Girls & Boys

The Salzburg State Theatre is building bridges and expanding its offering by introducing the International Theatre Salzburg. The objective of the International Theatre Salzburg is to bring professional English-language theatre to all generations of native speakers as well as local audiences.

An unnamed woman has a story to tell: about her husband, her work, her children. As her career soars, her marriage crumbles. The pulse-pounding play from Tony-Awardwinning playwright Dennis Kelly takes you on a journey that is at once hilarious, gripping, and heartbreaking.

“I met my husband in the queue to board an easyJet flight and I have to say I took an instant dislike to the man.” An unexpected meeting at an airport leads to an intense, passionate, head-over-heels relationship. A story of a „completely normal life“ that turns into a tragedy, a life that breaks apart because the father of the family does not know how to cope with his wife‘s success at work, her independence and the divorce that eventually follows. The couple lose themselves in the crisis, in the traditional gender images, overlooking the need of the other. “I don’t remember exactly when things with us started to go properly wrong – I just remember suddenly finding myself in it.”

The successful British author Dennis Kelly began working on Girls & Boys at Naples airport while waiting for a flight, like the character in his play. His stirring and captivating monologue was the natural consequence of thinking about the origins and effects of male violence. In his plays, Dennis Kelly looks deeply into the abysses of man and modern society. Violence runs through his monologue like a tripwire through grass. There’s the rumbling hostility of the airport queue, when a queuejumper can arouse vicious thoughts of revenge; there’s the childhood act of destruction — the meanness of trashing your sister’s toy. Silly, spontaneous, sullen. And then there is the act of violence so alien, pitiless and destructive that it defies comprehension, divides your life into a before and after, haunts you. Girls & Boys is a monologue that is as humorous and life-affirming as it is stirring and captivating. It will stay with you long after you have left the theatre.

Duration: 1h 30min

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