Sabotage

It all begins with an idea: Jewish documentary filmmaker Jona Lubnik wants to shake up the complacency of his German fellow citizens with a provocative film. He has long avoided political issues, but now he feels compelled to act because he is convinced that the past must never be used as an excuse to remain silent about the present. His wife is a successful neurologist and fears that his film project could turn into a political scandal that would damage her career and the whole family. His therapist is also despairing of Jona's neurotic behaviour. On top of that, her brother develops strange hallucinations after a stroke. Everything is falling apart. What price is Jona willing to pay to make his film?

With a sharp eye, Yael Ronen examines the mechanisms of (self-)sabotage and responds to our crisis-ridden present with comedy. Is self-sabotage inherent in us humans and our societies?

Yael Ronen was born in 1976 in Jerusalem. She studied playwrighting at the HB Studio in New York and directing at the HaKibbutzim Seminar in Tel Aviv. Yael Ronen first presented plays, that she had developed in Israel, during the FIND festival at the Schaubühne. She then developed the plays »Dritte Generation« (Third Generation; 2009) and »The Day Before the Last Day« (2011) in collaboration with the Schaubühne ensemble and with Palestinian and Israeli actors. She was in-house director at the Maxim Gorki Theater from 2015 to 2023. Since the 2023/24 season, Yael Ronen has been directing plays at the Schaubühne regularly again. The plays she has created so far, »Bucket List« (invited to the 2024 Theatertreffen) and »Replay«, are still running in the repertoire.