Endless party

The 2012 season of the HAU theatre in Berlin ended with the 24-hour staging of the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. After nine years, Matthias Lilienthal left his position as artistic director, during which he had positioned HAU onto the map as one of the most important alternative theatres in Europe. For the very end, he planned a master project, a theatre omnibus par excellence. Twelve artistic groups and individuals responded to the themes posed in the novel with their performances. They addressed the following issues: talent, handicap, fun, alienation, family, television, violence, religion, art, acting, addiction, suicide, tennis, terrorism, overburdening and the search of the lost subject. All of this took place in original spatial, temporal and collective dimensions.