Fleeing from disappointed love and the world in general, Werther travels to the countryside. He needs a change, and being in nature will be “a delectable balm” for his soul. But then he meets Lotte. Lotte, the magical creature, his soulmate, an angel, idolised and longed for more than anything else in the world. A rapture of bliss and pain runs through and torments him. Because Lotte chooses another man: Albert, Werther’s opposite. A man of measure, rules, security. Werther’s world explodes.
Goethe’s epistolary novel shows a modern hero, suspended between the poles of destruction and creation. He is immoderate, self-involved and acts against all reason, and yet he is consistent and strangely clear-sighted. Delusion and truthfulness intertwine in him, becoming visible to us in a touching and captivatingly precise way.
Werther is more than just a novel about love – it is an alternative to a world that relies on rationality and security, on success and predictability. It is a plea for extravagance, for the moment, for faith, celebration, adventure and excess.
In order to extract the full force of emotions, director Lilja Rupprecht, who will stage Werther, seeks to blast through all established approaches to content and aesthetics. She works at theatres in Stuttgart, Berlin and Cologne, among others.