Author Hans Fallada

Director/ Set Designer Johann-Heinrich Rabe

Costume Designer Peny Spanou

Actors Carina Furseth, Jacob Jensen, Peder Ulven

Sound Alexander Scharf

Light Designer Anders Krog Kristiansen

Year 2020

The book of Hans Fallada provides a vivid picture of life in Germany just before Hitler’s formal rise to power in 1933 and focuses on a young married couple struggling to survive.. It was almost scary the fact that the scenes could de scribe current working conditions in countries in crisis, same inequality between employee and employer, same dependence on job, same fears.

The creative team consisted of three actors, two who embodied the couple and the third was transformed into all the different roles and faces that society takes towards the couple, the employer, the manager, the stepfather, the police officer, the customer. A constant fight between the small couple and the big scary world.

The third character, whose changes are happening on-stage, is wearing surreal elements, which are emphasizing this constant battle that becomes more and more intense towards the end of the performance, as the couple becomes increasingly poor, helpless, small. At the same time, the protagonist, Pinneberg, is dressed up in a characteristic trench coat, a garment symbolizing his life, which he paints, writes and makes it dirty during his difficult moments. A clean trenchcoat that becomes dirtier and dirtier, the way he becomes darker and darker, weaker and weaker, and loses his self-confidence and his lust for life.