An underage patient is dying after a secret abortion attempt. The Catholic priest who wants to perform the last rites on her is prevented from entering her room. During the heated altercation, the girl dies with neither medical nor religious support – an incident that escalates into a social, political and racist scandal ... This was the story told by the Viennese doctor and author Arthur Schnitzler in his play Professor Bernhardi in the early 20th century. The British author and director Robert Icke turned it into a present-day morality thriller.

In Mefistofele, God and the devil, the two authorities on good and evil and competitors in the struggle for control over humanity since time immemorial, place a bet on Faust. Who is the top gambler in the game of power? Whose promises of bliss are the most appealing? The story of Faust, which has been a source for artworks throughout the centuries, once again asks the question: Who rules the world? And it puts a contemporary slant on it: Where will an uninhibited striving for power lead us?

In the Irish writer Oscar Wilde’s literary tales, satire and social criticism conjoin with poetry. They show people in all their kindness and cruelty, in their egotism and their empathy. The search for happiness, and above all for love, is a recurring theme. Inspired by Oscar Wilde, Marco Goecke combines the sensuality of the body in motion with an empathetic contemplation of human life and coexistence in his new creation. With his distinctive dance vocabulary, he give us precisely drawn insight into his characters’ inner worlds and, not least, into his own thoughts and emotions.