German première

»Searching for traces« – A man and a woman meet in a train. The knowledge that they have met before increasingly develops from the shy conversation … This story is told in ever-changing variations, from absurdist drama to slapstick comedy, from melodrama all the way to musical. The married couple covers the surface of the world with banter since they don’t have anything else left to say.

The basis of this absurd-comic piece is formed from a single scene from the play »La cantatrice chauve« (»The bald soprano«, 1950) by the Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco (1909-94), who numbers amongst the most significant representatives of the theatre of the absurd.

Bekim Lumi, born in 1966 in Suharekë/Kosovo, studied literature and Albanian language at the University of Prishtina from 1987-91, where he is now a professor of theatre directing. He studied also theatre directing at the Academy of fine arts in Tirana from 1992-96. Lumi founded the Loja-Theater in Munich in 1998. He has developed nine pieces as a freelance director since 1998 which he has also presented at international festivals.

The National Theatre Kosovo was founded in 1946 in Prizren and was the first professional theatre institution in Kosovo following the Second World War. It moved to the capital in Prishtina a short time later. The programme was finally able to open up after the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999 and now presents unconventional pieces in addition to its normal repertoire. Gresa Pallaska and Astrit Kabashi are two of the most outstanding actors of the theatre.

»›The Martins‹ – an experiment form of theatre which brings laughter with its burlesque and musical elements while also bringing tears using irony, grief and despair« (www.dardamedia.com, Prishtina, 15.04.2009).