Desire

A farm in the Tyrolean countryside at the end of the 19th century. Three brothers fight for the beginnings of a life; against each other, against the walls that surround the farm, but above all against their father, who is as steadfast as an oak tree and refuses to give up his property. Far away, America beckons with the hope of gold, closer suddenly the father's young bride beckons with a completely different future. But there are stones everywhere along the way, stones upon stones. And the greater the desire, the greater the burden.

Desire is a free adaptation by Lisa Wentz of Eugene O'Neill's drama Greed Under Elms, which premiered in New York in 1924. A contemporary drama that wants to tell a story, goes into depth and, in the spirit of modern popular theater, demonstrates both "dialogic skill" and a "dramaturgy of silence".

The Tyrolean author was awarded the Nestroy for her play Adern, which was already performed at the Tiroler Landestheater in 2023. For Verlangen, she relocates the plot, which is originally set on a farm in New England and impressively depicts the brutalization of people in an environment in which they cannot develop themselves and their desires, to rural Tyrol. Together, the two authors examine the value of possessions, the price of self-determination and the barrenness of love.