Bucket List – by Yael Ronen

Synopsis

A man wakes up on a Saturday morning, and the world around him has changed beyond recognition. His reality is shattered. What he believed to know has completely disintegrated. Nothing is what it used to be.

In his despair, he turns to a shady start-up that is developing cutting-edge technology. It allows the patient to choose what to remember: »Zeitgeist« addresses the global market for PTSD treatment with a unique procedure that alters and erases the traumatic memory itself. But until the amenities of a trauma-free present can be enjoyed, some phantom memories might haunt the patient’s thoughts – a strange collage of broken plots.

»Bucket List« is a musical hallucination about an overwhelming reality. Songwriter Shlomi Shaban and director Yael Ronen, along with the ensemble and a three-piece band, use music to penetrate abysses that our bodies may remember better than our forgetful brains.

Premiered on 9 December 2023

Credits

Director: Yael Ronen
Songwriting and Compositon: Shlomi Shaban
Stage Design: Magda Willi
Costume Design: Amit Epstein
Composition and music direction: Yaniv Fridel, Ofer (OJ) Shabi
Video: Stefano Di Buduo
Dramaturgy: Irina Szodruch, Martín Valdés-Stauber
Lighting Design: Erich Schneider
Vocal coach: Till Josa Paar
With: Moritz Gottwald, Carolin Haupt, Damian Rebgetz, Ruth Rosenfeld
Live music: Thomas Moked Blum, Amir Bresler, Hila Kulik

Biography

Yael Ronen, born in Jerusalem in 1976, is one of Israel’s most important theater makers. She has been equally active in Germany for many years. Ronen studied scenic writing at HB Studio in New York and directing at Seminar Hakibbutzim in Tel Aviv. At the Schaubühne, Yael Ronen first showed her plays developed in Israel at FIND. Together with the ensemble as well as with Palestinian and Israeli actors, she presented the works »Third Generation« (2009) and »The Day Before the Last Day« (2011) at the Schaubühne. For her production of »Hakoah Wien« (Schauspielhaus Graz, 2012) she received the Nestroypreis 2013. Now she returns to the Schaubühne to develop theater evenings with the ensemble on a regular basis.

Photo by Esra Rotthoff.