Niels Höpfner

“Libelle habent sua fata”, is what the Romans say; similar things hold true for Niels Höpfner’s play South Sea, which, while it was written in 1976/77, had been lost for twenty years. Now, it has come out of the woodwork. And still, it is as fresh as dew, young and wild as when it was written.
South Sea is a grotesque. Stricken by the hardships of commercial life, the family of industrial magnate Bomm takes refuge in an artificial South Sea paradise on the weekends. The family includes patriarch Friedrich (whose biographical similarities with legendary chief executive Friedrich Flick senior are no coincidence), his slightly disoriented, brownish wife Gerda, their wayward spawns Artur and Senta, and Bomms ancient, the paralysed, wheelchair-bound mother. The family keeps an actor as a pastime, who they named Hamlet and trained to do absurd roleplays.