How To Sell a Murder house
In the forests of the Jura, somewhere between the desolate towns of Moutier and Delémont, there is an oasis of peace that has fallen out of time: a magnificent villa, the setting for How To Sell A Murder House. Civil wars are raging in the nearby town - Salafist Muslim militias are locked in bloody battles with angry ultra-nationalists. No one is shocked by natural disasters anymore - it's a lot more catastrophic when the internet goes down after a power cut. The infrastructure of the modern world - what a vulnerable fabric it turns out to be.
In a circular sequence of scenes, different protagonists meet in pairs in the murder house. The strain of adapting to changing realities demands its tribute: a father flees his daughter, a nerd regrets the consequences of his cyborg experiment, a newly-arrived Russian lover turns out to be a disappointment - and a nameless horror pervades everything. There are voices, strange animals, and there is the taste of the end of the world lurking in the cracks and the curtains. It seems as though the final battle has begun. But who will come out of it alive?
"The gender battle, emancipation, equality - of course! But with the habitual Bergian uninhibitedness."
Bruno Rauch, sda
"The Burgtheater actors Caroline Peters and Marcus Kiepe change their costumes to play the woman and the man - brilliant, precise, and colourful as they invigorate the text with their performances, which range from finely-controlled mimic movement to fierce physical theatre."
Südkurier
"The two actors Caroline Peters and Marcus Kiepe did it very well - though Peters had it easier, considering that despite several role changes she played the same type of woman five times: self-confident, superior, highly-strung. Kiepe on the other hand slipped like a virtuoso from the bragger to the beaten whining dog. … Both woman and man also met the scenic demands, and everything else was slickly arranged: there was much panache, cliché-free gestures, symbolism, videos, and music … Everything was well-calibrated, no word was forced. And so you enjoyed watching the four scenes, plus prologue and finale …"
Christian Berzins, AZ
Premiere: 10/7/2015, Theater Neumarkt
Direction: Sibylle Berg
Verlag: Rowohlt Theater Verlag