Laios

Thebes is a city of violent excesses when Laios, brought back from exile, ascends to the throne. The citizens’ expectations are immense. But why do the new King and his wife Jocasta remain childless? Is young Chrysippos involved, who accompanied Laios to Thebes, or is an oracle by the seer Pythia the reason? And then the Sphynx appears, a mysterious animal-like creature that spreads terror and chaos. 
King Laios, father of Oedipus, is only a side note in Greek mythology. In the second instalment of their five-part series “ANTHROPOLIS”, author Roland Schimmelpfennig and director Karin Beier place him centre stage with a fictitious monologue supported by ancient sources. This polyphonous text gives a voice to everyone from Laios via the political council of Thebes to Pythia, and is narrated, embodied, performed and interpreted by the brilliant Lina Beckmann, who plays all parts and is fully convincing in every single one.

Statement of the Jury

Following Pentheus – and preceding Oedipus – Laios is the rightful heir to the Theban throne. In the second part of the five-part series “ANTHROPOLIS” Roland Schimmelpfennig has invented a personal biography for this supporting character from the ancient world. He allows space for myths and possibilities as well as for kebab shops and rattling motor scooters. After all, those handed down stories of the ancient Greeks, this “sick shit”, is nothing but conjecture. Gods are at play here, as well as flying cats and banished princes, some of them with pierced feet. Karin Beier needs only few devices to stage this monologue of multiple perspectives with all its versions, variations and maybes. And at the centre of it all, she firmly places the phenomenal Lina Beckmann who fills the black worlds of the stage with roaming assurance. With superb presence of mind, physical suppleness and an overwhelming joy of acting, she invokes a grand, far-away world while always staying in touch with the audience. From the light-heartedness of a teenager via the human abysses of a Butoh-dancer and a politician’s calculations to the calamitous cough of a seer, Beckmann fascinates in alternating characters. But her principal role is that of a highly concentrated, captivating narrator.

Tojuror Katrin Ullmann’s video statement in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library (in German)

ProgrammeBooklet (pdf, 1.8 MB)