A "something", an "in-between", a young punk is obliged to perform one hundred hours of community service for various offenses with an elderly lady who is unable to leave her room due to her mobility restrictions. The woman reads books that don't interest the girl and listens to music that always sounds the same to her. It turns out that due to her absent husband, the elderly lady has spent her whole life listening to Anton Bruckner and his symphonies, especially his Seventh. The lessons that can be drawn from Bruckner's work for a correct life seem never-ending. And how easily one is inclined to find something ridiculous because one does not recognize complexity, humility and sublimity. But the audience soon notices a horror that lies beneath the glorification, a limiting of the horizon in the explanation of the world, a defense of an unspoken accusation. Although the young woman defends herself to the best of her ability, a relationship develops with the old woman. Two women in different phases of life and with contrasting pasts find a new beginning through each other.

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
Puppets: Soffi Povo
Co-production: Posthof - Zeitkultur am Hafen, Schubert Theater Vienna
World premiere: 9.10.2024 Posthof, Linz