My First Suicide

My First Suicide is nog a typical venue performance, but a swirling show that invites the audience to a tour through the building of the theatre and places where they would not normally come.

Simon is out of a job. He has no goals in his life until he decides to commit suicide. These suicidal plans bear the promise of the martyrdom he’s always dreamt of. The intellectual, the religious, the artist and many others crash down on Simon emphatically so that he would dedicate his life taking to their respective cause. Suicide as the ultimate publicity stunt. Simon has doubts about those plans to be fair, but the idolization that accompanies this bold choice is enormously tempting of course. The audience follows Simon through a vortex of caricatural promises and absurd thoughts. What happens when the hour of truth is here and the suicide has to take place? Is one of the offered ideals worth taking one’s own life? Is there a way back? To what cause should one commit his life, his death? I hang myself – because I’m worth it. Topics have to ‘earn’ their attention through spectacle and sensation. The actual content becomes overshadowed by its monstrous exterior appearance. No message is slung towards society without it being yelled and exaggerated.

My First Suicide is a musical theatre performance based on ‘The Suicide’ (1928) by Nicolai Erdman, a satire about the political zeitgeist of that period.