THE ALIENATED is Now Playing at Theater St.Gallen

In the 2021/2022 season, the Zurich playwright and director Alexander Stutz was resident author at the Theater St.Gallen as part of Stück Labor, the support program for new Swiss drama, and during this time he began work on The Alienated. He developed the characters in the play when he spent a week observing people in the theater container in front of St.Gallen's main post office, having conversations, projecting stories onto passers-by and finally putting everything on paper. The result is a panopticon of encounters and characters who lose themselves in the confrontation with themselves and others. It all begins with the deconstruction of a fairy tale: Grethel has no desire for the ending of the story that bears her name in the title. She wants out, to a new life, to a new family. To people who give their future a chance instead of abandoning it in a dark forest. She leaves the encounter with the witch to her brother Hansel, sets off and finds what she is looking for. Grethel grows up sheltered, studies and establishes a successful foundation, which advocates the clearing of all forests in order to build parking lots and concrete structures in their place. After all, it should never again be possible for a child to be abandoned in a forest.

The author does not spare his characters. They get what they don't want, lose what they love, and fail where they want to succeed. In her escape from reality, Hansel and Grethel's mother takes to the skies again and again, becoming a "flyer" - until she vegetates in an artificial coma after jumping out of a window.

The father, full of guilt towards his children, becomes the "old man", an alcoholic who lives in a parked car in the parking lot where his cottage once stood in the woods. In constant dialogue with his own reproachful and cheeky brain, he gradually alienates himself from his existence and disappears in delirium. Grethel, although a successful CEO, dies of cancer, leaving Flurin with a disillusioned, Daughter raised by her mother to be dependent. At some point, even for them there is no way out of the ever-increasing fog that envelops the parking lot with the 24-hour shop and the hospital on it.

Ambitious climber Wanja receives the long-awaited managerial post from Grethel, only to find out shortly afterwards that she is pregnant and is completely alone in life. Only the "fat" that the adult Hansel has become wants to offer her some support - which he himself is looking for in vain. Between anonymous meetings with strangers, he longs for great love in a public toilet. Ambitious climber Wanja receives the long-awaited managerial post from Grethel, only to find out shortly afterwards that she is pregnant and is completely alone in life. Only the "fat" that the adult Hansel has become wants to offer her some support - which he himself is looking for in vain.

Between anonymous meetings with strangers, he longs for great love in a public toilet. Ambitious climber Wanja receives the long-awaited managerial post from Grethel, only to find out shortly afterwards that she is pregnant and is completely alone in life. Only the "fat" that the adult Hansel has become wants to offer her some support - which he himself is looking for in vain. Between anonymous meetings with strangers, he longs for great love in a public toilet.

Alexander Stutz creates a melting pot for this handful of lovable alienated people in which they collide, fleetingly approach, recede, and are swallowed up by the fog. He tells their stories empathetically and sensitively, enriched with abysmal, whimsical humour. Like a kaleidoscope,