Bühne Cipolla - Der Untergang des Hauses Usher

Bühne Cipolla presents Der Untergang des Hauses Usher after Edgar Allan Poe as puppet theatre with live music. The production was created in cooperation with Theatre Duisburg, Metropol Ensemble and Schaulust e.V. and is designed as touring theatre. In 2019, Bühne Cipolla won the renowned Monica-Bleibtreu Prize with Der Untergang des Hauses Usher at the 8th Private Theatre Days in the category Modern Classics.

Roderick Usher, the dying last heir of a degenerate noble family, asks his friend from university days to keep him company to make his illness more bearable. Driven by curiosity and dark premonitions, the friend arrives at Usher House, a dilapidated, isolated estate where, besides Roderick, a few silent servants and his equally ailing twin sister live.

Shortly after the friend's arrival, Lady Magdalena Usher dies and is laid out in the basement of the house. But this is only the beginning of a series of strange events. While a storm rages outside, the sleep-deprived friends try to cheer each other up: they sing, read, paint and make music together, and try in every possible way to fill the gloomy walls with life.

The American author Edgar Allan Poe tells in his short story, first published in 1839, in his typical mixture of grotesque situations, subtle horror and tension-filled language cascades of human primal fears and the struggle of the spirit against dark impulses, and reflects in a delicate and poetic way on friendship, empathy and a love that transcends death.