Simon Helbling
director, storyteller
Play, 2009
Extract from the script: Official: Does the deceased understand his death as a) victory over the impertinence of life, b) insult towards his medical research particularly and the medical research of the 21th century in general, c) not at all, d) strongest and most meaningful event of his individuality, e) closing point after the end, construct and function of his failure, f) gift of god, g) an event, which is not part of life at all, h) a possibility, to try to represent the deadly end, in which case this would be an effort to survive the end, transcend, integrate, in which case he calculates with an entity, of which he can’t get hold of, because it is the smallest possible step, even though very meaningful, or on the other hand meaningless, well let’s just call it a 1, which he endlessly tries to divide, meaning death would be 1/(n+1)? Carla Bartolo: Come again?
Carla Bartolo has to visit the department for 1/(n+1), death and carousels because her father, a famous researcher in the field of death, has died. In this surreal departement she has to face the task, to reconstruct the life of her father and turn it into a story. A cascade of questions about death and dying is thrown at her. The official becomes her lover, sadist, teacher, father, priest and doctor. He demands answers for unanswerable questions about aging and death. She has to explain her grief, dig out her grave, cook a last meal and understand her father.
We explored death. We asked ourselves, why death became a footnote, an edge phenomena in our society, and why it is so hard to understand it.
Cast: Miriam Fiordeponti, Yannick Schmuki, Marcelle Hugentobler, Kurt Grünenfelder and the voice of Matthias Breitenbach Director: Simon Helbling Written by: Maja Tschumi und Simon Helbling Production Manager: Roland Hüttner Dramaturg: Thomas Forrer Lighting Design: Markus Brunn Video: Luca Faes und Laura Poisson
Kulturmarkt, Zurich
