CRAVE

About the show

‘If love would come...’ Is that still the great hope? Romance has become a consumer good, successful relationships are difficult, more and more people are looking for alternative relationship models. And yet: love has our society in its grip. Who wouldn't want to be in the arms of another? Crave, the theatrical long poem by British playwright Sarah Kane, reflects this desire. The play exposes the inner world of desperate, highly romantic lovers. The voices of greed, they search for closeness, they want to be close to each other. And yet their desire for security remains unfulfilled. How to counter these voices? Director Christopher Rüping transforms Kane's text into a theatrical experimental set-up: while Maja Beckmann, Benjamin Lillie, Sasha Melroch and Steven Sowah speak the text, we observe a fifth actress – Wiebke Mollenhauer – reacting to the text. What happens then? Perhaps we can reconnect with the drastic depictions of violence for which Sarah Kane became famous in the 1990s. Perhaps we see ourselves, a society in therapy, whose greed for recognition and affirmation seems insatiable. Or does the evening succeed in suspending the hungry voices in our heads for a moment? The production by Christopher Rüping, created at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, has received numerous awards; Wiebke Mollenhauer was voted Actress of the Year for her performance.