Bestie Mensch

"Even if better machines are invented, there will always be wild animals."

In his crime novel La Bête Humaine (The Animal in Man), published in 1890, the great French writer Émile Zola describes an oppressively topical phenomenon in his stirring, visually powerful language: the lack of empathy and the increasing social coldness in society.

The railwayman Roubaud, his wife Severine and her lover Jacques Lantier get caught up in a maelstrom of passion, jealousy and frenzy in their desperate struggle for a little private happiness and social recognition and do not even shy away from murder.

The industrialization of Western Europe - described by Zola on the basis of the rapid increase in rail traffic - confronted society at the time with the same questions that we humans are faced with in the digital age: Where is our technology-obsession leading us? How do we communicate with each other? Do we still listen to each other at all? Have morally self-evident values such as tolerance, compassion and solidarity become foreign words?

Stage Cipolla, Bremen | Play, stage design and direction: Sebastian Kauz| Music, composition and sound design: Gero John