About performance

Central Slovakia. The First Republic Elementary School. The building which "remembers" – and apart from the church is the only building in the village of which the locals are proud. The school in which a couple of notable natives grew up. Maybe one of them has a monument and the village deals with the subversives who want to destroy it.

It is early evening and in school gyms aerobics are underway – thought up by local women to finally help them lose weight, but mainly for them to have somewhere to conspire and gossip. A violent explosion interrupts everything. The startled woman do not know what could have exploded in the neighbourhood. Maybe a plane had crashed, or a gas main had exploded. Or a petrol station. Or what if war had broken out? It wasn’t far to Ukraine after all! Residents from around the nearby explosion start to head for the gym. As do people who were stopped in their tracks when the area was cordoned off. Tension appears, conspiracy theories abound, anti-government plots are resolved, the animosity and hatred surface. Above all – as a basic motive a large degree of intolerance and efforts to enforce their own truths loom. Retrospective optimism is mixed with radical views – from politics to the economy, from traditional families to refugees. The characters create opinion groups and always take others as a witness to their own truth, which is the only truth.

This production is part of a long-term project in which we invite renowned foreign directors to premiere new Slovak works. This original Slovak play will be directed by German director Tillman Köhler.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes without interval

With English subtitles.

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