Over There

A play by Mark Ravenhill

a CU Stages Production at HERE ARts Center

Over There
Directed by Christopher Murrah
Produced by Natalie Gershtein
Performed by Rick & Jeff Kuperman

When the mother of identical twins, Franz and Karl, defects to the West, she escapes only with Franz, leaving Karl behind. Twenty-five years later, Karl crosses the border from East to West Germany to find his other half. The two men have an intense shared connection. They know scraps of each other’s lives without speaking or seeing each other, they speak in unison, yet the gulf of ideology and upbringing between them is insurmountable. When the Berlin Wall comes down, the physical barrier between them is removed, but the struggle to connect and find unity lives on.

Now, at the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ravenhill’s chilling play examines the urges and hungers released when two ideologies, two brothers, from opposite sides of the wall meet again.

Franz (Rick) meets Carly (Jeff) in a diner in California, present day.

Carly's a cutie, ain't she?

Carly turns into Karli (or Karl), an East German man.

Franzl and Karli share a beer after 25 years of living on opposite sides of the wall.

Swapping stories.

"And you got mud on your knees, your belly, your ass" "Hah! I did. Mud up my ass!"

"How's the chicken?"

"What's that mean, Wixn pussi?" "A vixen in English is like... I don't know actually it's... I don't know what a vixen is."

"The wall's falling."

"the wall's down the wall's down the wall's down the wall's down just cracked open the possibilities the centuries of the weight of the everything still slow static...

Karl goes shopping in West Germany for the first time. "You have such a lot shit in the shops. Totally unnecessary shit. I love that"

PAAAAA-RTY! "Open wide the twins are coming inside."

Franz's son. All they've got left in the world.

TAKE THE SUIT OFF!

FINE! "Would you like some cold sausage for the journey?" "Great." "Oh." "What?" "There's no sausage left." "Oh well. Never Mind."

Leaving the West

"So there's not much for me over there." Karl tries to kill himself.

"I'm going to wash you now." "As frut ot yo prsk." "Yes because actually Karli actually you're getting rather smelly."

Karl takes the boy deep into the woods. "We spend so much time in the city. When actually we have the most beautiful countryside in the world. This is the heart of Germany. The East.

"Do you want some rabbit?"

"And my boy sat up in that sleeping bag and he, and he saluted me - like this - and he said, "be ready - be always ready."

"I'll fight. Kill me." "I don't want to." "Yes you do. This is your world... everything here you understand. I don't. Everything here you own. I don't. Everything is... So please. Only one."

"We are one."