Der alte Affe Angst

It begins at a point that most love stories tend to keep secret, because everyday life has long since killed off the former magic and the magic of the first encounter has become just a memory, the next kiss has become routine and sex has become a chore. It's the point at which films usually fade out and the credits begin. Above all, it is the point at which the question arises as to what price the individual is willing to pay in order to maintain the relationship for longer. Oskar Roehler's protagonists Marie and Robert have decided to continue the fight. But they also hold on to their relationship for completely selfish reasons, because the fear of unity and loss is even more unbearable than all the irreconcilable differences, disappointments experienced and injuries suffered. With his film “The Old Monkey Fear” from 2003, Oskar Roehler created a relationship drama that is reminiscent of ancient tragedy in its inevitability and emotional depth. Marie and Robert constantly have to cope with new blows of fate that put their relationship under almost superhuman stress: from the death of Robert's father to Marie's abortion to her attempted suicide. Oskar Roehler did not grant his characters any beauty or breathing space, but that is precisely what gives this relationship an exemplary character. It literally represents the coexistence of women and men, and the fight for lasting togetherness. That's why Ersan Mondtag focused even further on this core conflict in his adaptation of Oskar Roehler's film script and brought it to the stage using the means of ancient theater - choir, music and singing, as well as motifs and texts from Euripides' "Alcestis". In this theatrical triptych he shows the fight between woman and man as a great physical, verbal and musical crescendo, as a whirlwind of emotions that only finds its catharsis in emptiness and silence.

Photocredit: Birgit Hupfeld