FLÄCHENBRAND (Wildfire Road) in Lüneburg

The beautiful play Flächenbrand (engl. Wildfire Road) by Eve Leigh, which she wrote for a drama class in Sheffield, can be seen in a production by Theater zur weiten Welt in collaboration with Theater für alle at the Kulturbäckerei in Lüneburg since its premiere on 24.01.2025. I was so delighted that I went to see the premiere.

This production of the play is the first in Germany to work with a large ensemble of 24 people on stage, and so it is able to give the large-scale play the dynamism that Eve intended (not to mention that we would be thrilled to see it with the cast of 416 given in the play). I don’t want to get ahead of the plot, but I will briefly give you some impressions.

Several very nice ideas gave the production a special drift that suited it well. For example, the mysterious kidnapper is a triad of three very different performers, giving her an archaic, mythical quality. Her oracular character is emphasized in a new way that is not so apparent in the play. The special casting, which one of the directors, Raimund Becker-Wurzwallner, let me in on, leads to a particularly touching and inclusive cast: they took whoever came first and wanted to take part in the play. So the bodies that come together on stage differ strongly in terms of age, gender, origin, language, motor skills etc. – just as bodies do.

Very charming: the author has the character of Mariella explain the experience of cultural foreignness to another character, Dave, based on her experience with Estonian, which is linguistically quite insular and, as a Finno-Ugric language, differs distinctly from most other languages. In this scene, the actress suddenly begins to speak her short monologue in Estonian. This is a pleasant surprise, as Estonian is spoken by comparatively few people worldwide and the likelihood of having one of them in the ensemble is not great. But apparently, that is exactly what happened in this case. With my weakness for multilingualism in the theatre, I was at once thrilled. The part is spoken simultaneously in German by one of the flight attendants.

The production is surprisingly generous with the addition of video material. It is self-confidently edited and decisively underlines the play’s climate theme. I had the impression that this works very well and helps us to keep the urgency of the issue in mind, despite the artificiality and fantasy of the plot. The passion of the performers for their work, which has kept them busy for over half a year, is also noticeable during the choral passages and perhaps most of all when a situation that is resolved in the text with a page-filling prayer of supplication culminates in Lüneburg in a calming, unifying hymn sung by the entire choir in their most turbulent emergency. Very harmonious!

Thank you very much, Theater zur weiten Welt. I would like to recommend a visit to the upcoming performances. Please find all dates and information here: Theater zur weiten Welt.