Ein Teil der Gans im Haus der Lüge

The play starts off in classic comedy manner, with marital problems, little annoyances, slapstick and some crass language. But the man who rang the doorbell is not the expected guest. It’s a stranger. His car broke down and he’s asking if he could wait for the tow truck in the stressed-out couple’s apartment. That’s just too much for Bettina, who’s trying to make sure everything, both dinner and her life, goes by plan.

As the guests Amin and his wife Tara arrive, a stranger is sitting outside the door in the cold. The carefully balanced bourgeois appearance is flawed. The hostess gets tangled up in confused explanations; the soufflé, language and any trace of political correctness quickly turn sour. And though the friendship is rather superficial, suddenly the fact of the failed social event and the incommensurability of the life aspirations are on the table.

Author Martin Heckmanns teases out certitudes of language and identity, ramping up the play into a systematic verbal exchange of blows about the legitimacy of entitlement to ownership and the competitive rat race.

Director Simone Blattner works closely together with Martin Heckmanns. She has directed the premieres of several of his plays (her productions of «Schiess doch Kaufhaus» and «Kränk» premiered in 2003 and 2004, respectively, at the Mühlheimer Theatertagen). «Ein Teil der Gans» premiered in 2007 at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater. Martin Heckmanns has revised the final scene of «Gans» especially for the premiere at Theater Neumarkt.