Theater – Volkstheater starts the new season with “The Lobster” – Bavaria

Munich (dpa/lby) – The Munich Volkstheater is back from its summer break. With the German premiere of the theater version of the film “The Lobster,” the stage of artistic director Christian Stückl is starting the new season.

Director Lucia Bihler, who most recently directed “The Maids” at the Volkstheater, is bringing the film’s story to the stage with an Oscar-winning screenplay. The film by screenwriter Efthimis Filippou and director Yorgos Lanthimos, which was released in 2015 with Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, is set in a dystopian world.

Singles have 45 days to find a partner. If they fail to fall in love within the time limit, they are transformed into an animal of their choice and banished to the wild. “Between twisted bodies and learned constructs, the characters blindly grope for alternative concepts and the (im)possibility of love and intimacy,” the theater summarizes the story.

It is the story of a “restrictive system of forced partnerships,” writes the Volkstheater in the premiere announcement. “With hollow and over-specific language, they paint a razor-sharp picture of social coexistence.” Out of place and remotely controlled, the characters stumble through this world, every attempt at self-expression fails and time runs out.”

A total of 13 premieres are scheduled for the 2024/25 season, as the Volkstheater announced. These include the world premiere of Daniel Kehlmann’s latest novel, “Lichtspiel,” directed by theater director Stückl. Next year, a documentary play about the attack in the Olympia shopping center in Munich in July 2016 will also premiere at the Volkstheater. The title: “Open Wound.”

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