Wolves: New play focuses on gender roles and hope!

Wolves: New play focuses on gender roles and hope!

On Sunday, the play "Wölfinnen" by Julia Haenni celebrated its premiere in the small house of the city theater. The direction took over Mathilde Lehmann, who, as a youth division manager, has already gained recognition for her work. The piece is aimed at an audience from the age of 15 and deals with the experiences of non-male people with gender roles, dangers and violence. The central subtext asks: "Do I have to be afraid or is it worth hope?"

Julia Haenni, who recently received the German Youth Theater Prize for her piece of "fear or rabbit", is also present with her work "Bodybild" at the Gießen studio stage. In "Wolves" it integrates a modern creepy version of the classic fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood". The selected ensemble is made up of talented actors: Anna Huberta Präg, Dascha Ivanova, Noémie Ney and Jasha Eliah Deppe. The latter is a non-binary person who particularly impressed when auditioning for the young ensemble.

sustainability on stage

The stage design of the piece is sustainable and uses materials from previous productions such as "The Lord of Flies" and "The Girls' School". The costumes of Nanako Oizumi are also characterized by a combative and provocative character that are changed several times. In this way, the theater not only reflects contemporary topics, but also the need to change in the staging.

Haennie's commitment to the visibility of women in the theater goes beyond “wolves”. In previous works such as "Woman in the Forest" and "Woman disappears" she addressed the often one -sided representation of women in the theater. "Women are often presented as passive figures or sexual objects," says Haenni. Their pieces are committed to telling stories in which women and their perspectives are the focus.

gender questions in the theater

Haenni is not only working on the visibility of women, but also on the gender roles in general. As a study commissioned by the European Theater Convention shows, men often dominate in leading positions in the cultural industry, while women act in more precarious roles. The study reveals that less than 40% of the leading artistic and production -related positions are occupied by women.

The determined data illustrates that teams under female management are generally more diverse and possibly also more innovative. It is recommended that theater become more relevant by structural changes and the consideration of diversity. This is particularly important after the theater world has experienced great pressure and production traffic jams through the pandemic.

By combining arts and social responsibility, Julia Haenni helps to promote discourse on gender relationships and their presentation. Her works, including the new piece "Don Juan. Eschöpipte Men", invite you to question standards and to develop alternative narratives.