Things you should definitely find out ..

But not about your mum ... In "All the Sex I've Ever Had" on Neumarkt, 65-plus-year-olds take a look at life to the full.

What was important? What is important? The five people on the Neumarkt stage in "All the Sex I've Ever Had" come from different regions of Switzerland, from Ticino to eastern Switzerland. They are all over 65 and have been cast for this performance. Perhaps they could be your parents in terms of age, as in my case. Over the next 100 minutes, they will talk about selected highs and lows in their lives, about moments of happiness, despair and the feelings in between - all based on their personal experiences of lust, sex, eroticism or the lack of it. Her stories are at times of bold beauty, tender humour and a remarkable view of others and herself. Sometimes, however, fate is so precise and violent that, as a viewer, I am shaken to the core. One thing is clear: these five people are very open and very courageous, they expose themselves.

"All the Sex I've Ever Had" was created by the Toronto-based company Mammalian Diving Reflex in 2010. Since then, the format has toured the globe with stops in Bochum, Helsinki, Ljubljana, Chicago, Kyoto and Taipei - to name just a few. Anyone who is 65+ today was born in the 1940s: and that is where the chronicle of lust and sex begins, composed of the miniatures of Nicoletta, Heinz, Rosmarie, Werner and Roger. It is remarkable how the local cultural space takes shape with each subsequent episode, coloured by history and politics, locations and regions, peers and pop as well as rebellions and tolerances towards the social conditions of the time.

In an older interview, the co-director of "All the Sex I've Ever Had" says that this performance is about the openness that arises in the room - and not about a lustful journey through the sexuality of other people. This works perfectly for me until one of the amateur actresses on stage talks about her most recent lustful experience and reminds us audience members once again that she had to turn 72 to be able to experience it. My thoughts involuntarily wander to my mother, who will soon be the same age ... No, this thoroughly recommendable evening doesn't want to be experienced that way after all!"

"All the Sex I've Ever Had" shows the fullness of life and manages to put human existence, which loves and suffers above all in the present, into the perspective of a life lived. And so it is thanks to the five of them that life finally seems relative, marvellous and comforting in its totality. You leave the evening - I leave - with hope.

To the trailer of the play

Published from Katharina Nill on December 07, 2023.

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