Celebrating the fall in the countryside

A family secret in two parts

We are showing “Herbstfest” in February 2025 in Vienna, at the TAG Theater on Gumpendorferstraße!

Dad's 80th birthday deserves to be celebrated. Four siblings with very different family needs set up a WhatsApp group to plan this event better.

In the course of the preparations, things from the past come to light that tell of injuries; things that don't actually appear in the family's official history. And dad? He doesn't want to know about any of this, he's more interested in his roses than his children. Even though everything basically has to do with him. It's an Austrian family.

They're all nice people, no question. They long for harmony and security in the family, because otherwise everything would go down the drain. But they get in each other's way terribly. We watch them stumble, argue and make love.

TiB belongs to a generation in whose childhood the understanding of the roles of "father, mother, child" was still unquestioned. The production thus reflects the patriarchal understanding of family in the affluent society, in which the father is the unrestricted head of the family who rules with a strong hand - often quite literally. Here, everything revolved around the old patriarch, who made the family's prosperity possible and for whom the family members forgave his emotional uninvolvement and absence in family matters. Earning money is a necessity, social advancement a social duty. That's how we grew up, at least most of us.

In addition to the stylistic examination of WhatsApp messages, the text borrows narratively from Adalbert Stifter's descriptions of nature as well as his conservative, restorative image of the family. Biedermeier is back, or was it ever really overcome?

WITH:
Jacob Banigan, Juliette Eröd, Gabriela Hiti, Lorenz Kabas, Frans Poelstra, Martina Zinner
DIRECTION AND CONCEPT:
Frans Poelstra, Monika Klengel
TEXT:
Monika Klengel and ensemble
DESIGN:
Helene Thümmel
SOUND DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY:
Moke Rudolf-Klengel
LIGHT DESIGN: Martin Schneebacher

Thanks to Anna Schwinger, Christoph Loidl and Michael Nußbaumer

 

(Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator)