Vreneli's Garden

Vrenelis Gärtli
Based on the novel of the same name by Tim Krohn

Trigger warning: A lengthy scene will take place in complete darkness!!!

What does ‘home’ mean in a world that is becoming ever more digital, faster and more anonymous? Where can we find a sense of security when real-life encounters are becoming rarer? Can the theatre be a home?
Based on Tim Krohn’s mythical Alpine novel *Vrenelis Gärtli*, this theatrical evening aims to let us experience human and inhuman longings first-hand.
At the centre are two unusual characters: Vreneli and Bersiäneli. They make their way through the Gnuusch of a lifetime – feeling their way, stumbling, searching. For Vreneli, the journey through the mountain world also becomes an inner journey: Who am I? Where do I belong? Where is my place in this world? The search for identity becomes a search for home – not just as a place, but as a sense of belonging.
They tell stories, doubt, laugh, reach their limits – and in doing so, bring to life a world that feels both strange and familiar.
Perhaps this is precisely where the theatre becomes a home: in listening together, in marvelling, in passing on stories.

A co-production by Kellertheater Winterthur and Groupe Nous
With Catriona Guggenbühl, Annina Walt;
Direction and set design: Patrick Slanzi, Jonathan Bruckmeier
Music: Nicolas Balmer; Dramaturgy: Zoé Kilchenmann
Lighting design: Lukas Matthys; Set design: Dominik Joho

The author
Tim Krohn (born 1965) grew up in the Glarus region as the third child of a Hamburg family, and, after a wild youth as a free-jazz saxophonist and perpetual student, became a freelance writer. He lives with the writer Micha Friemel and their four children in the village of Santa Maria Val Müstair, population three hundred, right on the border with South Tyrol. His literary works include, alongside novels such as *Quatemberkinder*, *Vrenelis Gärtli*, *Irina’s Book of Frivolous Love*, *To the Sea*, the trilogy *Human Emotions* and *Saint Henni of the Backyards*, as well as numerous plays and several opera libretti.