Un sublime Error

An almost perfect trio: Alex, Christine and Gonzalo are inseparable. Precisely because they are so different, they form a reflective symmetrical triangle. Alex is sombre and broody, Gonzalo is jolly and always up for a joke, and Christine appears to be able to balance the oppositions of them with stoic serenity. And yet something must have gone wrong. At the beginning of the play, Gonzalo finds himself on the day following his own funeral and, seemingly calm, attempts to put the pieces of his past back together. The overturning of a structure that is as fragile as the stage set that surrounds him: an installation made out of transparent glass vessels piled on top of each other, which threaten to topple over and shatter into thousands of pieces at the slightest touch. The Argentinian-Spanish actor Gonzalo Cunill lent his own first name to this character. Soon, however, in a virtuosic interplay, we see him embodying all three friends and their passions, which suddenly and unintentionally slip into violence, separation and alienation. But where did the »sublime error« that has given the play its title occur? Cunill, familiar to our festival audience both from his numerous appearances in plays by Rodrigo Garcia and as Pablo Fidalgo’s alter ego in the monologue »Encyclopaedia of Pain« at FIND 2023, will be appearing at the Schaubühne for the first time in a monologue written and directed by Jan Lauwers, and produced with his legendary »Needcompany«. This is the result of a decade-long collaboration and friendship between the two artists and brings together numerous threads from Lauwer’s work as an author and director.

JAN LAUWERS is a director, playwright, visual artist and artistic director of the performance group »Needcompany«. He studied painting at the art academy in Ghent. In January 2011 he received the Golden Medal of Honour for services to the Republic of Austria and at the Venice Biennale in 2014 the Golden Lion for his life’s work.

PRODUCTION: Needcompany
SZENOGRAPHY Jan Lauwers
MUSIC: Rombout Willems
DRAMATURGY: Elke Janssens
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Rune Floryn
ARTISTIC ASSISTANCE: Emma Kañas

WITH: Gonzalo Cunill