Pictures of Us

Jesko Drescher is startled to receive a picture sent his mobile phone, of himself aged 12. More images emerge unexpectedly, this time from Jesko’s memory. But he’s not the only one going through this process. He and his schoolmates, all successful career men in their 40s, are forced to come to terms with the realisation that they may have been victims of systematic abuse at their elite Catholic school. What at the time seemed «Normal» now receives a dark new context. Many re-examine their own past decisions, some of which may not have been autonomous after all.

«An experimental collage of scenes ... The way that Pictures of Us juxtaposes characters and positions through 52 scenes while maintaining its momentum demands of the audience that they take part in a sense of productive confusion with no clear solutions and that will occupy their minds long after the play has ended.» (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

«It begins like a classic Hitchcock thriller: An unexplainable event disrupts the daily lives of people, creating more and more secrets ... Melle combines gripping dialogue-based scenes with narrative and reflective prose passages. These give the play a poetic and philosophical quality, turning into a contemplation of the nature of the images themselves.» (Nachtkritik)

»Pictures of Us is powerful, political theatre.» (Deutschlandfunk Kultur)