PETER TRABNER

the death of empedocles

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Tueday, November 15 | 6 p.m. | Die Pumpe

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Language: German
Running time: 75 minutes

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based on FRIEDRICH HÖLDERLIN

Empedocles, the Greek philosopher, medicine-man, and magician from Sicily plunges into Mount Etna and rises into the sky as a silver cloud, “distributing” himself globally in a homeopathic dose. He is now present in everything and everywhere – like plastic in our oceans and exhaust fumes in our air.
In 1797, Friedrich Hölderlin failed spectacularly in his drama project about Empedocles’ death; there exist three versions of the drama – none of them finished.
Peter Trabner, the actor rehearses the Hölderlin play repeatedly with the tree as his stage partner, and eventually – as Hölderlin himself – ends up in a psychiatric ward. Released as healed, Trabner continues rehearsing with his only remaining friend, the tree – the representative of the universe.

THE DEATH OF EMPEDOCLES is vigorous, ludicrous and at times as clear as the spring water from plastic bottles of a globally active corporation using mother bird and her dear little chicks as the company logo.
Peter Trabner works as actor and lecturer in film, television, and live theatre.
Between 1992 and 2002, Trabner toured the world with HERR RICHTIG (MR. RIGHT), a chaos clownery show. As the forensic pathologist from TATORT DRESDEN (CRIME SCENE DRESDEN), Dr. Falko Lammert, he had his “own” spin-off mini web series in 2017: LAMMERTS LEICHEN (LAMMERT’S BODIES).

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Peter Trabner – Director

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Photo: © ParsProFoto, Peter Hoffmann