Yael Ronen (GER/ISR)

A play about interpersonal entanglements, private and collegial sensitivities and the question of the responsibility of art in times of crisis and war.

A not-so-distant future: climate change has continued unabated, many species are already extinct, vast land areas are barely inhabitable… A race begins to see who deserves to survive. Welcome to the Alien Entertainment Reality Show, where humans compete with chicken, panda, ant, etc. for the repopulation of the Earth as the only surviving species!

„It is a tremendously palatable and cleverly written play. […] There are scenes of confrontation between the actresses that get deep under the skin, but at the same time are very funny, and contain deep and uncomfortable truths about the relationship between parents and children, especially mothers and daughters. It’s conventional, but not at all sentimental and corny.“ – André Mumot, Deutschlandfunk Kultur (originally in German)

Elinor is in her mid-50s, has found enlightenment and lives in a cave.
After a call that can be interpreted as an emergency, Luna, Elinor’s daughter, and Gabriella, Elinor’s ex-lover, want to find her. Accompanied by Greg, Elinor’s 20-year-old lover, they cross the dangerous Dead Sea desert and plunge into an ocean of hurt feelings. Due to her bipolar disorder, Elinor seems to have failed all-around as a person, a partner, and a mother. Now she has cancer in its final stage. She has just enough time to celebrate a full moon ceremony and to bequeath her tangled manuscripts.

„[Yael Ronen and her co-author Dimitrij Schaad] have knitted a sparking political tabloid comedy out of the conspiracy theme – and Ronen has directed it full steam ahead, as usual.“ – Fabian Wallmeier, rbb24 (originally in German)

The troll factories – they really exist. Here, the most blatant stories are hatched day and night and carefully packaged into news, stories and social media posts. The Queen is a reptile! JFK is still alive! Fact checking was yesterday, these days only likes count. And so, just before the election in an influential country, this lies producing machine catapults a ‘people’s candidate’ to the political top….

The production was invited to the Theatertreffen 2022.

„The music is a blast. Composer Shlomi Shaban has given the actors and actresses, who perform sensationally, a motley mix that ranges from melancholy blues to cheerful pop. The lyrics are witty, the music rousing.“ – Katrin Pauly, Berliner Morgenpost (originally in German)

„The inventor of the crisis boulevard genre, with her disaster-steeled cast, achieves the feat of a melancholy, perplexed, personal and comic performance. Gorki visitors are guaranteed to get through the crisis mentally healthier (and in a better mood) than the pitiful rest of the population.“ – Peter Laudenbach, tip Berlin (originally in German)

„Despite an occasional superficial slipperiness, this evening proves one thing for sure: theater is still salvageable – because no artificial intelligence in the world will ever be able to reproduce the tongue-in-cheek magic with which the joyfully committed players encounter here the big questions of being a human.“ – Stefan Forth, nachtkritik (originally in German)