Eines langen Tages Reise in die Nacht - In­stru­men­tal­ver­si­on

In the organizer's words:

Play freely adapted from Eugene O'Neill

In cooperation with the Nuremberg University of Music

At night, Mary wanders sleeplessly through the corridors. Morphine in her veins, the fog of the past fills her head. At first glance, her family is happy. Her youngest son Edmund really does just have the flu. But slowly what lies beneath the surface comes to light. Eugene O'Neill draws impressively complex characters in his play about repression and coping with tragedy in a family. Characters who struggle desperately with each other and with themselves. Who love each other passionately and loathe each other deeply at the same time. They all talk an incredible amount - but never really talk to each other. The crucial things remain unspoken or unheard. And therefore unprocessed.

The team led by director Rieke Süßkow tells the play from the mother's perspective. The production finds images for how Mary, who suffers from depression, perceives the world. Above all, the team takes the failure of communication, the impossibility of making oneself understood and really talking to each other, as an opportunity for a special formal experiment: they show the play in an instrumental version. In Mary's ears, where people speak, it is not language that is heard, but music. Each character is assigned an instrument that plays where the characters should speak. Like Mary, we can only guess, only feel what is being said. The text no longer specifies exactly what a character is thinking and saying, and so the production opens itself up to our own discoveries and memories.