Stefan Keim on WDR 3 Mosaik: "great directorial achievement by Philipp Preuss - terrific acting performances - one of the highlights of the theater season."

Despairing and cynical, Jean Floressa's Des Esseintes, an ailing aristocratic scion with a penchant for quirk, and Francois, a washed-up professor of literature with a penchant for young female students, are finished with the world. The protagonists of Joris-Karl Huysman's decadent novel "Gegen den Strich" (1884) and Michel Houellebecq's scandalous novel "Unterwerfung" (2015) both sit at a richly laid table, yet they pine for something to satisfy their hunger for meaning. While one celebrates a radical withdrawal from society, the other faces a fundamental systemic change under the banner of political Islam. A European menu in two times and five courses.

Sponsored within the framework of NEUE WEGE by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in cooperation with the NRW KULTURsekretariat. read less