As part of the municipal theater program, the play "Things I Know for Sure" by Andrew Bovell can be seen on Saturday, 23 March 2024, at 8 pm in the Idar-Oberstein Municipal Theatre. The play, which was awarded the 1st INTHEGA Prize DIE NEUBERIN 2022, is a production by the Ernst Deutsch Theater Hamburg under the guest direction of the Thespiskarren touring theater.
This humorously melancholy well-made play, which is also frequently performed in German-speaking theaters, is a stroke of luck for the theater and a feast for actors. The term refers to well-crafted plays, preferably from the English-speaking world. Things I Know for Sure" falls into this category, because every word is in the right place here: not a sentence is said too much, but not a word is said too little either.
Andrew Bovell: "The play unfolds through the four seasons, in each of which one of the adult children experiences an identity crisis. The emphasis of the play is not so much on these four crises, but on the impact they have on the parents." In the summer, the youngest daughter Rosie returns from Europe, where a handsome young man has broken her heart. In the fall, the older daughter, Pip, decides to leave her husband and children to pursue a professional opportunity overseas and also a more fulfilling relationship. In the winter, eldest son Mark shocks his parents when he declares he plans to start a new life in Sydney as Mia. And in the spring, youngest son Ben reveals that he has been embezzling money.
Because the youngest daughter lists the things that she knows are important to her at the beginning and end of the play, the audience quickly gets to know the Price family of six. It grows on you because they are like many families who laugh and mourn, love each other, argue and make up, but of course also keep many of their hopes, plans and insights from each other. And so, at the end of the year through which the play accompanies parents, children and siblings, many things are no longer as they were at the beginning. Bovell observes very closely what separates children and parents and what holds them together - never sentimentally, but with loving objectivity and great precision, which makes the text all the more effective on stage.
- Tickets are available in advance at www.ticket-regional.de and at the affiliated ticket agencies.