Verrückt nach Trost

Thorsten Lensing, legendary director, is back! To date he has been making a name for himself with successful adaptations of novels, such as David Foster Wallace’s Unendlicher Spaß (Infinite Fun), which was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen and was a guest at asphalt 2021. Now, for the first time, Lensing has written his own piece for the stage, more precisely for the celebrated actors Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung, Ursina Lardi and Devid Striesow, some of whom he has been working with for 20 years. 

“Verrückt nach Trost” (“Madly seeking solace”), premiered at the 2022 Salzburg Festival, was co-produced by the asphalt Festival and will finally come to Düsseldorf in summer 2023!

The siblings Charlotte and Felix, ten and eleven years old, play their dead parents on the beach. They have been observing this ritual at the seaside for years. In memory of their parents’ wild exuberance, they rub sun cream on their backs and tickle each other until they can hardly breathe. For brief moments, all sadness falls away from them. Again and again, however, the different needs of the two children intrude on the game.

The children Charlotte and Felix come out of the sea and play their dead parents on the beach. It’s a ritual the two have been practicing for years. In memory of their parents’ wild exuberance, theyrub sun cream on their backs and tickle each other until they can hardly breathe. For brief moments, all sadness falls away from them. Again and again, however, the different needs of the ten- and eleven-year-old siblings break into the game.

While their untamed imagination determines the first part of the production, the second part focuses on adulthood and the siblings going their separate ways.

The audience accompanies the characters over several decades. The ensemble of four outstanding theatre, film and TV actors embodies people from childhood to old age just as magnificently it does the parts of animals. During this performance, which is like a “firework of acting” (ORF), we encounter hungry babies in huge car parks, injured pole vaulters, talking octopuses, death-worshipping divers, people who can’t feel their own bodies, cows on the day of slaughter, nursing robots and the dying awaiting their death in an old people’s home. They are all driven by the fear of having lost their way and the great longing for a sense of being truly alive. This is a glorious piece of theatre, full of heart-wrenching comedy.

– – –
The press says:

“A magical moment of theatre” (taz)

“The most beautiful, comforting and brightest performing theatre currently on show. There is no director who allows the actors as much freedom as Thorsten Lensing. Three and a half hours of theatre and not one wasted minute.” (RBB)

“The stellar ensemble plays animals and children – and does so superbly.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

“Gorgeous piece of theatre” (FAZ)

“Lensing and his four terrific actors are driven by the desire to enter simply everything, every animal and every human being, even things, just as a ghost or a curse enters something.” (DIE ZEIT)

“A rather quiet piece of wonder theatre between everyday life and exaggeration, between well-situated situational and dialogue wit and melancholic crashes, enigmatically disguised as burlesque.” ( nachtkritik)