Serotonin

"I was clearly just a wimp - a sad, insignificant wimp who was also getting old": that is Florent's blunt self-assessment. A middle-aged white man in crisis, he is disgusted by his job at the Ministry of Agriculture and his emotionally cold relationship with a younger woman.

In deep misery, he sees one last way out: staging his own disappearance. He quits his job and his flat, gets into his SUV, and sets off on a winter journey through rural France, searching for the roots of his failure. Central to that search is the memory of the great love of his life - a love he destroyed himself with a brief sexual adventure. A reunion with an old friend, a farmer whose land has been ruined by global trade flows, drives the point home: the promises of happiness and freedom offered by unbridled individualism are nothing but illusions that leave people stranded in loneliness.

Michel Houellebecq, widely regarded as France's most important and most controversial writer, tells this story with his trademark provocation, sharp self-deprecating humour, and a deep vein of sadness - a portrait of a Western civilisation collapsing under the weight of lost love.

Directed by Sebastian Hartmann, who has received four invitations to the Berliner Theatertreffen for his distinctive and uncompromising aesthetic vision.

Direction and set design: Sebastian Hartmann
Lighting: Lothar Baumgarte