German première

Men and women enter a factory, park their bicycles and put on or take off their work clothes before the shift begins or before they go home. What begins like a piece of documentary theatre develops into an opulent show full of poetry and pathos, a mixture of spoken and dance theatre, political cabaret and burlesque.

»Searching for traces« – The starting point for »La menzogna« (»The lie«) is a fire in the ThyssenKrupp plant in Turin in which seven workers burnt in the night of 6 December 2007. The fire extinguishers were empty and the emergency telephones were broken. All of Italy was in turmoil.

Pippo Delbono, born in 1959 in the seaside resort Varazze near Genua, is author, actor and director. In 1986 he founded his company comprising actors, dancers and singers but also formerly homeless people, street artists and handicapped people. Delbono’s plays exercise brutal criticism of capitalism. His most well-known plays include »Urlo« (»Shouting«, 2004) and »Questo buio feroce« (»This wild darkness«, 2006).

»On stage one once again finds the love for humanity which always accompanies the productions of the Italian: professional actors and people like Gianluca, who suffers from Down’s syndrome, or the microcephalic Bobò, who was institutionalised for 45 years and now has become one of the loveliest performers one could hope to see on stage thanks to Pippo, who brought him out of the mental institution« (Brigitte Salino, Le Monde, Paris, 23.07.2009).