Existenz - ​Drama about the inconceivable of war

By Lydia Ziemke / suite42

In Wihad Suleiman’s text we encounter four people in the middle of a war who are reduced to their bare EXISTENCE. With them, we experience what it means when everything they take for granted is wiped away before their eyes. The play is set in the past, present and future, where people wrestle to understand their own existence as they lose those close to them, their property, their dreams and their freedom in a dramat- ically changing world. The young playwright Wihad Suleiman uses powerful language and imagery to ex- plore the effects of war on the mind of the individual – directly at the scene of violence, directly in the situation of death. She accompanies her characters to plac- es that are nameless, in delirious states that are full of rage and doubt, hope and desire. And she asks: what does it mean simply to exist? Suleiman writes about the excesses of war as it has always happened and as it might happen anywhere. In doing so, she finds words for the inconceivable and the moments on the margins of existence that allow us to cling on to life.
  
With: Mohamad Al Rashi, Amal Omran, Alois Reinhardt and Corinne Jaber
Director: Lydia Ziemke
Text: Wihad Suleiman
Stage & Costume: Claire Schirck
Co-creation Stage & Costume: Raffaëlle Bloch
Dramaturgy & Translation: Christopher-Fares Köhler
Sound Design & Technical Direction: Nils Lauterbach
Music: Nils Lauterbach & Mohamad Al Rashi
Light Design: Vito Walter
Creative Production: Tammo Walter
Tour- & Stage Management: Rania Shahin
Assistance: Hannes Maar, Alice Faucher, Omar Hamshou, Hazem Saleh, Abeer Mohamed

Premiere 7. July 2023 at Campania Teatro Festival, Naples.
 
A production by suite42 in cooperation with KUNSTFEST WEIMAR, Campania Teatro Festival - Napoli, Theater an der Ruhr - Mülheim and tak Theater Aufbau Kreuzberg - Berlin
 
Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR