“In the end, it’s just money that you put in somewhere in the hope that it will multiply,” says Jens Thaler. The financier sits with the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Friedrich Schneider on light brown velvet cushions in his living room and drinks expensive whiskey. It’s about a business deal. Friedrich is about to have a breakthrough with a new drug, but he needs money.
But Heiko Dietz’s premiere of “Dysphoria” – a conceptual reference to dysphoria, the opposite of euphoria – at the theater is far from just about money… and so on. Dietz, who is not only the author of the evening, but also directs and is on stage as Jens Thaler, has the meeting of the two businessmen constantly interrupted by Friedrich’s family and the friend of the house, thus bringing a few more topics into the evening.
There is Anna, Friedrich’s wife. She repeatedly speaks of “Hoa o te ra’a”, the “friends of the sun”, Maria Margarethe Brunauer makes her remain a mystery to the audience with her fixed gaze. Her marriage to Johannes Haag’s Friedrich is broken and toxic. Daughter Leya (Cindy M. Rössler) feels misunderstood by her father and his generation. And Friedrich’s son Nathan (Daniel Holzberg) tries in vain to explain to his father that he wants to live as a woman after gender reassignment – but his father doesn’t listen.
Who do I want to be? How do I find myself? The focus of the not-so-perfect family is primarily on one thing: the search for happiness, identity and the feeling of arrival. This manifests itself very differently among the characters. Dietz also addresses topics such as transsexuality, generational conflicts and toxic relationships, which are almost lost between all the storylines. “Dysphoria” also criticizes so-called “financial pornography” – the ruthless pursuit of profit at all costs, often at the expense of human well-being.
The six-member ensemble tells all of this authentically on stage, alternating between serious, thoughtful moments and funny moments. At the end of the exciting but also funny evening, you leave the theater with a thoughtful but positive feeling and the words of the final song: “Don’t punish yourself, punish yourself”.
“Dysphoria” by Heiko Dietz, performances until November 3rd, Theater … and so on, Hinterbärenbadstraße 2, undsofort.de