About the work
In My Room is a theatre work from Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater that received its world premiere on 15 January 2020. The production was nominated for the 2020 Mülheimer Theatertage Stücke festival. Five male performers form the centre of an autobiographical and performance-based investigation of fathers, sons and different models of masculinity.
Plot
The five performers examine their relationships with their fathers and father figures. Biographical storytelling is combined with physical performance and music. Their individual experiences produce contrasting images of masculinity, family intimacy, distance, expectation and emotional injury. The evening moves between declaration of love and accusation, tragicomedy, rock concert and physical performance, repeatedly connecting the stories of the individual performers with one another.
Cultural significance
The nomination for Stücke 2020 gave the production significant national recognition. Reviews particularly emphasised the performers' openness and the complexity of the very different father-son relationships presented on stage. The work belongs to a strand of contemporary theatre that investigates masculinity not primarily through abstract categories but through autobiographical material, bodies and heterogeneous cultural experience.