LEONCE AND LENA

Do we have to live the life others have planned for us? LEONCE UND LENA tells the story of two people fleeing an arranged future and is presented as a participatory and inclusive production that invites the audience to join in exploring what Büchner’s satire might reveal about ourselves today.

An arranged marriage—and two people who are anything but happy about the prospect: Prince Leonce of the Kingdom of Popo, bored and melancholic, and the deeply saddened Princess Lena of the Kingdom of Pipi.

Neither knows the other, and both independently flee toward Italy in order to avoid what they see as an even worse fate. When they meet by chance, unaware of each other’s identities, they fall in love…

Georg Büchner’s only comedy, written in 1836, lies at the heart of this season’s participatory and inclusive project. Under the direction of Dominic Friedel and his team, young people from Bonn and the surrounding region, together with members of the theater ensemble, engage with Büchner’s romantic and political satire through literature, performance, and play in workshops and rehearsals. As always, the guiding question is: »What does all this have to do with us?«

Director and theater therapist Dominic Friedel was born in Arnsberg in 1980. He studied theater and media studies, political science, and psychology in Erlangen before joining the Maxim Gorki Theater as an assistant director. This was followed by three years as resident director in Mannheim. Since 2016, he has worked as a freelance director. With LEONCE AND LENA, he and his team are staging a participatory project at Theater Bonn for the sixth time. Previous productions at the Schauspielhaus include GODLESS YOUTH, THE RIDER ON THE WHITE HORSE and ANIMAL FARM.