In order to get back on track after his mother’s first attempt at suicide, the seven-year-old already has the talking sock dog in the hand of a teacher. It also doesn’t take much to follow this boy into adulthood and let his hardships become so vivid that they almost tear you apart.
Philipp Moschitz moves in the café of the Metropoltheater among the guests and picks out people who occupy the roles for a few minutes that also exist in Duncan Macmillian’s monologue “All the Beautiful”: The father, the great love or the Veterinarian who misses the thigh with her pen “syringe” on the jacket that Moschitz is holding in his arms instead of the dying dog Dolly. Only the mother gets no body and no face in Jochen Schölch’s production. She appears in the songs Moschitz sings at the piano and in the lists her son made for her about everything worth living for, ranging from 1. “Ice Cream” to 999,998 “Inappropriate Songs in Emotional Moments ” matures with him.
“All the Beautiful” is the first premiere in the Metropol after the dispute over the supposedly anti-Semitic play “The Birds” and renewed proof that Schölch does not shy away from mined terrain. This time it’s about depression and the tentacles it stretches out into the environment, but also about resilience and comfort. And you can’t do it any more casually than Moschitz pours this rollercoaster of emotions into you.
One moment he’s exuberantly conducting the spectators’ choir, which calls out to him the magical things that make existence unique, a moment later, with tears in his eyes, he’s standing in the black nothingness of his own depression. A great little evening that makes you sad and happy.