based on the novel of the same name by Joachim Meyerhoff
"There was always talk of this void, this longing for the world, for genuine feelings! Oh, this void, this terrible void that I feel here in my heart! Everything that drove me was there."
Contrary to expectations, Joachim is accepted as a drama student at the renowned Otto Falckenberg School at the age of twenty. Since he cannot afford his own room, he temporarily moves in with his grandparents in a villa in magnificent Nymphenburg. The "temporary" stay quickly turns into three years, during which Joachim lives in two worlds that could not be more different: the sheltered, old-fashioned upper-class world of his grandparents, structured by alcoholic rituals, and, on the other hand, the acting school, which is focused on breaking and molding personalities. Plagued by self-doubt and the contradictions of dogmas and expectations such as "be authentic," "be yourself," "speak Effi Briest as a hippopotamus," Joachim must seek his liberation in the exploration of the other and the foreign and find himself through acting in theater. For it is precisely in the "gap," in the ambivalence, the uncertainty, the anger, and the feeling of being beside oneself that the power and potential to find one's own identity lies hidden.
Jan Bosse is one of Germany's most sought-after theater directors. He regularly stages productions at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Burgtheater in Vienna, the Deutsches Theater Berlin, and most recently at the Schaubühne. Together with Joachim Meyerhoff, he brought Thomas Melle's novel Die Welt im Rücken (The World Behind) to the stage as a congenial solo performance. The Burgtheater production was invited to the Berlin Theater Meeting in 2018. Jan Bosse also has a long-standing working relationship with the exceptional actress Anne Müller. While still studying acting, she was already a member of the ensemble at Schauspiel Frankfurt, where she played the young Gertrud in Armin Petras' 2008 production of Gertrud and was voted "Young Actress of the Year" by the theater magazine Theater heute. The production was invited to the Berlin Theater Meeting. Since 2009, she has been a permanent member of the ensemble at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, and most recently the Münchner Kammerspiele. She has also appeared in numerous film and television productions such as Babylon Berlin, Der Parfumeur, Jenseits der Spree, and Sisi & ich, and can be heard in many radio play productions.
