Ajax

In the organizer's words:

Sophoclean antiquity and the immediate present are blended together in Thomas Freyer's "Ajax", leading to encounters between characters who are actually separated by millennia. Ajax, the proud and glorious Greek general in the long-running battle for Troy, is driven mad and ultimately suicidal by the never-ending bloody events of the war. Michael, a German family man, is preparing for a war in Europe, which he sees as a world conspiracy. Both become increasingly estranged from their families as a result of their shifted perception of the world. The radicalization of the fathers has fatal consequences, especially for the sons: Ajax's son Eurysakes is determined to go into battle bravely and honorably and will soon surpass his father in cruelty. Michael's son Jonathan avoids everything and loses himself in drug addiction. Only their wives question the recurring forms of violence, the fanaticism of conspiracy myths and images of masculinity that have remained astonishingly unchanged for thousands of years. The play questions the effects of war on personal and social relationships and encourages us to learn for the future by reflecting on the past.

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Gustav Rueb, born in Zurich in 1975, assisted Klaus-Michael Grüber at the Schaubühne, Peter Stein and Christof Loy and at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, among others with Jürgen Gosch, where he also realized his first own productions. Since then, he has worked at the Schauspielhaus Graz, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Staatsschauspiel Dresden and Schauspiel Essen. Rueb has regularly directed at the Staatstheater Kassel, where he received the Hessian Theater Prize for best production for "The Bacchae" in 2010.