Thorsten Lensing
Tanzende Idioten
In “Tanzende Idioten” (Dancing Idiots), Ursina Lardi, Karin Neuhäuser, Sebastian Blomberg, André Jung, and drummer Willi Keller play survivors on their way to the next catastrophe. What defines them is a ludicrous mixture of brutality and tenderness, anarchy and metaphysical instincts, existential pain and joie de vivre.
Goldie does what she loves most: she renovates her house. Her joy in doing so is as infectious as it is disturbing, because Goldie is seriously ill. She wants to give her best with a body that is giving up on her. She knows she is dying, but does not like to admit it and plans a future she no longer has. Her cat Apollo enjoys her increasing weakness: Finally, he can lie on her undisturbed and snore endlessly. Goldie tells him all the things you're not supposed to say to people. Terrible stuff!
Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Goldie's newly enamored father stands at the door with his lover. The two are on their way to the sea in their motorhome and pay Goldie a spontaneous surprise visit. Completely unexpectedly, the father, who is almost bursting with happiness, finds himself at his own daughter's deathbed. He believes himself to be at the beginning, she knows herself to be at the end.
Once again, Goldie's room is flooded with the whole world, everything that is difficult to say goodbye to: forests, animals, the sea. The second part of the evening tells the story of Goldie's death. She leaves her habitat, Earth, and within seconds her room becomes outer space.
The starting point for the entire project were two sentences from a story by Denis Johnson. In it, he describes a man who is dying and drawing renovation plans. His cat is lying on top of him, asleep. Based on this basic situation, Thorsten Lensing wrote the text for “Tanzende Idioten” (Dancing Idiots), in which he repeatedly picks up on phrases, fragments, and dialogues from other Johnson works. Johnson said of himself and his work: “I would describe my characters the same way I describe myself: we are dancing idiots.” Denis Johnson is one of the most important contemporary American authors and is highly revered by colleagues such as Jonathan Franzen, Philip Roth, and David Foster Wallace for his “goosebump-inducing,” “unpretentious, direct,” and “brutally funny” prose.
Director Thorsten Lensing has been staging independent productions since the mid-1990s, mostly in co-production with theaters and festivals such as the Schauspielhaus Zurich, the Sophiensælen in Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Theater im Pumpenhaus in Münster, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, Schauspiel Stuttgart, Münchener Kammerspiele, and deSingel in Antwerp. He always works with a core group of outstanding actors. Following adaptations of Fyodor M. Dostoevsky's “The Brothers Karamazov” (Friedrich Luft Prize 2014) and David Foster Wallace's “Infinite Jest” (invited to the Theatertreffen in 2019), Thorsten Lensing presented his first self-written play, “Verrückt nach Trost” (Crazy for Comfort), for the first time at the Salzburg Festival in 2022.
Cast list in order of appearance
Apollo the cat Sebastian Blomberg
Goldie Ursina Lardi
Vivian Phoenix Karin Neuhäuser
Tony André Jung
Construction worker Willi Kellers
Construction worker Benjamin Eggers-Domsky
Neil Armstrong Sebastian Blomberg
Sauna master Benjamin Eggers-Domsky
Drummer Willi Kellers
