The Vacuum Cleaner

by Toshiki Okada / Münchner Kammerspiele / invited to Berliner Theatertreffen

Director Toshiki Okada
Stage Design Dominic Huber
Costume Design Tutia Schaad
Music Kazuhisa Uchihashi
Lighting Design Pit Schultheiss
Dramaturgy Tarun Kade, Makiko Yamaguchi

Chôhô Walter Hess
Homare, Chôhô’s daughter Annette Paulmann
Richigi, Chôhô’s son Damian Rebgetz
Hide, Richigi’s friend Thomas Hauser
Deme Julia Windischbauer

Homare is a “hikikomori”: She has withdrawn from society and hardly ever leaves her room. What does her life under one roof with her 80-year-old father, her brother and his ex-colleague from the Amazon warehouse look like? Toshiki Okada carefully examines a social phenomenon of today’s Japanese society. His distinctive movement vocabulary runs asynchronously with the text and is not only fascinating to look at, but also sets the internal and external realities of his characters into a peculiar relationship with each other.

”Das Bühnenbild (Dominic Huber) gibt Einblick in ein japanisches Haus mit holzgerahmten Papierwänden und Schiebetüren. Drei leere, ineinander verschachtelte Zimmer, verteilt auf zwei Stockwerke. Schön sind die Lichtfarbeffekte auf den Papierkassettenwänden. Die Schauspieler ziehen die Schuhe aus, und das tut sinnbildlich der ganze Abend: Er kommt auf weichen Socken daher.” Sueddeutsche Zeitung