Birds of Paradise

About this event

Eleven young performers from the Junge Schauspiel Frankfurt, aged around 15 to 22, confront the big questions of early adulthood in this original production by director Martina Droste. On the nearly bare stage of the Kammerspiele – enlivened by golden calla lilies, grapes and the sound of exotic bird calls – they ask: What to do with future anxiety, crisis of meaning, depression and rage when the pressure to keep up never lets up? Instruments appear: some produce squeaking, faltering sounds, while two long alphorns manage soothing, anchoring tones. The ensemble moves in disoriented circles, at times turning on each other with hurtful words, laying bare the fear of being left behind. As the Frankfurter Neue Presse noted, supposedly taboo subjects are “exposed in a playful way”, making it startlingly clear “what huge obstacles stand in the way of their dreams”. The result is not a school lesson but an honest, moving snapshot of a generation wrestling with the will to live – and the need to stick together.