A "something", an "in-between", a fifteen-year-old punk girl is required to perform one hundred hours of community service for various offenses with an old man who is unable to leave his room due to his mobility restrictions. The man reads books that don't interest the girl and listens to music that always sounds the same to the girl. It turns out that the man is mainly concerned with the question of the cymbal beat in Anton Bruckner's Seventh Symphony. He seems unwavering in his pursuit of the question of how much loud exaggeration some things need in order to be understood, and how easily one is inclined to find something ridiculous because one does not recognize complexity, humility and sublimity. Although the young girl does her best to resist this, a relationship develops with the old woman. Eventually, she is able to ask questions and reveal something about herself.

Manuela Linshalm is a freelance actress, puppeteer and lecturer at the Filmacademy Vienna. After training at the Franz Schubert Conservatory and apprenticeships with Nikolaus Habjan and Neville Tranter, she has been performing continuously at the Schubert Theater Vienna since 2009, where three solo puppet theater pieces have appeared to date (most recently "Die Welt ist ein Würstelstand"). Other engagements include the Akademietheater Wien, Theater an der Wien, Residenztheater München, Landestheater NÖ, Vereinigte Bühnen Bozen, Bayerische Staatsoper, Volkstheater Wien, Rabenhof Theater, Next Liberty Graz, Theater in der Josefstadt, Theater Dortmund and many more.

Paulus Hochgatterer lives as a storyteller, playwright and child and adolescent psychiatrist in Vienna and in the Waldviertel. His narrative work has been translated into more than 15 languages and has won numerous awards. In recent years, his plays have been performed at various theaters in the German-speaking world, including the Schauspielhaus Graz, the Residenztheater Munich, the Schauspielhaus Stuttgart, the Burgtheater Vienna and the Opera Festival in Bayreuth. Most of his stage works were created for the Austrian director and puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan.

The sleeping whale
Play by Paulus Hochgatterer
Play: Manuela Linshalm
Director, set: Simon Meusburger
Co-production: Posthof - Zeitkultur am Hafen, Schubert Theater Vienna
World premiere: 9.10.2024 Posthof, Linz

Posthofstrasse 43 4020 Linz Details & Tickets