Geh zur Ruh’
Come to rest

Everything flows. The body is surrounded by water, soaks, undulates. The limbs float in the water, are light, relax. I drift along until I become liquid myself.

Tired are you? We cordially invite you to a celebration of exhaustion. Yours, mine, that of the German healthcare system and of the worn-out utopias of the past decades.
Where, until the mid-1990s, state provision was still made for the exhausted, with footbaths and sunbaths, forest walks, healing waters, hay wraps and theatre on prescription, today there are only commercial thermal spas and rehabilitation clinics. The cure has been abolished. Exhaustion has taken its place. How can we face it? What practices can we learn collectively in order not to run after our strength, but to establish a preventative practice?
«Geh zur Ruh’» is a theatre evening of pause and revolution, between staying in bed and healing demonstration.

I am tired. That’s okay. Lie down and rest. I’ll lick your wounds. I’ll put you in a cast. I’ll listen to you. I’ll build you a cave. That’s where we’ll lie down.
That’s where we’ll rest.

Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 1


Premiere:
12.04.2024 Theater im Depot Dortmund

Further dates:

13.04.2024 Theater im Depot Dortmund
15.05.2024 Theater HochX München
16.05.2024 Theater HochX München
12.07.2024 Rottstr5 Kunsthallen Bochum
13.07.2024 Rottstr5 Kunsthallen Bochum
21.09.2024 Theater im Park Bad Oeynhausen

Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 2
Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 3
Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 4
Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 5
Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 6

Press: 

«A dreamy contrast to the round dance of powerlessness is the occasional indulgence in memories of the long-gone system of cure applications in Germany. äöü portray it as a symbol of the socially and politically discarded provision since the mid-1990s and provocatively pose the question of why we first have to burn down today in order to rebuild ourselves. Because what remains is a political situation in which the resting of the individual becomes the restlessness of others. A life in which we can no longer afford to be exhausted and yet exhaustion is constantly present.»
(Aylin Kreckel für ARS TREMONIA, 15. April 2024)

Concept & performance: äöü (Patricia Bechtold & Johannes Karl)

Stage, costume & inside eye: Sofia Falsone

Text: Sina Ahlers

Dramaturgy: Franziska Schneeberger

Sound Art & digital composition: Matthias Erian

Lighting design, technical direction, stage construction and Video shoot at the spa town: Simon Lenzen

Production: Carina Graf

Outside eye: Fanti Baum

«Geh zur Ruh’» is a production by äöü (Patricia Bechtold / Johannes Karl) GbR in co-production with Theater im Depot Dortmund and HochX Theater und Live Art München and in cooperation with Rottstr5-Kunsthallen Bochum. Funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for the Independent Performing Arts, the LWL Cultural Foundation, the NRW KULTURsekreteriat Wuppertal, the Cultural Office of the City of Dortmund and the Cultural department of the city of Bochum. With the kind support of Christian Barnbeck, Health Project Speaker at Staatsbad Bad Oeynhausen GmbH, and agora – Gesellschaft für Literatur, Kunst und Kultur e.V. Bad Oeynhausen.

Geh zur Ruh' / Come to rest 7