HERR SCHREBER
– a delusion
A newly composed music theatre show for 6 men about child-rearing, insanity and false premises.
Based on the lives and writings of two people:
Paul Schreber - Famous psychiatric patient, High Court judge and the subject of Sigmund Freud's classic study of paranoia. Author of Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken (Memoirs of My Nervous Illness), a detailed account of his inner life, which has been described as "a madman's Ulysses".
Moritz Schreber - Father to the above, German pedagog and author of Das Buch der Gesundheit (The Book of Health) (1839). A highly respected authority on child-rearing, public health and gymnastics. Believed that self-denial, strict discipline and gymnastic exercises were essential to save the nation's youth from "softness". Some are of the opinion that he instead created a nation which was ripe for Nazism.
Herr Schreber is a polyphonic cocktail of cabaret-theatre and contemporary opera, with newly composed music by Pete Livingstone. The visions and demons of Paul Schreber's insanity are portrayed by queer vocal quartet Schwanzen Sänger Knaben, who lead us through an absurd, grotesque and at times comic journey into the heart and horror of the human condition.
Press Qotes
"Herr Schreber simply reeks of international success....Pete Livingstone saunters around delivering wild psycho texts set to the most ravishing melodies; languorous, insinuating and exuberantly beautiful".
Anne Middelboe Christensen (Information)
....entertaining and disquieting...One is tempted to forget that paranoia is not exactly a barrel of laughs for the patient himself.
Søren Vinterberg (Politiken)
A darkly psychedelic cabaret-cocktail about child-rearing, father-fixation and warped sexuality, musically shaken up with equal parts Kurt Weill, Tiger Lillies and Tom Waits
Henrik Lyding (Jyll. Posten)
Performers: Pauli Ryberg, Pete Livingstone and Schwanzen Sänger Knaben
Concept: Livingstones Kabinet
Director: Nina Kareis
Composer: Pete Livingstone
Text: Livingstones Kabinet – adapted from source material
Dramaturg: Luise W. Hassing
Set design: Sisse Jørgensen