By its very nature, the family is held together by terror. The children of the earliest theatricals tragedies, Orest and Electra, experience the fact that the terror between parents and children can only be surpassed by postfamilial terror: when brothers and sisters have taken their places and tear each other apart. Shakespeare‘s royal drama uses the Lear’s family party as a point of departure during which everything revolves around a single question: inheritance, a very contemporary theme. In her production, Barbara Weber goes back and forth between bloody scenes from King Lear and family therapy, quoting other extended families along the way: a fast and bold performance. 

WITH Michael Haves, Rahel Hubacher, Yvon Jansen, Anne Ratte-Polle, Sebastian Rudolph DIRECTION Barbara Weber DRAMATURGY Mathias Lilienthal, Max-Philip Aschenbrenner TEXT Barbara Weber & Ensemble nach William Shakespeare MUSIC Michael Haves LIGHT DESIGN Hans Leser SCENOGRAPHY Janina Audick SET DESIGN Janina Audick COSTUMES Janina Audick PHOTO Barbara Braun PREMIERE brut im Künstlerhaus, Wiener Festwochen, 06/2008 PRODUCTION brut im Künstlerhaus, Wien für Wiener Festwochen COPRODUCTION Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin; Theater Neumarkt, Zürich SUPPORT Haupstadtkulturfonds Berlin, Familie-Vontobel-Stiftung INTERNET www.barbaraweber.ch

Barbara Weber
Barbara Weber studied directing in Hamburg and formed her own theatre company in 2001. Barbara Weber is known for her «unplugged» evening projects; putting on stage major themes using little means and a lot of imagination, she deals with Hollywood myths like “Star Wars”, celebrities like Michael Jackson or even the Red Army Faction.