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.
Bob and Fran Price have four grown-up children and each of these children experiences a crisis over the course of a year. The children come to their parents with their very different problems, seeking advice, security and acceptance. The youngest daughter, Rosie, returns from Europe to her Australian homeland heartbroken. She longs for the security of her parents' home, a place that she believes will never change. Pip, the eldest daughter, comes home when she wants to leave her husband to start a new life. Son Mark seeks confrontation when he has finally made up his mind to live publicly as a woman. And Ben returns to his parents' house when he embezzles a large sum of money.
The crises are primarily a problem for the parents because they destroy the image they have of the child or the dream they had for the child's future. For the children, on the other hand, the crisis only becomes a serious problem because of the parents, as they do not meet their expectations without realizing that they cannot - and do not have to - live up to them.
The longing that drives children towards their parents is countered by the need to get away from their parents. Because in order to be who they really are, free from the pressure of their parents' expectations, the children have to disappoint their parents. Bob describes his disappointment to his wife: he thought the children would become just like him and Fran, only that they would have it better one day. He and Fran come from the working class; with a lot of hard work and effort, they have managed to finance their dream of happiness and buy their own home. And they have ensured that all opportunities are open to their children. However, they have their own ideas about what these opportunities should be. Above all, the children should be better off financially and materially than they are. Otherwise, they should be in their own image, form a nuclear family and not live so far away from their parents' home.
In his play, Andrew Bovell questions the cracks in the "ideal world" façade of a family with great empathy, acumen and a pinch of humor. 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.