Here and Now by Roland Schimmelpfennig

Translated from German by Laurynas Katkus

Here and Now - a summer evening. It's late, but still warm. Guests are sitting around a long table loaded with food and drink. They are celebrating the wedding of Katia and Georg. Here and now - a glimpse of what the future holds. Here and now - birds, children's songs and the sound of an old horn. Now or never. Not now, never again. 

The work of Roland Schimmelpfenning, one of the most celebrated contemporary German playwrights, is reminiscent of the experience of looking through a kaleidoscope. Only instead of multicoloured pieces of glass, fragments of reality are added to the inside of the optical device, whose reflections create the sensation of dreaming with eyes open. Schimmelpfenning became known to the audience of The Odd Men Theatre back in 2015 with the play "Woman" directed by Giedrė Kriaučionytė. Now the German playwright returns to this stage in the form of Here and Now, directed by Agnius Jankevičius. 

The epicentre of the play, on the basis of which the performance is based, is a play with the relationship between man and time. What is it that prevents a person, like a pesky mosquito, from being here and now? One answer could be the uncertainty of the future, all the fears and hopes that we try to rely on when faced with the unknown, which, no matter how meticulously we plan for it, we cannot fully foresee. But try to imagine an important, significant, life-changing event where you know exactly how your life will change. Let's say a wedding where you are told how the newlyweds' love will end. 

In Here and Now, time unfolds in a poetically absurd, comically dreamlike, paradoxical reality that "frees" one from the fears and hopes of the future, because future time appears here not as an endless array of possible scenarios, but as what is known in advance. All this comes together like a mosaic in a phantasmagorical wedding celebration which, if you listen carefully, you can already hear buzzing around you.

Directed by Agnius Jankevičius

Cast: Gabrielė Aničaitė, Viola Klimčiauskaitė, Kamilė Lebedytė, Benita Vasauskaitė, Vesta Šumilovaitė, Dalius Skamarakas, Danas Kamarauskas, Jurgis Marčėnas, Vaidotas Žitkus, Aleksandras Kleinas, Eimantas Bareikis.
Scenographer - Laura Luišaitytė

Duration: 2 h. 30 m.

 N-16

THE PROJECT IS FINANCED BY

PARTNER 

The Licensee shall undertake to ensure that all programmes, posters or any other advertising material connected with the production of the work announce the title as follows: Translated Title (Hier und Jetzt) 

by Roland Schimmelpfennig 

Performing Rights S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; ©