Alexander Müller-Elmau

Die Verschwundenen
1 D, 2 H
UA: 27.03.2004 · Staatstheater Stuttgart · Directed by: Alexander Müller-Elmau
The cupboard is their house, their provider, their life. They eat from it, they sleep in it, they dream in it. Actually, they are quite satisfied, the man and the woman, even if things used to be different. But things are quite different with the young man, who, asking seemingly unconstrained questions, one day walks out of the cupboard. "Since he has been here, everything is different," states the man. "Do not take it so hard," the woman reassures him. "What do you mean, not so hard - we live without knowing it and die without wanting it," the man complains. And suddenly they can not open the door. And they can not read the lips of the young man. "This is our chance! We are free!" rejoices the man, and leaves. "It is wiser to stay," replies the woman. And for a short time, the cupboard is the house of the young man, and he is the ruler of time and stability. And then he's gone. In the cupboard, a man who is looking for his wife knocks, and in his hand he holds an apple. And when the woman opens the cupboard, she too can eat from the apple of knowledge. "I'll leave soon," she says. "Do not be afraid," the man says. "Of what?" she wonders. And then they try not to be unhappy anymore and to think of something happy. But they can’t think of anything. "I knew it," says the man. "Yes," says the woman.

Carried by the certainty of permanence, the lives of the man and woman passes lazily. But the hawk, the symbol of the fear of coming losses in dream interpretation, announces change with his obstinate circles. The loss of the cupboard, as a sign of the disappearance of identity, however, does not lead to a departure. The recognition of experience "doesn’t smell like anything". Thus, the standstill remains.