Rangashankara

Duck, Death and Tulip

“Drama, puppetry, music: It’s all just theatre, says the production. But what theatre!” (Nachtkritik von Christine Wahl)

“One of the most beautiful works of the season.” (Zitty)
 
“A wonderful production, equally haunting and moving for children and adults. Serious and funny, noisy and quiet, soft and boisterous, light and dark – simply stunning! (Prof. Kristin Wardetzky at the Ikarus Theatre Awards)
 
Need we say more about this wonderful production from Berlin!
The duck has lived a calm and quiet life, when an unexpected guest shows up at the lake – death. First terrified, the duck slowly swallows her fear and invites death to bathe with her in the lake. Gradually, the two get closer, and yet at the inevitable end, even death is a little sad. But that, it seems, is life!

Death, Duck and Tulip is a story of an impossible and thus wonderful friendship with everything that life has to offer: warmth, joyful serenity and poetry.

Based on children writer Wolf Erlbruch's book of the same title, very well-acclaimed, the play deals with a theme often unexplored in children's theatre; and that perhaps is why the play is unique. There is the uncomfortable idea of death dealt with tenderness and sensitivity.

The means with which Martina Couturier and Heiki Ikkola convey the finiteness of all life to even five-year-old children are pretty simple: Two puppets, some ropes, half a dozen props - the actors don’t need any more than that to depict the cautious approach between the lively Duck and the not-so-terrible after all Death.