Tanzende Idioten

Ursina Lardi, Karin Neuhäuser, Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung: This top-class ensemble of outstanding theatre, film and TV actors, together with drummer Willi Keller, embody survivors on their way to the next catastrophe – in a ludicrous mixture of brutality and tenderness, anarchy and metaphysical instincts, existential pain and joie de vivre. The new play by cult director Thorsten Lensing, co-produced by asphalt, premieres in Berlin on 15 January 2026 and can then be seen in Düsseldorf in the summer. In this grand theatrical production, Lensing incorporates texts by the renowned contemporary American author Denis Johnson as well as original quotes from NASA’s Apollo missions to the moon.

Goldie does what she loves most: renovating her house. Her joy in doing so is as infectious as it is disturbing, because Goldie is seriously ill. She represses the fact that she is dying and plans a future that she no longer has. Her cat Apollo enjoys her increasing weakness: at last he can lie on her undisturbed and snore endlessly. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Goldie’s newly enamoured father stands at the door with his lover. They are on their way to the seaside in their motorhome and decided to pay Goldie a surprise visit.Unexpectedly, the father, who is bursting with happiness, finds himself at his own daughter’s deathbed. He believes himself at the beginning, she knows herself at the end. Throughout »Tanzende Idioten« (Dancing Idiots), the audience experiences everything that makes saying goodbye so difficult alongside Goldie: wild kayaking trips, sleeping cats, sauna visits that get out of hand, dancing people, the smell of fresh wood, energetic construction workers, forgotten memories of a baby and the dream of a moon landing …

Director Thorsten Lensing has been staging independent productions since the mid-1990s, mostly in co-production with theatres and festivals. He always works with a core group of exceptional star actors, some of whom he has been associated with for 20 years. Lensing has already been a guest at the asphalt Festival with »Unendlicher Spaß« und »Verrückt nach Trost«. Lensing is successful throughout Europe, and many of his works have won awards. Author Denis Johnson is highly regarded by his peers, such as Jonathan Franzen, Philip Roth and David Foster Wallace for his »goosebump-inducing«, »unpretentious, direct« and »brutally funny« prose. Denis Johnson said of his own work: »I would describe my characters in the same way as myself: we are dancing idiots.«

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What the press says:

»A triumph. Thorsten Lensing is back, and with him his star ensemble of Ursina Lardi, André Jung, Sebastian Blomberg and Karin Neuhäuser. Based on motifs by US author Denis Johnson, they have conjured up an evening that lightens the burden of existence.« 
nachtkritik on the preview performance

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