Name: Delay the Sadness
Start: 2026-10-25T18:00:00
Location: Schauspiel Köln

Bühnen Köln

Finally back in a prime location! The theater is returning to Offenbachplatz! To coincide with the long-awaited reopening, artistic director Kay Voges is staging a hilarious comedy set in a building complex. One building, six condominiums in a functionally quirky neighborhood: Here live investors who will be paying off their mortgages by retirement, next to debt-free rich kids who love charging their electric cars at the communal power outlet. Carefree singles live next to families with towers of children's shoes in the hallway. Constant noises live next to invisible residents whose existence is only betrayed by the underwear in the conflict-ridden laundry room. The roof leaks, but stubborn owners are blocking access to the attic. The stairwell, which always reeks of deep fryer (thanks, first floor, right), isn't wheelchair accessible, and the recycling bin in the courtyard is overflowing. Repairing the frozen heating system requires unanimity. But how can anyone reach an agreement when some are being ruined by utility bills and others are measuring their balconies for solar panels? The new comedy by Kristof Magnusson (“Männerhort”) and Gunnar Klack reveals how the microcosm of a homeowners' association reflects the global madness of investment stagnation, pluralism, parallel societies and dilapidated infrastructure.

In a prime location

Schauspiel Köln

The new play by cult author Roland Schimmelpfennig is almost mathematically constructed around the numbers 2 and 4: two brothers, two wives, two couples. One couple lives in the countryside, the other in the city. The brothers are estranged and haven't seen each other for years. One of them is an actor. His name is Erik. A thousand performances of "Puss in Boots" have made him both a local celebrity and an alcoholic. The other, Martin, is a writer. For seven years, he has been working on his text "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse," which is intended to be both a children's story and a political manifesto. But he barely gets past the first page. Their partners, Lisa and Astrid, both long to escape life with their husbands, worn down by success and failure. Astrid yearns for the city, while Lisa has better artistic ideas than Erik and sympathies for Martin, his brother in the countryside, and his unfinished text. What happens when the country couple unexpectedly turns up in the city? Or the city couple in the countryside, their trunk full of wine, beer, and schnapps? And what if it slowly becomes clear that it was politics that once so deeply divided the two brothers? Roland Schimmelpfennig has written a sophisticated play, wonderfully absurd and painfully relevant, in which all mathematics ultimately dissolves in a massive pie fight.

day and night

Free water in Tetra Paks as consolation for missed connecting trains, confusion on the platform due to reversed train formations, hungry passengers in closed on-board bistros, stranded commuters at freezing provincial stations, broken toilets, undisplayed seat reservations, the absence of entire carriages, and delays, delays, delays. The reason? A train ahead, a faulty signal box, staff late from the previous journey… If there's one thing everyone can still agree on, it's the catastrophic state of Deutsche Bahn. But what are the reasons behind the reasons for the crisis? In the search for answers, one encounters many open questions: Was the conversion into a public limited company a mistake? Why is there still so little investment in the rail network? Is former CEO Mehdorn ultimately to blame for everything? Calle Fuhr isn't satisfied with simple explanations. In months of research, he examined the complex situation surrounding Deutsche Bahn, leaving no overhead line disruption unexplored, in order to understand the true connections behind the crisis. Following his acclaimed one-man shows WAR AND PEACE and THE RISE AND FALL OF MR. RENÉ BENKO, he delves into the corporate network of Deutsche Bahn AG, analyzes political cronyism, and searches for ways to get the railway back on track.

Deutsche Bahn AG

Delay the Sadness

An untrained body, an unformed creature somewhere between clown and child, finds itself thrown into the world. His name: Kaspar, in reference to the mysterious foundling Kaspar Hauser, who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828. Civilization, rules, and language are unknown to him. The otherwise speechless boy practices only one sentence in stoic, varied repetition: "I want to become like someone else once was." And then they sound, the prompters. With friendly, authoritarian voices, they name things and processes, practice words and sentences with the astonished Kaspar, order the world for him—and in doing so, create conformity, direct his gaze, and standardize his thinking. In the blaze of the 1968 movement, in times of revolt against the post-fascist Federal Republic of Germany and its conventions, Peter Handke wrote his great dramatic poem. A linguistic work of art of poetic beauty and political explosiveness, which he also called "speech torture." With grotesque humor and verbal acrobatics, director Claudia Bauer brings KASPAR to the stage as a musical power structure that dissects the price of education and understanding.

Kaspar

Just

Rave Lucid

Antigone defies the law. She does what Creon, the newly crowned ruler of Thebes, has forbidden under penalty of death: she buries her brother Polynices, whose body had been left outside the city to be devoured by birds. Creon is furious at this fierce affront. In his eyes, Polynices is a traitor who waged a bloody civil war against Thebes and killed his own brother Eteocles in single combat. Antigone invokes the law of the gods, the "sacred right of every dead person" to a grave. Creon, on the other hand, invokes raison d'état, his unshakeable word as ruler. He demonstrates his strength, condemns Antigone to death, and has her walled up alive. Unrest in Thebes grows. Creon's son Haemon, who is betrothed to Antigone, sides with the rebel. Creon is besieged on all sides, but his realization comes too late. ANTIGONE was once described by Hegel as "one of the most sublime, in every respect most excellent works of art of all time." It is now being performed in Cologne, directed by the Belgian Lies Pauwels, who has made an international name for herself with creations that are as poetic as they are political.

Antigone

Sleepless | Saaba | New Work

This is a premiere

What matters more to you: the fight against violence against women or defending your own son? Jessica is a successful criminal court judge specializing in sexual offenses against girls and women. She has passionately dedicated her life to fighting one of the greatest injustices that still exists: the perceived "normality" of men becoming perpetrators while women remain victims. Her commitment extends even to her private life. When it comes to raising her son Harry, nothing can go wrong with his sex education. Which man might have made inappropriate advances towards him? He should tell her. And what kind of porn does he watch in his bedroom after school? Harry should share it with her. In any case, he should do better, even better than his own father, Jessica's husband, who himself still has a few lessons to learn from his wife. But what happens when this very same educated boy himself falls under suspicion? Following the international success of "Prima Facie," Suzie Miller delivers her next highly provocative play, INTER ALIA, premiering at the National Theatre London in summer 2025. Director Jorinde Dröse and actress Claude De Demo continue their collaboration after the success of #MOTHERFUCKINGHOOD.