Falk Richter

Radio announcer’s voice: ... is the coldest day since the year 1827 ... minus 34 degrees Celsius since last Friday ... the temperature is expected to fall further over the holidays.
Child: Mom turned off her mobile phone - I cannot reach anyone here.
Radio announcer’s voice: ... the meteorologists expect a storm at about 2 o'clock in the morning with a sensible temperature of minus 42 degrees Celsius.

One day during the winter, December 24th, the night of lonely people. Richter's new play, a kaleidoscope-like montage of mini-psychodramas and nightmare images, follows women and men through this nightly urban jungle in their biggest moment of crisis to date: They are approaching their forties, their first marriages and careers have failed, and Christmas intensifies this battlefield of relationships to an emotional state of emergency. They argue and reconcile, love, hit and hate each other, rely on each other.
Their children wander through the corridors of international airports, journeying between the fragments of their patchwork families.

A twelve-year-old boy has been forgotten by his father in the airport kindergarten, and the nursery teacher can only tell stories of terrible accidents and catastrophes. But the boy meets an old woman who is looking for her son. He has not gotten in touch for years because he has to work day and night. And the two of them are trying to remember how a certain story went—a famous story that will make this evening into a uniquely hysterical-depressive party ... (Announcement of the Schaubühne at Lehniner Platz, Berlin)