Theatre
Chico Lemon in the Valley of Hope
Wednesday, 08/01/2025 / 07:30 PM - 12:00 AM / Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin
A western by Milan Peschel & ensemble / world premiere
"You have to have hope left in you to be the last to die."
Last summer, when the sun shone so mercilessly on our land that I thought I had no hope left and I retreated more and more often to the coolness of my renovated old apartment in front of the TV, one night I heard Chico Zitrone say in one of those old westerns: "At the bend in the river where the poplars grow, there I will build you a house where we can live together." Maybe it was Johnny Rogers, I can't remember exactly. In any case, it was a guy sitting on a horse and looking confidently into the future. And I thought, shit, how great would it be if you just stepped out of that movie into my life right now, Chico Lemon, and said this to me: "At the bend in the river where the poplars grow, I'm going to build you a house where we can live together." Or something else in that vein. But neither Johnny Rogers nor Chico Zitrone did me this favor, they just looked cynically and coldly through the camera into my life in the renovated old apartment and said: "The hour is coming when your happiness will turn into disgust. The hour when you say: What's wrong with my happiness? " To which I replied: "I don't know, it's not my problem. I am a passage, a rope stretched across the abyss. I'm perishing in the present." And while outside a relentless sun scorched the once blooming land that had never really bloomed, Chico (or Johnny) just said , "Wow, sounds like you're the perfect fit for my life in the Valley of Hope." And then he winked at me and rode off into the sunset. And now I'm standing here, perishing in the present and yet not giving up hope. Hasta la vista, baby!
Following Die Umsiedlerin and Finita la Commedia in E-Werk and M*Halle, the world premiere of the western Chico Zitrone im Tal der Hoffnung is the first directorial work by the well-known film and theater actor Milan Peschel in the main auditorium of the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater.
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