04/09/2023, 19.30 – 22.15

Summer on a country estate after sunset. Konstantin and Nina, with whom he is madly in love, have organised an open-air performance designed to revolutionise theatre and herald in a new era of art. Konstantin has written and directed the groundbreaking monologue which Nina, nursing dreams of becoming an actor, is performing. The audience comprises Konstantin’s uncle who is the owner of the country estate, friends and neighbours, and, most importantly, the two people whose praise and recognition Konstantin craves the most: his mother, the famous actor Arkadina, and her lover, the successful writer Trigorin. But Konstantin’s worst fear comes true: even before the play is over, Arkadina begins to make public and uninhibited fun of her son’s meagre talent. Deeply offended, Konstantin loses his nerve and an argument breaks out. During the next few days and weeks, the situation becomes increasingly intolerable: Nina feels attracted to Trigorin; Trigorin feels flattered by this; Arkadina becomes more and more jealous and Konstantin tumbles into an existential personal and artistic crisis …

Thomas Ostermeier is staging Chekhov’s play about two fundamentally opposed generations of artists and about a group of people searching for happiness in art and in love. Within the play, many different shades of love are shown: the young and the old, the requited and the never fulfilled, the one of short duration and the one lasting a lifetime