“Young Theater” Linz: Odysseus’ odyssey as a precision landing

Finally! After 20 years – a decade in the Trojan War and another on the high seas – Odysseus reaches his home of Ithaca. His son doesn’t recognize the strange father, so the Greek hero tells him his wanderings. “Young Theater” director Nele Neitzke and Friedrich Eidenberger condense central adventures from Homer’s epic into 80 minutes of adventure in their “Odyssey Short Cuts”.

The Vöcklabrucker, who has been a permanent member of the “Junge Theater” ensemble since 2019, is also making his directorial debut as Odysseus (supported by Veronika Haider) in the state theater series “Junge Klassiker” and has also designed the equipment: rope, trestle and horse are enough. His Odysseus is an athletic hero who moves smoothly across the stage. How he outsmarts the one-eyed cyclops who devours his companions is not for the faint-hearted, although his narrative art in alternating roles leaves the horror largely to the imagination of the audience aged 14 and over. And the art of theater: a shadow play gives Odysseus heroic stature. The box becomes a ship in which light art creates meter-high waves from a bowl filled with water. Eidenberger steers his hero unerringly past the Rock of the Sirens, to the sorceress Kirke – although not everything about this hero is heroic. As little as he hesitates to share the camp with Circe, the returnee willingly gets rid of his Penelope’s suitors.

The delicate piano sounds of Bernhard Höchtel’s stage music sound like home.

A mystery remains on the high seas: “Is it a god or a demon ringing? You don’t know,” Eidenberger spontaneously incorporates a merciless cell phone into his agile game that grabs you at every moment.

Conclusion: An entertaining “odyssey” that reaches its audience without fail.

“Odyssey Short Cuts”: Version by Nele Neitzke and Friedrich Eidenberger based on Homer’s epic, studio stage (Kammerspiele), to
May 22nd, www.landestheater-linz.at