Shows

Jakop Ahlbom Company: Lebensraum

Date: May 26-27 - 7:30 pm

Venue: 1862 Theater, Beijing

Two men are living in a small, single-room apartment. Their space-saving solutions are ingenious. Everything is multifunctional: the bed is a piano, and the bookcase also serves as a fridge. But they long for a woman in the house. To compensate for the lack of the feminine touch, they create a mechanical maid. One of the men makes romantic advances; the other sees her in a more practical role. But the doll soon shows there's more to her than polishing her day away. She has a will of her own and refuses to be bossed around. Things start getting more agitated in the one-room apartment. Buster Keaton's films of the 1920s were a big inspiration for this play, with the opening scene from Keaton's The Scarecrow giving Ahlbom the idea for Lebensraum. Whereas Keaton focused on the three-way relationship and the two men fighting over her, Ahlbom concentrates on the relationship between the two men that is disrupted by a doll. They project their own longings and wishes onto her, foist the finest of human traits upon her, and are disappointed when she does not live up to their idealized image of her.