Eine blassblaue Frauenschrift

Josefstädter Strasse 26

1080 Wien

 

Vienna, 1936. A successful man at the height of his professional and social career. A marriage of convenience once propelled him into the highest circles of Viennese society. Now he is established, influential, and self-assured.

But when he receives a letter written in pale blue handwriting on the morning of his 50th birthday, his meticulously ordered existence is thrown into crisis. Memories of a great love resurface, repressed decisions and doubts about his previous outlook on life come to the surface, along with the question of whether he has risked too little in favor of a bourgeois existence. Between elegance and the abyss, the story of an unsettling protagonist unfolds: a man who has learned to move to the rhythm of high society like a waltz, light-footed, charming—perhaps too lightly.

Franz Werfel wrote "A Pale Blue Handwriting" in 1940 while in exile as an insightful retrospective on the society of the 1930s, shortly before its moral collapse. His narrative intertwines intimate self-examination with the political climate of National Socialism: career and complicity, conformity and personal gain are thrown into an imbalance that threatens to tip at any moment. Oliver Reese, director and artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble, has dramatized Werfel's text for the stage, dissecting the tension between outward brilliance and inner turmoil in a life plan that appears more stable than it actually is.

(Source: josefstadt.org)