Anatomy of a Suicide

Why should I live? How can I be happy? Three women. Three generations. Three time levels: Carol, Anna and Bonnie are one grandmother, two mothers, three daughters. We follow them – separately – until their lives’ stories interweave. Unconditionally and uncompromisingly, they are looking for a reason to cling to life. They feel and lose themselves. Carol commits suicide, as does her daughter Anna. But Bonnie breaks the cycle of dependency that lead the other women to taking their own lives, and goes on living.
Alice Birch has created an epos: She talks about depression, motherhood, about women who analyse life with captivating clarity, about struggling with longing and trying to find oneself. She artfully assembles the biographies so that they run alongside each other. In her text score, the stories take place simultaneously. Three time-tunnels emerge; they intertwine, refer to and repel each other. Birch’s composition not only suggests that these three women may be trapped in their death wish by their genetic heritage, but also that social structures are changing at an alarmingly slow rate and that, again and again, freedom can only be found in death.
Lilja Rupprecht, who has previously staged Werther and Woyzeck at Schauspiel Hannover, takes on Birch’s powerful story about autonomy and dependence. In her works, she tries to demolish both aesthetic and substantial perspectives in order to extract the full force of emotions. She works at theatres in Vienna, Berlin and Frankfurt, among others.