STADT DER AFFEN (CITY OF APES)

Imagine waking up in the morning, and the world is silent. Sure, there are sounds, but you can’t hear them. Or: imagine that you just can’t communicate with the language you’re used to because no one understands you. Everyone else knows what’s going on, just not what’s going on with you. Or: imagine getting home but someone else has moved in – people who don’t know you and who are strange to you as well. Imagine having to unlearn everything you thought you knew – the whole rationale of speech, communication, power. You have to be completely quiet to start understanding again.

Together with actors from the Burgtheater, ten deaf youngsters go on a journey through the spheres of communication that supposedly differentiate humans from animals. They find out what happens on the theatre stage when speech has no special importance. The exceptional Belgian director Lies Pauwels has acquired a reputation for her sensitive work in productions with amateurs and mixed ensembles. Her theatrical productions are rich in images and create associative spaces for myths, love and distressed confusion. Two questions introduce her first work for the Burgtheater: What do those who cannot hear have to say? And: is it true that someone who doesn’t hear must feel?