Theatre & Opera
Harper Regan (2008)
Directed by Ramin Gray. With Manfred Zapatka, Marlen Diekhoff, Samuel Weiss
Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Germany
Coproduction with Salzburger Festspiele, Austria
Duration of the performance: approx. 2 hours, no break
CREATIVE TEAM
Ramin Gray, Stage director
Jeremy Herbert, Sets and costumes
Annette ter Meulen, Lighting
Nicola Bramkamp, Dramaturgy
CAST
Martina Gedeck, Harper Regan
Manfred Zapatka, Elwood Barnes
Aljoscha Zinflou, Tobias Rich
Samuel Weiss, Seth Regan
Marie Leuenberger, Sarah Regan
Marie Leuenberger, Justine Ross
Samuel Weiss, Mickey Nestor
Manfred Zapatka, James Fortune
Marlen Diekhoff, Alison Woolley
Manfred Zapatka, Duncan Woolley
Aljoscha Zinflou, Mahesh Aslam
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
One Monday night, Sarah, the 17-year-old daughter of the Regan family, is preparing for her geography exam with her father Seth: "Glaciers are huge expanses of moving ice. When a great mass of compressed ice reaches a critical mass, it becomes so heavy that it begins to move.” Without knowing it, Sarah sums up her mother Harper's emotional state with this image. Harper's father is dying, and she wants to see him one last time. However, her boss refuses to grant her the necessary time off. Thus, she suddenly finds herself at the crossroads of her life, leaving her husband and child and work behind and traveling to Stockport. However, she is too late. For a short while, her life seems completely open again: without a job and far from her family, the subsequent events set her life in motion again, and it is as if it were given to her anew. Harper Regan is a contemporary drama in stages, the atmosphere of which continues to reverberate for quite some time.
Simon Stephens is the most successful British playwright of his generation; he was elected best foreign playwright of the season 2006/07 by the theatre critics of the German-speaking countries.
Photos © by Cornelia Schrader