Stereotypically, the fact that all life ends in death is the one thing all human beings have in common, and the one fact that not even the most brazen of conspiracy theories can even try to deny. Despite many thoughts and theories and ideas about death, across history and cultures, we do not know when it will happen, why it will happen, what it will be like for us, and what comes after it, if anything.
After the death of a person, those who have been close to that person grieve, and different researchers have proposed distinct phases of grief. Kübler-Ross names denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, while Bowlby and Parkes list four phases: shock and numbness, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair, and reorganization and recovery. Until the death of a person close to us happens, we cannot tell how we will react, and different people’s deaths may well trigger different reactions, or patterns of grieving, with the four or five phases shifting in sequence and / or intensity. The inner dimension of our feelings in the face of another person’s death, grief, relates to the outer dimension of how we show this grief: mourning.
Crime drama on TV thrives on death; establishing the cause of death falls within the remit of the pathologist, and coping with grieving relatives, and the interpretation of different forms of mourning are parts of the challenges for the most hardened of TV detective inspectors world-wide. However, the processes of solving the crime, the revelation of the perpetrator, the psychology of the investigators and the criminal minds are central to this genre. The philosophical contexts of death, and the depth of grief and mourning cannot be covered by this genre, and those issues will not play any significant role in crime stage drama either.
Theater Bremen focused on mourning in their take on Hamlet in June 2026 (see my review here). Coincidentally, Theater Bremen and piccolo Haventheater in Bremerhaven offered world premieres that both dealt with death, grief and mourning quite recently, but in very different approaches in terms of genre.
I. Grief. Different. at Theater Bremen was a performance piece rather than a straightforward play. The text was written by Ralph Tharayil, who worked on the production with Miriam Ibrahim, who was in charge of directing, concept and sound. The broad frame of the performance was the aftermath of the death of a father. The four performers, Maya Alban-Zapata, Judith Goldberg, Ruben Sabel and Kameron Locke, reflected on the father-figure, his death, their feelings, in personal ways and by reciting relevant passages from world literature and referring to relevant ideas from across the world’s cultures. Gianna-Sophia Weise had designed predominantly white garments for the four performers. Light (designed by Katrin Langer) was provided by indirect lights from the sides and predominantly from a square device, an over-sized ceiling lamp, almost the size of the stage, hung from the ceiling and being lowered and raised for much of the duration of the performance, very slowly indeed, and without the electrical mechanism causing distracting noise. The stage was mainly bare, the walls of the theatre space with all their equipment in full view, and a number of boulders of irregular shapes initially indistinctly at the back – later brought forward by the performers and used to sit on or climb around. The pace of the performance was on the calm and solemn side without ever losing momentum, allowing time for reflection in the process of watching the performance rather than forcing too many impressions on the spectator to necessitate any reflection to happen after the end of the performance – a process in which much will be lost by nature of the functioning of human memory.
Andreas Brendel and Gabriel Stohler Mauch in Der Vorhang fällt. Photo credit: piccolo Haventheater.
To launch their tenure as artistic managers of what is now named piccolo Haventheater, Vania and Andreas Brendel chose a new play written by Andreas, Der Vorhang fällt [EN: The Curtain Falls], with Vania directing and Andreas performing together with Gabriel Stohler Mauch. Heiko (Andreas Brendel) appeared on the stage, somewhat confused because he hardly knows who he is and does not remember much of his past. A figure in a dark hood, resembling medieval ideas of death as a hooded skeleton with a scythe, introduced himself as Ansgar (in the German context this is a very funny name indeed for such a character), an employee of the Kingdom Come Company (KCC). Stohler Mauch played Ansgar with a hilarious Swiss German accent. He informed Heiko that he had in fact died and was now chosen to replace Ansgar as the harbinger of death. For this he will be supplied with the latest version of the scythe, an electronic model called something like Grim Reaper 3000. Ansgar also handed Heiko a thick book with the life story of his first client, theatre artist Micha. When Ansgar was not able to answer all of Heiko’s questions, he related them to his remote contact in the KCC, whom we heard as a female recorded voice (provided by Vania Brendel). We then encountered Micha, close to opening his new theatre and expecting an actor as a late replacement following a colleague’s illness. Heiko appeared, quite visible to Micha, rather than invisible, as Ansgar had promised he would be on his assignments, and a hilariously funny dialogue developed between Heiko, not at all keen on his new role, and Micha, who has no intention at all of leaving this world just now. There were many references to standard and stereotypical assumptions about death, and Brendel’s text elegantly combined funny moments with serious matter. As an actor, Brendel excelled in the comedy, physical and vocal, of layer upon layer, nuance upon nuance, of confusion and determination, and Stohler Mauch as Micha was particularly good at doubletakes and deadpan comments. Vania Brendel ensured a fine balance between unhinged comedy and serious context. Together, text and production never offended or addressed the delicate contexts in inappropriately rough ways, but always with a twinkle in the eye, on a high level of wit.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.