Blindness

At a busy intersection, a man waits for the traffic light to turn green and – suddenly goes blind. A helpful passer-by brings the blind man home; a little later he also becomes blind. A strange epidemic seems to have broken out, with more and more people in the city turning blind from one moment to the next. To avoid further contagion, the government cannot think of another solution but to intern the victims in a deserted mental institution. Disoriented, left to themselves, and unable to grasp their destiny, the blind seek to organise their lives in this new environment. But the more people arrive, the more unbearable, chaotic, and violent the situation becomes.
In his novel »Blindness«, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998, the great Portuguese storyteller José Saramago not only paints the realistic picture of a sudden catastrophe, but also reveals the philosophical universe of a general blindness in which human action appears as violent and ridiculously grotesque. We are delighted that Kay Voges, who was recently invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen with his spectacular production of »Borderline Prozession«, will be staging a play for the first time for the Deutsches SchauSpielHaus.