About the work
Nis-Momme Stockmann's play was premiered in 2011 at the Schauspiel Frankfurt and is among the formative works of young German drama. The title refers to Georg Kreisler's famous Viennese chanson "Taubenvergiften im Park" (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park) of 1955 and continues the tradition of a black-humoured engagement with one's own destructive urges. Stockmann treats a taboo: the extended family suicide as an act of despair.
Plot
A father, a mother, two children. The family has gathered for an evening together. What follows is a descent told in reverse: what is actually happening here is not a family dinner but a shared death. The parents have decided to live no longer and want to take the children with them, so that they are not left behind. Stockmann depicts the ritual of the final hours without pathos: the preparation of the food, the conversations, the music, the moments of childlike play. The inevitability penetrates the spectator's awareness only gradually. At the end stands silence.
Cultural significance
Tauben vergiften is one of the most controversial contemporary plays and led to heated discussions about the limits of what can be represented on stage. The Schauspiel Frankfurt production was condemned by some critics as ethically problematic and celebrated by others as a necessary confrontation. The work poses the question of how theatre should deal with indescribable forms of familial despair without aestheticising them. With this play Stockmann established himself as an author who offers no easy answers.