After a personal tragedy, former university professor Charlie has been "stranded" on a couch in northern Idaho. His only contact is with his nurse, Elder Thomas, a Mormon, and recently again with his ex-wife and his teenage daughter Ellie. The painfully touching, stirring yet humorous piece continues to provide much food for thought long after the performance, not due to Charlie's monstrous obesity and sky-high blood pressure, but because of the unusual perspective on the characters and the author's talent for creating complex characters that are memorable on multiple emotional levels. Like puzzle pieces, Samuel D. Hunter connects in scenes of great intensity Charlie's current condition with the broken relationships to people from his past who have drastically influenced his life. The film adaptation "The Whale" by director Darren Aronofsky, for which author Samuel D. Hunter himself wrote the screenplay, celebrated a triumphant world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2022.
Torsten Münchow, who in addition to his stage work in Munich, Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna, and Gdansk also appears on film and television (currently in "Großstadtrevier"), lends his voice as a "voice actor" to Brendan Fraser, the lead actor in the film, among others.
Euro-Studio Landgraf, Titisee-Neustadt
Direction: Stephan Hoffmann
with Torsten Münchow, Derya Flechtner, Rajko Geith, Franziska Endres, Iris Boss
Theater im Gemeindehaus
Age recommendation: from 14 years
Duration: about 2 hours, 30 minutes