Thomas Mann

Zauberberg. Positionen am Abgrund
nach dem Roman von Thomas Mann
Für die Bühne bearbeitet von Friederike Heller und Marcel Luxinger
Dramatisiert von Friederike Heller / Marcel Luxinger
1 D, 2 H
UA: 23.02.07 · schauspielfrankfurt · Directed by: Friederike Heller
Friederike Heller and Marcel Luxinger, practiced in the dramatization of extensive novels, have decided against creating a great picture of society and for the distillation of a certain moment. The play’s restriction to three figures arises from their desire for concentration. The conflict of ideologies is the novel’s political interface with the present.

The focus on the controversial philosophers Settembrini and Naphta, who are struggling to take on the protagonist Hans Castorp intellectually, links the stage to the auditorium. There are the new Castorps, who want to convince Settembrini and Naphta of their respective positions. And there is the allegorical figure of "The Creeping Disease (SKV)" - an amalgam of Doctor, head nurse, and Madame Chauchat - who, like the two philosophers, is interested in the public, even though her motifs change over the course of the unceasingly elapsing time on the mountain: from medical to erotic.

"This climb to the top of the mountain is ultimately more exciting and more concentrated than much of what we hear these days in the theater." (Frankfurter Rundschau)