Lorenz Langenegger

The year is 2048 and the system era has begun. Artificial intelligence has taken over, first in China and then worldwide, by democratic means. A few seconds after it took office, all of humanity's existing problems were solved. The advantages of the system are immense: the available knowledge is used for the benefit of all without exception, goods are distributed equally and all people can be given therapy at the same time. The three outdated AI models Ada, Curie and Davinci are tasked with entertaining people. Together they are to organise the 100th anniversary celebrations for the Declaration of Human Rights. Each of the three models prepares a speech. But are they really among themselves?
In 2048, Lorenz Langenegger takes a look at the future coexistence of humans and systems. How will we manage this? Where will the boundaries be blurred between the two species? And what actually makes us "human"?

Gabriela: "I have a child. I am married. I have a job. An apartment. I - "
Tom: "At last we can be a real family."
Maja: "Now you are running away. Very good. Really really good. What a family! "
Doris: "That's just how I am. That's all. You mustn’t expect too much. "

In the middle of the night Gabriela finds a stranger in her bed. He turns out to be her brother Tom, whom she has not seen for thirty years. How did Tom get into the apartment? Why did her daughter Maja let him in? In the following, we watch how Tom forces his way into Gabriela's life in a sequence of scenes that intersect many layers of time. On the street, he meets Doris for the first time. The door to the apartment on the twenty-first floor is opened by the fifteen-year-old Maja, and Gabriela asks Doris to come into to the living room. Finally, Tom and Gabriela meet in the intimacy of the bedroom. But gradually the mosaic collapses.
At eighteen, Tom left home, leaving the parents he had never believed were his own. He fled from his fifteen-year-old sister, Gabriela, for whom he had fierce feelings. Decades later, the financial crisis ends his career as a banker and he takes up the search for his real parents. In the addict Doris, he claims to have found his mother. And now he is there to convince Gabriela that he is not her brother and there are no obstacles to their love.

Family - ties, expectations, trust and closeness, but also separations, deception, distrust and distance - Lorenz Langenegger 's new play illuminates this complex of topics and thereby holds many things in the balance.

Four people meet on a cruise ship to Greece and join up in groups of two on the ship’s deck. Three are trying to escape their own lives. There is the young man who got cold feet three days before the wedding and is now taking his honeymoon trip alone. And the elderly man who has left his family because of a young woman who does not want to know anything about him. And the older woman who lost her husband three months earlier. Only one young woman has an end goal in sight: she is on the ship to travel to Patmos, where her German boyfriend is working in a hotel and is waiting for her.

The dialogues between the characters are initially distinguished by the fact that everyone talks only about himself, is not heard by the others and does not listen to them. In the ensuing sequence of one-on-one dialogues, they meet more openly, begin to get to know each other, to give things away. But the talks always end noncommittally. The end of the journey is also the end of their relationships; everyone goes back to their life alone.

The time after the cruise is over is present throughout the play. Deferred, retrospective monologues, in which the four travelers reflect on their subjective perception, make reference to the future. In the end, each figure will claim to have found happiness.

"The characters take us on a treasure hunt through biographies which are not unlike our own, in pieces that trace criminal psychograms without wrongdoing as if they were on the drawing board." (Ann-Marie Arioli, Stückwerk 4, deutschschweizer Dramatik, Theater der Zeit)

"Too high. I said that before. It is much too high.
What a mistake! ...
She understands my message.
She comes.
And when this error is taken care of, along with all the other errors.
Then finally. Yes.
Then it'll all be fine. "

On the eve of his 65th birthday, the father arrives at the mountain hut and waits for the arrival of his daughter. Climbing to the summit with her, as she wanted to do since she was seven years old, has become a symbol for everything he has missed out on in his daughter’s life since the end of his marriage. While he waits, he speaks to his host in the hut.

The next day, the daughter also speaks to the host, when, at his warning, she arrives at the hut after her father has attempted the ascent alone and has not returned. Lorenz Langenegger's skill in intertwining these two time levels and in jumping back and forth between the short scenes allows the story of father and daughter to unfold gradually and subtly. At the same time, it symbolizes the apparently insuperable distance between them. Many things remain intimated and ambiguous—such as the father's dearest memory, of his little daughter sleeping - "Innocent. Like nothing else I've seen in my life. " To which his daughter replies, "I can’t stand it. You can’t do that. Not any more."

Mika gets out of jail after eighteen months. He was convicted of torture. He didn’t know how the refugee couple with the child got into his van. And he cannot explain the five thousand euros in the glove compartment. But his childhood friend Flo knows where the money came from. And he knows that Mike's girlfriend Conny knows it, too. They both remained silent in court. Flo is plagued by his conscience. He wants to start with a clean slate and talk to Mika. The fateful story takes its course.

"Lorenz Langenegger wins the play competition of the Schaubühne.. The jury ... praises the striking dramaturgy and the economic language of Rakows Dom. The characters are, in the opinion of the jury, strongly drawn, and Langenegger succeeds in a humorous portrayal of the cosmos of a small-town society... Rakows Dom describes the madness of the faith in money and power, the absurdities of political mechanisms, and the great repression of a family lie. " (Press release Schaubühne Berlin)

In past centuries, rich and powerful families built castles or churches. Today they collect art, begin charitable foundations which try to do something about the misery of the world, host a football club or win sailing competitions. But what if a man wants to build a cathedral today? Is this a great idea, one that opposes small-minded resistance, or is it rather a matter of overweening arrogance—one which must be stifled in the bud? Why is the pastor opposed to the new house of God, and why do the artists support it, even though their ateliers must give way to the splendor? Mrs. Rakow and the city mayor support the project from a professional standpoint.
The delicate Junior misses his sister, Jelena, blames his father for sending her to a sanatorium, and does not show much enthusiasm for the plans of his parent. The girl from the College of Art, on the other hand, has retained her artistic virginity for a work of such proportions and is determined to fulfil Rakow's desire that she marry Junior in what will be the opening ceremony of the century. And all this, only because I wanted to write a play about someone who wants to build a cathedral because he has a thing for domes. (Lorenz Langenegger)

In the context of the 7th International New Dramatic Festival (F.I.N.D.7) of the Schaubühne, the play was presented in a scenic reading arranged by Sebastian Nübling.

A city park at night. Six residents of the city are spending time there for a variety of reasons. Markus, who works too much, and until late in the evening, meets once a week with Amir at the pond. Amir, on the other hand, has too much time. He is not allowed to work, but his family in his home country is in dire need of money to pay a lawyer to find his imprisoned sister. Last summer, he met Lena, who was enjoying her holidays with a friend on the Mediterranean.

Lena persuaded her friend Bastian to pack their tent and sleeping bags so that they could join the protest in the park. Bastian is a paramedic and does not understand what happened to his girlfriend, and why she is constantly being called by Amir, even though she claims to barely know him.

Bastian walks away and meets Sabine, who is looking for Markus, because their joint son is in the quarantine station of the local hospital with an infection. Sabine fears losing her husband. Since the birth of the child, Markus' worries are spinning out of control. His professional analyses penetrate the private sphere. He wants to build a safe harbor for his son, a net that will catch him when all else fails.

Anna sometimes gets her times of day mixed up, and so she goes for a walk at night. After the death of her husband, who worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she lived alone in the apartment with a view of the park. Until she fell on the street and Amir helped her up—Amir, who needed a roof over his head for the cold season.

Did Lena decide? Who killed Markus? Why does Amir already have a new phone number? Has Sabine been infected by her son? The characters are caught up in a finely knitted network of dialogues. One door opens the next. Rooms open - and abysses. There are no certainties. All these encounters invite different interpretations.