With Enormous Wings
After the rain, the earth is steaming and in the backyard a droopy creature
with enormous wings is beginning to stir.
This is how everything begins for Pelayo and Elisenda, in their village somewhere
between jungle and sea… and for the feverish child. The willful and droopy
“angel” (how else to call a human-like being with wings?) is locked
away in the chicken coop and inadvertently changes the lives of
those around him. A shrewd neighbor and the priest take it upon them-
selves to investigate and explain. As the news of the astounding happenings in
the village spreads like wildfire, expectations tied to this strange apparition arise
and dubious miraculous events cause pandemonium. The situation escalates…
and what remains is a world forever changed.
Half-dreaming, half-remembering, a narrator weaves the puzzle stones of this
world into a web of magical-surreal reality. And not only he remembers,
but the boat, the spider, the chair,… the soil itself have their own
memories. Associations gain independence, become personified
mind images that guide the action, sometimes crowding together
and sometimes evaporating on the sensuous and frightening play-
field of the imagination. The interplay of actors and puppets creates a
fantastical stage world, in which everything seems to come alive in the
end. The silhouettes of quotidian life blur and the solid ground of
what we think we know is lost under our feet.
“The things are staring at you and invite you to change.” (Rilke)
A co-production with the Staatstheater Stuttgart
Narrator: Enno Podehl
Puppetry: Karin Ersching, Karin Ould Chih, Frank Soehnle
Music: rat`n`X (Johannes Frisch and Stefan Mertin)
Costumes: Steffen Flohr
Assistant: Ulrike Andersen
Direction: Ensemble