WIR WÜTENDEN

NORA MANSMANN was born in Friedberg /Ts. in 1980 and grew up in Marburg and Kassel. She studied history, musicology and German studies in Göttingen and Berlin. She lives in Berlin and works as a freelance writer and director. In 2016 she was writer-in-residence in Schwaz. The play was a commission, written in 2012 and premiered in Cologne. Its Austrian premiere now takes place at the THEATER IM LENDBRÄUKELLER.

How does a person affected by dementia feel – and the people around them!? Above all, the play tells of a “relationship” or “non-relationship” between father, son and mother. It also addresses the topical issue of care, how we treat older people and how relatives cope with the situation. And yet the play contains absurd, witty, tragicomic moments! As director, I very much look forward to welcoming many interested audience members! (Director Madeleine Weiler)

Dementia, a subject that is being discussed more and more, might make one or two people approach with a certain caution. I felt the same. However, the young author's rather unusual approach made me curious after all. Nora Mansmann's idea of introducing the "Brain" as an additional, "tangible" protagonist allows the audience to dive, directly and indirectly, into the inner world of everyone involved. This gives rise to many a bizarre, even almost humorous scene – in which the laughter would rather stick in your throat.

Reality frays. "But the brain, it still works hard, always trying, and thinks and never arrives, never arrives anywhere any more".

AUDIENCE REACTIONS

"An incredibly moving and at the same time unsparingly real performance. An evening that strikes – that touches you and thereby aims straight at the heart. Dementia in old age – a sensitive and at the same time highly topical subject. Harrowing, grotesque and moving. Contemporary art with BRAINS!! Thank you – brilliant!"

"Go and see it! The play offers plenty of food for thought and discussion. A moving evening of theatre on a subject that may affect us all one day, with vivid language, wonderful actors, a fitting set and delicate guitar music! Thank you!"

PRESS

TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG(13 July 2017)

WITH ANGER IN THE BELLY AND FEAR IN THE HEART
It disappears gradually. The mind. And with it a person's personality and memory. The 27-year-old director Madeleine Weiler has taken on the difficult subject of dementia artistically, choosing no light literary fare as her source: "Wir Wütenden" by Nora Mansmann. The fight against forgetting makes you angry. Both the father with dementia (Hubert Petter), who increasingly withdraws apathetically into his shell when he isn't recounting traumatic war memories and how he met the mother, or shouting at his family. And his son (Edwin Hochmuth), who is overwhelmed by the changes in his father. That his father never told him he loved him makes him angry; that he will lose him frightens him. As does the realisation that he is becoming more and more like his father, and the question of whether he too will end up this way. Then there is the mind, in the person of Amrei Rieth, who at first excitedly narrates the father's thoughts and then grows ever more tired – until it departs for the beyond. There, behind the frosted-glass door, the mother (Susanne Schartner) has meanwhile also arrived ...
Dramatically, comically and with great sensitivity, the tragic facets of dementia are brought before the audience's eyes. A play well worth seeing!(Angela Dähling)