Close-up on a Secret Pleasure
Based on a short story by Shirley Jackson
Does evil smell of roses? — “But people everywhere were lustful and evil and degraded, and needed to be watched.”
A heavy, seductive scent of roses hangs over the beautiful Pleasant Street. Miss Strangeworth loves her roses: for her, they represent home and this home is Strangeworth House on Pleasant Street. The unremarkable woman is the anchor of her neighbourhood. She has been living here for three generations: everyone knows her and she knows everyone else. Yet nobody suspects that the universally respected Miss Strangeworth is pursuing a clandestine second life. Her secret pleasure will become the doom of the community.
In her precisely choreographed and visually powerful works, director Marie Schleef zooms in on the forgotten, the repressed and the invisible. She translates the oppressive inner state of her characters into emotional images. Schleef discovers Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) for the stage - an American classic and master of the uncanny who is little known in Germany. Jackson, who is considered the ‘queen of gothic fiction’ and whose fiction combined everyday observations with elements of the absurd and uncanny, influenced various authors of subsequent generations, from Sylvia Plath to Stephen King and Carmen Maria Machado. Her posthumously published short story is being performed for the first time in German-speaking countries.
In cooperation with:
- With Johanna Eiworth, Walter Hess, Frangiskos Kakoulakis, Leoni Schulz, Edith Saldanha
- Extras Jolanda Pusch, Martha Kamenisch, Jakob Waldow
- In the video Stefan Merki, Leoni Schulz, Katze Lilli
- Directed by Marie Schleef
- Stage Design Ji Hyung Nam
- Costumes Teresa Vergho
- Sound & Music Jan Godde
- Video Lillian Canright
- Media-Operator/Surtitling Ruben Müller
- Artistic Advisory Hannah Schünemann
- Dramaturge Olivia Ebert
- Stage Lighting Design Christian Schweig
- Assistent to the Director Marion Hélène Weber
- Stage design assistance Ying Yue
- Costume assistance Jacqueline Elaine Koch
- Stage Manager Stefanie Rendtorff
- Theater pedagogy Daniela Blümel, Sophia Bernhard, Filo Krause
- Directing Intern Jakob Elija Seeberger
- Stage Design Intern Charlotte Grunewald
- Dramaturgy Intern Leonie Rinze
- Production management art Angelika Koch
- Production management technology Adrian Bette
- Stage Master Thomas Graml
- Stage Machinery Friederike Rückauf, Sabine Haslinger
- Lighting Franziska Erbe, Tobias Fisch
- Sound design Korbinian Wegler, Paolo Mariangeli
- Video technology Thomas Zengerle, Maurizio Guolo
- Makeup Sofie Reindl-Grüger, Nicola Richter-Okegwo, Sara Moradipour
- Costume Arite Pissang, Fabiola Maria Schiavulli
- Props Manuel Kößler
- Carpentry Sebastian Nebe, Josef Piechatzek, Hannes Zippert, Stefan Klodt-Bussmann
- Locksmithery Jürgen Goudenhooft, Friedrich Würzhuber, Andreas Bacher
- Decoration Tobias Herzog, Maria Hörger, Anja Gebauer, Lisann Öttl
- Painting hall Evi Eschenbach, Ingrid Weindl
- Stage sculpture Maximilian Biek, Amelie Unhoch
- Thanks to Sylvia Janka
Digital introduction
Press reviews
„Die Regisseurin Marie Schleef debütierte mit dem Stoff bei den Kammerspielen und schuf aus dem ganz fein gesponnenen Horror eine bilderstarke Performance der radikalen Entschleunigung.“