Blind

After his wife’s death, Richard lives isolated in a heavily guarded gated community. He has sacked his long-serving housekeeper for no apparent reason. As he is increasingly in need of care, he insists on his only daughter Helen looking after him. Richard – who still has a big ego after a successful career as an engineer in the water supply industry – has little respect for the idealism of Helen’s work as a lawyer or her choice of husband: a Black intellectual. Helen meanwhile criticises him for retreating from the challenges of a changing society in which greater consideration is given to issues of gender equality and racism and where only more scrupulous handling of finite natural resources can guarantee the survival of future generations. During one of his daughter’s flying visits, the electric shutters automatically close – as they are programmed to in the event of an attack. Father and daughter are forced to put up with each other.

«How should we live together?» the Netherlands’ most-performed dramatist Lot Vekemans asks in her new play, hitting a real nerve of our time. She finds a very humane way to depict the apparently irreconcilable attitudes that lead to disagreement and conflict in many families and friendship circles. Vekemans’s solo «No one is Waiting for You» with Juliane Köhler received a great response when streamed by the Residenztheater. In «Blind» she will be acting alongside Manfred Zapatka.

The German language premiere of «Blind» will be directed by Matthias Rippert, who has established a reputation for his precise interpretations of contemporary playwriting.