Vier Wände. Über geschlossene Systeme

When the bourgeois era commenced, absolute power shifted from regal palaces to the commoner’s castle, his home. Driven from the big stage, the patriarch plays out his power in his family. Ever since the 1700s, when the bourgeois tragedy emerged, quite a large number of European dramas have been about the struggle to break out of these closed systems. Today, many homes are in danger of collapsing, the family is a ramshackle structure in which the patriarch huffs and puffs as he musters every last bit of strength to try and defend his lost status. The plays and texts in this chapter all explore the breaking up of formerly closed systems. They describe the rise of those women and families who previously set out for new shores and now live with cultural fractures in their new countries. The patriarchs aren’t the only ones who need to find a new role for themselves.