testosteron; 2012; commissioned by Staatstheater Kassel, Germany.
2013 / Lysistrata von Aristophanes; 2013; stage adaptation for Theater Osnabrück, Germany.
2013 / Das Kalte Herz von Wilhelm Hauff; (The Cold Heart) by Wilhelm Hauff, 2013; first staged on 18.05.2013; stage adaptation for Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Germany.
Forthcoming:
2013 / Sergeant Superpower Rettet Amerika; (Sargent Superpower Saves America), firts staged: 12.10. 2013; commissioned by Theater Heidelberg.
2014 / Alltag & Ekstase, Daily Life and Ecstasy, 2014, commissioned by Deutsche Theater Berlin, premiere on 17.01.
Villa Dolorosa. Drei missratene Geburtstage
Loosely based on Chekhov’s “Three Sisters”
Synopsis: Irina is celebrating her birthday. She’d hoped for a lavish party with dances and many guests but by now she’s bored. The few guests who’ve come are sitting around on the floor, her brother Andrej has brought along his new girlfriend, already pregnant. Irina’s sisters Olga and Masha are no source of cheer either: Masha is trapped in a loveless marriage and promptly falls in love with Andrej’s only friend Georg, who is married. Olga is the sole breadwinner of the quartet and must feed the entire family. The inheritance from the parents has been wasted and the family villa is crumbling. Unconcerned, Irina is lying in bed, thinking about extending her studies again but she cannot decide what she wants to study next. The birthday parties in the two following years are disappointments as well – due to a fresh pregnancy, an affair, attempted suicides, debts, unemployment and a bleak future – or simply because of bad music or the lack of guests (who’d not been invited in the first place). The relationship between the sisters is put to test, leaving behind a question: does one need a Plan B for life? Or will a therapy do just as well?
Characters: 4 women, 2 men
– Extracts from Villa Dolorosa. Drei missratene Geburtstage –
IRINA All of the social sciences is highly dodgy.
MASCHA What’s dodgy is this course hopping. And that has simply nothing to do with working. Intellectual work has nothing to do with real work. Real work is sweating and baking bread, only physical labour is real work and anyone who loses touch with it, will fall sick. That’s why we are such a whinging, touchy-feely lot, mentally unstable, because we’ve lost touch with the good earth.
ANDREJ So, looks like you couldn’t stand it for long at the coffee shop on the riverside
MASCHA I just wanted to do something. Anything. Just be with people. I took the first best opportunity.
ANDREJ Bonkers.
MASCHA It was hell. But one must work!
GEORG Sure, you try something that’s totally off and before you notice how weird that is, you’re bang in the middle and find a way out of it or don’t, depends. What’s important is, you tried, or perhaps didn’t, depends.
MASCHA Boutique Jessica is looking for a salesgirl. I think I’ll apply.
ANDREJ Bonkers, bonkers, bonkers.
IRINA What a load of crap, Mascha. Study something, educate yourself.
MASCHA Education stifles you. Just look at you. More contact with the good earth, I say. I plant tomatoes on the balcony in spring. And cucumber. And sage. And basil. Can you even tell them apart, sage and basil?
GEORG Earlier, I wanted to study history, now I’m the boss of a packaging company.
It’s too late to turn back. Day after day with those witless colleagues. You’ve got a life ahead of you, you could change something.
MASCHA Great. Twenty five and I’ve already forgotten how to live. What am I supposed to do? I don’t have skills, I have no interests, I let myself be stuffed by my husband like a bourgeois nineteenth century wife. Pathetic.
IRINA You should go out more. We could go out together again.
MASCHA Go out? And meet all those people who’re going to tell me boring stories about their small, boring lives? No thanks. I don’t think I could handle so much misery.
IRINA For Christ’s sake Mascha. So stay at home and read something.
MASCHA Read? I want to live! I can always read when I’m too old to live. Life stops the moment you open a book and restarts when you’ve slapped it shut. Readers are zombies. Those who read don’t live and those who live don’t read. Only the dead read. Those who live and read are only pretending to live or read. Reading substitutes life. Reading and living is like breathing and holding your breath. A good reader is a bad liver and the other way ‘round.
Irina sighs.
MASCHA You don’t do anything either. The whole day. Nothing.
IRINA I think about things. You don’t think.
MASCHA And what do you think about? Nothing.
IRINA But surely! For example, this morning I thought: man is not an ape. OK, but perhaps everyone around me is an ape, just not me. OK, perhaps I’m an ape too but I’m the dysfunctional special ape who can keep out of everything. Out of the silly rat race for status, sex appeal and respect. I’ll just grit my teeth and hang on until I get out of here to somewhere, where everyone thinks like me. We’ll found a sub-group of special apes into which a hierarchy will eventually seep in. The special apes among the special apes can’t take it much longer, they’ll defect and found a sub-sub-group of special, special apes. Again: enter hierarchy. The super special of the special apes among the special apes will again split. And go where? That is the question.
GEORG Escape route mouldy. That was what a punk band was called in the eighties.
IRINA In the days of the good old D-Mark.
ANDREJ When baddies grew on trees.
MASCHA Brilliant. You are in your 25th semester and thinking about whether you’re so elitist, that you could even be too elitist for the elites among the elite.
IRINA I didn’t say a word about elite.
MASCHA University makes you stupid.
ANDREJ If only she went there. She’s just hanging around.