Muttertier

MUTTERTIER, the mysterious, entirely versified text by Leonie Lorena Wyss that won the 2023 Retzhof Drama Prize, can be described as a poetic dream sequence, or as a musical score for three (siblings’) voices. At their ailing mother’s bedside, the children recall that they were often left to their own devices when they were young. They would escape into the world of the movie TITANIC and act out scenes over and over again. During an outing to a public swimming pool, the three siblings replay the scene in which the main characters drown – and the lines between reality and fiction become blurred. Did the overwhelmed mother escape into a fantasy world into which she also assimilated her children? Or was it the other way around, and her children wanted to show her their even more exciting world? In MUTTERTIER there are no men; the woman – the mother – takes centre stage. The text tenderly illuminates the expectations, burdens and dependencies that go hand in hand with motherhood, both then and now. 

“The fact that this rigid behemoth of a theme does not immediately sink, despite water penetrating it from all sides, is down to the author’s light touch in the face of this heaviness. As playful as the very children who translate the precarious situation into their world of movies, the play uses cleverly interwoven elements, kaleidoscopic perspectives and linguistic whimsy to keep us from being overwhelmed by uneasiness.” (Ferdinand Schmalz, member of this year’s judging panel)