Heads or Tails

2m; age 14+; first produced at the National Theatre of Nicosia, Cyprus, and Theater der Parkaue, Berlin, 2009

Commissioned by Theater an der Parkaue, Berlin, in collaboration with the National Theatre of Nicosia / Cyprus State Theatre

 

Christopher was held for several weeks in a youth detention centre, and he was not sailing on the North Sea, as he would like his new classmates to believe. He had brutally beaten up a boy, but now he wants to make amends and start a new life. He makes a real effort, and breaks away from all his former friends. An harmonious mixture of cultures, free from prejudice and violence, is now his new ideal, but the past begins to have more and more impact on the present. Initially, he tries to ignore the attacks by his old friends and his new classmates, and to remain firm in his resolve. But his alter ego will have none of it. This ‘other Christopher’ provokes and criticizes and undermines, and so the two sides of his character wage relentless and exhausting war on each other: heads or tails, at every moment the future is in the balance.

As preparation for her play, Katja Hensel interviewed schoolchildren from Year 7 to Year 9 in Berlin and in Nicosia, Cyprus, to get their views on the subject of violence. How does a rude remark lead to a slap in the face, and a slap in the face to a brutal beating? What form does violence take as it escalates? How is it put into action, and what does it lead to?

Besetzung: 2 Herr(en)
Alter: empfohlen ab 14
Uraufführung: 2009, Nationaltheater Nikosia, Zypern und Theater an der Parkaue, Berlin
Preise und Auszeichnungen: Auftragswerk des Theater an der Parkaue in Kooperation mit THOC / Staatstheater Zypern

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