Der Weltverbesserer

Staged reading with
Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Hermann Beil, Petra Morzé, Erich J. Langwiesner

How does a sparse stage – two chairs, a wall clock, a door – become a magical space? Through Thomas Bernhard's stage characters, who pose the author's timeless questions of humanity. Through great personalities in acting, who present these texts to us illuminatingly and with their artistic means, ruthlessly and deeply comically.

The world-improver, this private scholar and philosopher, is an incorrigible misanthrope. Self-satisfied, full of criticism and merciless irony towards his environment, he does not even hold back from his nearest ones when he gets going. But the world-improver is not a convinced loner. On the contrary, he is downright dependent on his partner and the debates with her. Only in exchange with his partner, his “necessary evil,” can he redefine himself anew day by day. Only in exchange with her can he still struggle for a small change in things after a fundamental improvement of the world has been denied to him. Trapped in a whole cosmos of thoughts, claims, and demands, the two take stock. An endgame begins.

Sven-Eric Bechtolf, who was already celebrated at the Salzkammergut Festival Gmunden for Thomas Bernhard's “Appearance Is Deceptive” and triumphed last summer with Kafka at the Stadttheater, will embody Bernhard's incorrigible misanthrope, who laments, rants, grumbles, and ultimately always alludes to the fear of death, oscillating between child and old man.