Westend

Eduard and Michael studied medicine together and played in the same band, The Rolling Docs, until they drifted apart. Eduard is a cosmetic surgeon, a medical practitioner in a crisis zone of the Western psyche who removes his patients’ fear of becoming old and worthless. Michael, meanwhile, works for an NGO and has just returned from Afghanistan, bringing with him stories of violence and senseless death. Eduard and Michael meet again after many years producing a clash not only of political but also personal worlds; Eduard has since married Charlotte – who was previously in a relationship with Michael. Charlotte once again finds herself torn between these two very different men. As comfortable as her existence is in the house she and Eduard recently bought, it is also unfulfilled and childless. To relaunch her flatlining career as a singer, she plans a major comeback in a performance of Haydn’s The Creation. And then there’s Lilly, the young medical student who lives nearby. Eduard falls in love with her uncomplicated directness, putting old certainties in jeopardy.

Utilising elements of Goethe’s Elective Affinities, Moritz Rinke’s play depicts a collapsing world populated by a fragile middle class whose biographies and bodies are scarred by war or the pressure to succeed. Westend is perhaps Rinke’s most mature play to date and certainly his most unsparing.