About performance

Three generations of women and one inherited sin from the time of Nazism. The prestigious Burgtheater on the SND stage for the first time in 36 years.

1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War. A young woman is sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment by a court for collaborating with the fascists. 2015: a young woman finds her grandmother collapsed on the ground in their kitchen.

Between the past and the present, between prison and God’s judgement, between the kitchen chair and the death bed is where 70 years of the cobwebs of the past starts to unravel. The grandmother, mother and granddaughter discover the family secret concerning the disappearance of their husbands, they seek out the truth about their fathers and brothers, twisting between blame and forgiveness. How is it possible to come to terms with the blood on their hands that has been passed down from the grandmother? How can we ask the dead for forgiveness?

This powerful family story about three generations of women reveals the crimes that have played out in silence behind our neighbours’ closed doors.

This truly ancient story in the shape of the recent past is a brilliant narrative with exceptional acting performances. Elisabeth Orth has been one of the first ladies of the Burgtheater stage for the past five decades.. She plays a fascist collaborator in the piece, however in real life she is the president of the League Against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia.

This contemporary play by Ewald Palmentshofer directed by the young German director Robert Borgmann caused a sensation amongst Austrian theatres and from among four hundred of the most recent productions in German-speaking countries, The Celibate received an invitation to the prestigious 2015 Theatertreffen festival in Berlin.

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