About performance

“The world has disappeared, suggests the actress Anne Marie Lux as pianist on stage. Yet the stars shine brighter than ever. Turn on/off is a scenic poem, haiku on stage, wise and beautiful. And the bottomless society is transparent. Thing scan no longer be as they are.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Every Monday, a tiny hotel on the beach is the venue of gatherings of Mrs Z. with Mr A., Mrs A. with Mr Y., and Mrs Y. with Mr Z. Three couples unaware of their spouses being behind the door in bed with someone else. They arrive in the hotel one after another, thus having no clue of what is going on. Perhaps, though, they match each other much better. Only the young bespectacled man knows every guest and their secrets. He, too, is in love. Yet his beloved one lives on the other side of the mountains and is unable to leave. All it takes is a mere switch of light – on and off. And everything becomes clear. Mrs Z has suddenly two heads and Mr A no longer has a mouth. The heart of Mr Y is burning, whilst that of Mrs A has turned to stone. Overnight a young girl has arrived from across the mountains looking for the young bespectacled man. Things are no more what they used to be. It is no catastrophe or the end of the world, yet the world has been derailed, literally spilled out from its shores like tsunami that shook the shores of Japan. Turn On/Turn Off has been written by the contemporary German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig for the New National Theatre in Tokyo. His poetic images capture his emotions triggered by the catastrophe that followed the atomic explosion in Fukushima. The German première was presented by the National Theatre in Mannheim.

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes, no interval.

English and Slovak subtitles.

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