Winter Solstice [Drama On 3]

by Roland Schimmelpfennig.

A comic, unsettling and timely play by one of Germany's most performed contemporary playwrights.

It's Christmas Eve in the flat where unhappy arty intellectuals Albert and Bettina live with their little daughter Marie.

Bettina's difficult mother Corinna has come to stay, and worse still Corinna has invited Rudolph, a total stranger.

Not only that, but Rudolph has some rather uncomfortable views...

Albert - Sam Troughton

Bettina - Clare Corbett

Corinna - Susan Brown

Rudolph - David Haig

Konrad - Christopher Harper

Voice - Sinead MacInnes

Writer, Roland Schimmelpfennig

Translator, David Tushingham

Pianist, Chris Lee

Director, Abigail le Fleming

Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of the most produced European playwrights, and his plays have been translated into over twenty languages. His play PUSH UP (Royal Court 2002) presented a corporate culture where cut-throat employees oust their cut-throat bosses to get to the top. ARABIAN NIGHT (Soho Theatre, 2002) unpicked the psyche of modern, multicultural cities, where myths intermingle and identities entangle. THE GOLDEN DRAGON (Traverse, 2011), set in a Chinese takeaway, won the Mülheim Dramatists Prize and has had more than twenty productions worldwide. WINTER SOLSTICE itself was on at The Orange Tree Theatre in 2017. Schimmelpfennig is the recipient of the highest playwriting award in Germany, the Else Lasker Schüler Prize, in honour of his entire oeuvre.

Caustic and timely German play. A disturbing stranger interrupts a family Christmas.