Drama: Bedbound
Performances:
May 17-20, 2006 always starting at 20.00 in the Theater Remise, Berne.
Click here to download the original flyer.
The Cast
| Daughter | Henriette Graf |
|---|---|
| Dad | Steve Diener |
| Director | Tobias Stöckli |
| Assistant Director | Doris Lanz |
The Play
(Text adapted from a press release written by Tobias Stöckli.)
Dad and Daughter, both grubby and soiled, sit on a dirty bed in a shabby room. Dad explodes and performs one of his rough stories from his past, his daughter giving him the cues: "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK fuckin hell fucking hell fuck fuck fuck ... fuck!! Fucking hell!! DAN DAN!! Me in the bed. I can feel these blankets like a big sea and me a little shrimp ways underneath!!"
Bedbound is the story of a furniture salesman from Cork and his daughter, crippled by polio. Dad recounts stories from his time in Cork, how he made his way from storeroom worker to boss in the local furniture shop, how he turned the shop into the biggest shop in Cork and how he finally was about to conquer Dublin and to open the biggest chain of furniture shops there. He tells us how he got himself a wife who he wants to become his partner in the furniture business, how they got a daughter, and how everything he did was for the sake of business.
The daughter talks about the day when she drove out to the beach with her mother, how she fell into a pit full of shit when she was playing and how she got polio. She tells how she continued to live in her bed together with her mother, how the room seemed to get tighter, how her only hope were the stories her mother told her.
Finally, the two stories come together. When Dad's plans in Dublin fail and his daughter gets the polio, he starts to build walls around them. When his wife finally dies, he continues to live in his glorious past that he relives together with his daughter. The daughter plays along to keep the silence away, hoping for answers from her father. The only thing left is language, only here to prevent the quiet from taking over and to give their existence some meaning.
Enda Walsh was born 1967 in Dublin and belongs to the writers of "New Irish Drama". His international breakthrough came with Disco Pigs which premiered 1996. Bedbound was first performed at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2000.
Performances: 17-20 May 2006 at 20.00 at the Theater Remise (Laupenstrasse 51, 3008 Bern) Presales: Stauffacher (031 313 63 63) or bedbound@gmx.ch. Duration: ca. 70 minutes