Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

(Stephen is the Artistic Director of XIII Pocket; he is writing and directing Adore as part of the Visiting Company Initiative Garage Rep)

Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to work here at Steppenwolf as an actor several times, and now because of their new Garage Rep series, I’ve been given the chance to tell this particular story from the other end, as both a writer and a director. I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity, and I couldn’t think of a bolder and more volatile story to come out swinging with…

Adore is based on a true story. Here are just a few of the facts:

In the year 2001, Armin Miewes and Bernd Jergen Brandes meet on the platform of the main train station in the town of Kassel, Germany. Bernd began his journey from Berlin earlier that morning. He left his condo as if going to work at the same time he does every day. His partner of several years, Renee, thinks nothing unusual about it. Having wiped his personal computer clean of any and all suspicious correspondence, and having bought his ticket in cash so that there would be no record, he began the last train ride of his life.

After meeting at the station, these two men drive to a small farm town named Rotenburg, where Armin has lived all his life. Though they have never met before in the flesh, Armin and Bernd have been in constant contact over the internet for several months now, and over the next 24 hours these lovers enact each other’s greatest lifelong fantasy. They engage in a willing act of cannibalism… Bernd offering up his body for Armin’s consumption.

When I first heard the details surrounding this story, I was fascinated… completely drawn in. After spending some time with the shocking content, it slowly started revealing itself to me as an entirely romantic idea. These two people engaging in an irrevocable act of desire, sacrificing themselves in order to be together… it’s a heightened form of a love story told since the beginning of time. Think of your infamous star-crossed lovers: a fated match that fits together so perfectly that once the two have found one another, nothing can stand in their way. Not even their own lives.

It’s wholly morbid and it’s completely beautiful and it’s entirely romantic in its own unique and fucked up way.

We start rehearsals later this week, and though the script is in place and the actors are ready to begin, I can’t help but think about all of the aspects of this story we haven’t found yet: the little truths that only reveal themselves when you begin breaking a story apart with your fingers and really start looking at its insides. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as we move on through our little experiment here.

This entry was posted by Stephen Louis Grush on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Garage Rep. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.