Christabel is a participatory chamber theater performance. There are no actors in this play for two spectators. Instead, the first act consists of short texts, the second of photographs, and the third of sound.
Christabel Heisig belonged to a well-known artistic family in Leipzig, but the play is not about her, it’s about her apartment, where the author placed a fantasy of home and uninterrupted “normal” life.
Natalia Zaitseva: “I moved to Germany from Russia in March 2022 — because of the war and because of a relationship. In the summer of 2023, my partner and I broke up. I started looking for an apartment without much money. One of my friends gave me the contact of the theater director Hermann Heisig, whose mother had passed away a few months earlier, and now he wanted to sublet her apartment, with all her furniture and personal belongings, to someone he could trust—until he could move into it himself. So we found each other — the apartment and I — both in a transitional phase, both after a loss.
I expected the apartment to be sad, but it was full of light and air. No traces of depression. Two balconies, high ceilings with stucco decorations. I started cleaning cupboards, throwing away expired food, and deciding which objects I wanted to get rid of so that they don’t take up too much of my space. I felt that it was a very intimate process. I drank from Christabel’s cups, slept in her bed, looked at the fish on the big still life above her — or my — bed every morning. I felt a connection with her, as If I inherited something from someone. So I told Herman that I wanted to do an art project about Christabel's apartment. He didn't mind.”
The performance is in German and lasts no longer than 45 minutes.
https://www.schaubuehne.com/spielplan/christabel
Concept, texts, photos, direction and performance: Natalia Zaitseva
Dramaturgy and project management: Lisa Dressler
Scenography and object design: Claudia Doms
Translation and editing: Martina Lisa
A production by Natalia Zaitseva and Schaubühne Lindenfels. Supported by the Cultural Foundation of Saxony and the City of Leipzig – Cultural Office.