Igor Bauersima

Adapted for the theatre, inspired by the novella of the same title by Vladislav Vancura (in the translation of Gustav Just)


Bauersima’s Launischer Sommer, a free adaptation of the 1926 novella, is a parable of the ill-advised capitalist who deems stagnation as being moral while at the same time practising a brainless pragmatism he can’t even justify to himself, thus tending to feel guilty instead of self-confident. Eventually, he tries to assure himself through mystical hanky-panky that ethical behaviour and reasonable thinking are not the same and impossible anyway. The play is set in a swimming pool where reality, bliss, love and sexuality are only abstract concepts. The water everyone is bathing in is the contemporary confusion, up until the day when a ropedancer and a glass harpist decide to test their endurance, their mind and their independence in this inhospitable place.

“As if it was a play written by Jean Renoir... delicately atmospheric, with its own poetic humour… serious ease and relaxed concentration…” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)