Rivka is the name of a little Jewish girl who may have a different name in future. She is the most precious belonging of her parents Erna and Jacob, and that is why they have given Rivka away. Now they are packing their suitcases, ready to flee. Everything goes according to plan. But the parents are seized by an irresolvable yearning, by terrible fear and doubts. Body and soul are rebelling against this separation from their daughter. What is good for Rivka? Will the parents manage to go into hiding? Should they separate to avoid getting caught? Erna and Jacob sense what may lie ahead of them. The couple packs and unpacks their things; they argue, laugh, remember and imagine the future – in love and desperation.
The great Dutch poet Judith Herzberg was born in Amsterdam in 1934. Most recently, Stephan Kimming, who will stage Rivka, directed her often-performed Jewish family-trilogy at Munich’s Residenztheater under the title of Die Träume der Abwesenden. These three plays deal with the impact which the loss of loved ones has on following generations. Rivka might be seen as a kind of core piece in Judith Herzberg’s oeuvre. Here, in a married Jewish couple’s small flat, calamity takes its course, jarringly quietly, almost mundane – leaving the lovers a short respite of hope.