A woman walks through plastic waste. She is holding a parasol that is slightly bent, as if it had been standing in the wind. You can see more garbage in the background.

Photo: Maurice Korbel

MK:

Asche

By Elfriede Jelinek

 Schauspielhaus

 World premiere

 Opening night: 26.4.2024

 approx. 1 hour 50 minutes

 English surtitles

 Thu-Sat: 15-45€, Sun-Wed: 10-40€, under 30 years each seat category: 10€





 Schauspielhaus

 World premiere

 Opening night: 26.4.2024

 approx. 1 hour 50 minutes

 English surtitles

 Thu-Sat: 15-45€, Sun-Wed: 10-40€, under 30 years each seat category: 10€

A very personal text about saying goodbye to the earth — Falk Richter stages a dense fabric of text, music, drama and AI visual worlds.

Elfriede Jelinek has written a new play. Jelinek’s latest work “Asche” is a deeply personal text about the loss of a beloved companion, the fear of loneliness, the decay of one’s own body and, at the same time, the fear of the impending end of human civilization. Jelinek takes another look at the great myths of creation: what is the world, how did it come into being, why is the human body so susceptible to failure and why were we humans such unbearable “evil guests” on this planet who will soon have to leave - if humans continue to devastate all the foundations of life. But where to? Because the gods no longer want us and “people were not obedient to the earth, but only to their leaders”, Jelinek allows herself a tragicomic thought experiment: Why not create an unconsumable parallel earth? A never-aging, never-ill whole with a perfect body? That would be practical. It would also have been better to make the sea out of plastic right away, that would have saved us a lot. Now we have had to throw a lot of plastic into it to come to this conclusion. This touching text oscillates between sarcastic thought loops and bitter realization. And what do we get in the end? “But all singing is over now. And in the evening, when we go to sleep, what do we do? We do not sing, we do not bloom. Think about our suffering. Nothing else”.

Falk Richter, who most recently staged Jelinek’s “Am Königsweg” (Production of the Year 2018) at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg with great success, is devoting himself to Elfriede Jelinek’s new text together with set designer Katrin Hoffmann, costume designer Andy Besuch, sound designer Matthias Grübel and video artist Lion Bischof. “Asche” continues a long tradition of Jelinek (premiere) performances at the Münchner Kammerspiele.

You can see two people in bird costumes. One costume has orange feathers and a green mask, with feathers also sticking out from the head. The other costume is decorated with dark feathers.

Maurice Korbel

Two people are standing on a rock. Smoke rises from the rock and is illuminated in red. The people look towards the source of the smoke. There is a lot of plastic waste around them.

Maurice Korbel

Several people are standing or sitting on a beach made of plastic waste. They are all wearing beachwear, caps or sunglasses. In the background is a large projection of a real beach full of garbage.

Maurice Korbel

A man is wearing a costume of a globe that is smoking. Two people in white coats stand around him and look at him.

Maurice Korbel

Two people are standing on a rock and holding on to it while smoke rises from the middle of the rock. Another pereson stands next to them, holding her hand to her throat as if she can't breathe.

Maurice Korbel

A person in a white, long dress has a blindfold around her eyes, which is bloodied where the eyes are. She has raised her hands powerfully in the air and has a triumphant expression on her face.

Maurice Korbel

A person is standing on a rock with his back to the viewer. There are two other people around him. One has his arms and legs outstretched while sitting on a folding chair. The other person is lying on the ground and clutching his head with his hands. Both are wearing a red mask that covers their entire face.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is bent forward looking for something on the floor. Around her are pieces of plastic that she has thrown into the air.

Maurice Korbel

Several people look up at the sky and have a puzzled expression on their faces. They are wearing beachwear, sun hats or sunglasses. There is a lot of plastic waste around them.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is sitting cross-legged. She has her hands on her knees and is holding her index finger and thumb together. She is staring straight ahead. Around her it is full of plastic waste and messy.

Maurice Korbel

A man sits in a folding chair. Air is blown into his face and his hair flies into the air. In the background is a rock from which a fountain of air comes out. Another person is lying on the ground holding his neck as if he can't breathe. Another person is holding a parasol that is stuck in the ground.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is wearing a red mask that covers her entire face. She is sitting on a chair with her arms and legs outstretched. There is a lot of plastic waste around her. Behind her, a man is standing on a rock. Another person is kneeling on the ground looking at the garbage.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is sitting on a chair with her arms and legs outstretched and her chest facing the sky. Behind her, a man is standing on a rock with his back to the viewer, looking over his shoulder at the ground next to him.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is sitting in a folding chair with her arms resting on the armrests. She is looking into the distance. Behind her, a man is standing on a rock with his back turned to the viewer. In front of the woman is a table that is slanted on one side. There is a radio on the table. Behind the woman is a human-sized screen on which an AI-generated face is depicted.

Maurice Korbel

A woman wears glasses and has long, white hair. She is crouched down in the corner of a wooden box.

Maurice Korbel

A woman wears a white coat and holds a clipboard in her hand. She is looking at a woman lying in a bed in front of her. She has red high heels in her hand and looks weak.

Maurice Korbel

You can see several people. Two are wearing white coats, one is sitting on a hospital bed, the other is leaning on one and talking. A woman is lying in one of the beds and looks frightened.

Maurice Korbel

A woman wears a long, white shirt and looks into the distance. Behind her is a rock and a gloomy landscape.

Maurice Korbel

A woman is sitting on a small stool with her legs crossed. She is leaning on her knee with her arms. There are other stools around her in a semicircle. To her left is a man wearing a black suit and glasses who is looking at her.

Maurice Korbel

You can see a large rock and a human-sized, vertically elongated screen depicting the face of a person. Lamps hang from the ceiling in a fan-shaped arrangement.

Maurice Korbel

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With support by Goethe-Institut.

With Bernardo Arias Porras, Katharina Bach, Svetlana Belesova, Johanna Kappauf, Thomas Schmauser, Ulrike Willenbacher
Directed by Falk Richter
Stage Design Kathrin Hoffmann
Costume Andy Besuch
Music & sounddesign Matthias Grübel
Video Lion Bischof
Lighting Charlotte Marr mit William Grüger
Dramaturge Viola Hasselberg

Assistent to the Director Hannah Waldow
Stage design assistance Nikolai Kuchin
Costume assistance Tom Schellmann
Stage Manager Barbara Stettner
Soufflage Jutta Masurath
Director's internship Philine Helm
Stage design internship Charlotte Grunewald, Christina Schuldheis
Costume internship Johanna Seitz
Dramaturgy internship Jonas Hirner
Theater pedagogy Filo Krause, Scherief Ukkeh
Artistic management Zora Luhnau
Technical management Jonas Pim Simon
Stage Master Thomas Graml
Stage Machinery Michael Preusser, Florian Obermeier
Lighting Tobias Fisch, Tankred Friedrich, Parthasarathi Sampath Kumar, Mirko Mayrold Neubauer
Sound design Ulrich Treutwein, Katharina Widmaier-Zorn
Video Ikenna David Okegwo, Thomas Zengerle
Make-Up Sylvia Janka, Alyssia Achille, Thomas Opatz
Costume Lotta Goeden, Jessica Watermann, Nico Vanni
Props Anette Schultheiss, Sabine Schutzbach
Carpentry Hannes Zippert, Josef Piechatzek, Sebastian Nebe, Wolfgang Mechmann
Locksmithery Fritz Würzhuber, Jürgen Goudenhooft, Andreas Bacher
Decoration Tobias Herzog, Maria Hörger, Anja Gebauer
Painting hall Evi Eschenbach, Ingrid Weindl
Theatre sculpture Maximilian Biek
Surtitles Yvonne Griesel (SPRACHSPIEL), Gitta Honegger
Translation Gitta Honegger
Performing rights Rowohlt Theaterverlag

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MK: Backstage

Leonard Rössert

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Video show on youtu.be

Two robots in the background. In the foreground: Katharina Bach holds an older, naked person in her arms. Ulrike Willenbacher holds a baby in her arms. Svetlana Belesova a middle-aged man.

Digital Program Booklet

Learn more about the production “Asche” and the author Elfriede Jelinek.

Press reviews

“Insane, fantastic, bombastic - theaaater! Shrill, funny and occasionally poignant.”

Die Zeit • 1.5.24

Read article 

“This new text by Elfriede Jelinek is wistful and poetic.”

ORF ZIB • 22.4.24

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“She and the others not only extract from Jelinek’s apocalyptically frothing and desolate swan song figures that appear and disappear again and again as if in passing, but also give the text the silence it actually needed in some moments.”

Deutschlandfunk • 27.4.24

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“Director Falk Richter illustrates the author’s eulogy, which takes place in sensational track changes, with an XL load of apocalypse images on the rear semi-circular screen. These are AI images of beautiful natural landscapes that disintegrate in the next moment”

Der Standard • 27.4.24

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“With “Asche”, the Nobel Prize winner for literature now takes the home-made climate apocalypse to a more personal level. Falk Richter premiered the resigned but no less eloquent text at the Münchner Kammerspiele on Friday with strong imagery and an almost solemn undertone…”

“Long lasting applause (…)”

APA • 27.4.24

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“Falk Richter’s direction demonstrates a great deal of sensitivity. Between the appropriate floods of images in the grotesque, socially critical scenes, he slows down the dynamics of the escalating lamentations several times to create space for the quiet and melancholy moments within.”

taz • 30.4.24

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“Katharina Bach, Svetlana Belesova, Johanna Kappauf, Ulrike Willenbacher, Bernardo Arias Porras and Thomas Schmauser impress in every moment of these 105 minutes with their cleverly thought-out and empathetic text design.”

Münchner Merkur • 29.4.24

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“An inferno of fire, earth, water and air, the four elements that Jelinek follows in her text like a trail to an origin.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung • 28.4.24

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“For anyone familiar with the author’s style, “Asche” is a masterpiece that Richter gets to grips with congenially.”

Passauer Neue Presse • 30.4.24

Dates & Tickets

Mon 23.12. 8 – 9:50 pm

Theatre Day: 10 € on all seats!

 Tickets

Thu 30.1.25 8 – 9:50 pm

Introduction from 7:30 pm

 Tickets

Asche

 Schauspielhaus
 World premiere
 Opening night: 26.4.2024
 approx. 1 hour 50 minutes
 English surtitles
 Thu-Sat: 15-45€, Sun-Wed: 10-40€, under 30 years each seat category: 10€

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Asche

MK: Backstage

Press reviews

Asche

MK: Backstage

Press reviews

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