Translated from the Spanish by Franziska Muche

The series of readings at Berlin’s Theater unterm Dach will conclude with a presentation of the anthology Schattenschwimmer: Neue Theatertexte aus Spanien, in conjunction with the staged reading of the play Die Stunde bevor wir ein Traumpaar wurden by Denise Despeyroux, translated by Franziska Muche.

Six neurotic characters try to love each other as best they can. Some idealise the other and hope that the beloved will become a lover, others are at a loss and cannot decipher the messages they receive. They all long for honest encounters and conversations. However, these are only possible in a strange, third place – un tercer lugar, as the play is called in the original Spanish.

In lively dialogues, the characters meet in ever-changing constellations of two and negotiate the entire range of human emotions – which repeatedly leads to paradoxical situations and very comic misunderstandings. The author ingeniously weaves the various narrative strands into a web of relationships, a snapshot of the emotional world of today’s thirty-somethings, who keep all their options open in life instead of deciding on one direction.

Directed by: Alexander Schröder
Discussion: Denise Despeyroux, Franziska Muche, Thorsten Schlenger