HABITUATION

We asked ourselves how our position towards climate change would evolve as its effects become impossible to ignore. We asked ourselves how we imagine the future from a present marked by insufficient action.

At the beginning of the show we find out that something will be over, but we don’t know what, or when, or how it will happen, all we can do is wait, and the emptiness of waiting can only be filled with telling stories.

“During one of the first talks with the extended team the term ‘palliative care’ arose, which turned into a sort of generator of my approach. SO I tried to find the warmth in this planetary situation: the warmth in our desperation, the warmth in our lack of action, the warmth in our denial, the warmth in the revolt, the warmth in the cynicism etc. etc. etc.” (Ioana Hogman, playwright)

“The work for this show has been an allegory of a personal emotional process for me. A process that is pretty hard to put into words, which starts from fear and powerlessness and gropes through the dark searching for something that feels like a sort of home, searching for a place where you can wait for… something. 

A cry. People who are too little, wandering, too little time. A handshake so strong that it breaks your bones, but from which you don’t want to break free.” (Irina Ionescu, video artist, set designer)

“Six performers are waiting for something. They don’t know when it will come, but they’re sure it’s coming. They’re constantly checking their watches, they become absurd and ridiculous, they tell stories. We don’t understand exactly what’s happening, who’s telling the story, but at some point they repeat, for exactly 5 minutes, the exact same word. THAT word. It seems like things are starting to make sense. We overlap planes, we let chance coexist with rigid structure. In the tension between these two extremes, when we are truly seeing, there can be hope. (Raul Coldea, director)