Roland Schimmelpfennig

Hier und Jetzt
Auftragsarbeit für das Schauspielhaus Zürich
5 D, 6 H
UA: 25.04.2008 · Schiffbau Halle 1, Schauspielhaus Zürich · Directed by: Jürgen Gosch
A wedding reception, outdoors on a summer’s evening. It is late, but still warm. A few of the guests have instruments with them. Now and then, they play a few bars of a melody. There is lots of eating and drinking. A woman is speaking into a pram. In the middle of the tableau sit the bride and groom. She thought she would ride to church in a horse-drawn carriage, and she thought it was unbelievable that her groom was getting totally drunk at their wedding. It’s the story of Katja and Georg. As it is, what it was like and what might come. How Georg, the jilted one, might lose his mind and – with his brass instrument, an old horn – wander through the fields and woods outside the city.
Suddenly, it starts to rain. Snow falls to the ground. The moon rises, it is night and spring might be coming. Maybe you can hear a few birds. The here and now. The now or never. Sooner or soon. Unfortunately not. Too late, too early. Not now. Never again. (Schauspielhaus Zürich)

“A story as simple and enigmatic, as banal and cruel as life itself.” (nachtkritik)
“When Schimmelpfennig writes with such fabulous concentration, with such humorous detachment as he does here, he shows himself to be one of our strongest playwrights.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
“Capital staging, great performances: the Zürich opening of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Hier und Jetzt makes the magic of the theatre palpable.” (Tagesanzeiger)
Translated into: Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish