A therapist alone cannot help this client in Patricia Görg’s radio play Animal therapy. Because the analyst knows a lot about people’s psyches. But not with that of birds. And certainly not with that of shoebills. This is an African bird species that was once classified as a stork, but is now classified as a pelican. Of course, an identity conflict is already programmed into a shoebill. And that’s not the client’s only mental suffering.
So the therapist consults experts for the total of seven sessions: an ornithologist, of course, and also a couple who have already raised hundreds of birds in their apartment. Furthermore, an eccentric whose passion is to grasp reality from the perspective of animals. And finally, when all else fails, the therapist invites an albatross into her practice.
Is this client just imagining herself as a shoebill? What if not?
The client suffers greatly from her existence as a shoebill. Their conspecifics live in the swampy areas of the White Nile as so-called lurking hunters. They are rewarded for standing still for hours, which suggests to the animals, whose predator is the shoebill, that there is no danger. “In order to survive, I have to fish in troubled waters,” laments the person being treated, who doesn’t want to accept the fact that she has to be as inconspicuous as possible. She would much rather be a flying artist, a petrel – an animal that is admired for its boldness and elegance. And not one with a head reminiscent of an Arabian slipper.
By setting up her story as an animal fable, Patricia Görg can easily push the characters’ problems into the very comical and absurd. The charm of Christiane Ohaus’ production lies in the fact that the actors – especially Barbara Nüsse and Maja Schöne in the main roles – give their characters a great deal of seriousness. The therapist, the client, and the many counselors take the issues discussed very seriously and deal with them conscientiously.
Together, the author, the director and the actors bring their listeners to the point where they too begin to at least consider that this client is not just imagining that she is a shoebill. What if she actually is? What kind of fatal existence would that be? It’s bad enough as a bird to have to live among people who don’t believe it. And instead of dissuading them from their false assumption with the pride of an eagle or with the lightness of a swallow or at least with the cheek of a sparrow, you stand still and dumb as a shoebill between them. No need to mention what color their plumage is – exactly: gray.
Animal therapyNDR Kultur, September 20, 2023, 8 p.m.