Krankheit der Jugend (Pains of Youth)

A production like an autopsy: the audience sit on four sides gazing upon a bare stage, which is a dissecting room, a boxing ring and a pressurized chamber in one. Six young people looking for goals and values, for success, careers, sex and love. The search for oneself is a struggle against oneself and others. Bruckner’s expressionist representation of a disillusioned and psychosocially deformed generation of young people after the First World War is taken here in a concentrated version as a pattern against which the investigations of contemporary youths can unfold, accompanied by live Tocotronic songs. The performances of the six actors, who, like director Tilman Köhler and Bruckner’s characters, are in their mid-twenties, are characterized by rhythm, authenticity and a clear and powerful expression. The production manages to link 1926 and 2006; in this way Bruckner’s “Pains of Youth” in Weimar becomes exciting, young and lively contemporary theatre.