2004 October 20th

EFFI BRIEST
Play after Theodor Fontane
in an adaptation by Petra Maria Grühn

First performance: Teamtheater Tankstelle, Munich 20 October 2004
with 36 further performances in 2004 and 2005

Director: Martina Veh
Costumes/stage: Barbara Schwarz
Lighting: Hans Peter Boden

Baron von Instetten: Peter Bamler
Effi Briest: Karo Guthke
Crampas/Chinese: Markus Menzel
Briest: Wolfgang Romerskirchen
Luise von Briest: Esther Straimer
Roswitha: Antoinette Woisien
Photos: Regine Heiland

Seventeen-year-old Effi Briest is married off to a childhood friend of her mother, the Baron von Instetten. At first glance, the impulsive, fun-loving Effi and the "man of character and good manners" do not seem destined for each other, but Instetten loves the girl and Effi admires the baron.
The province to which Instetten takes his young wife has little to offer. And he himself, whose life revolves around the fulfilment of duty and career, does not recognise the emptiness in her life. He forbids himself sentimentality. Even the birth of a daughter cannot
cannot save the young wife from her inner loneliness.
Gradually and seemingly without any resolution, she finds love and adventure with the new city commander Crampas, an experienced but reckless "ladies' man who is bored with all regularities"...

What is happiness? How should one live?
Trapped in a self-chosen role in harmony, in conflict with the compromise that one has fought hard for in the eternal conflict with inner freedom and an outside that is called society?

"Everyone has desires, and when these desires come into conflict with duties, one looks at the duties again and finds, if at all possible, that it is not so binding and brissant with them..." (Theodor Fontane). (Theodor Fontane)

"If we disregard a few exceptional cases, our whole intercourse in life amounts either to a purely disgraceful comedy play, or, where honesty prevails on the whole, to compromises, truces, tacit mutual agreements..." (Theodor Fontane). (Theodor Fontane)

 "One lives oneself, one dies oneself."
 "... It's a wide field."

 

Performance rights: stückgut Bühnen- und Musikverlag
EFFI BRIEST is a production of the GbR-Effi Briest. Teamtheater Tankstelle is supported by the City of Munich.