The farewell letter

[The Farewell Letter](https://zimmertheater-rottweil.de/abschiedbsbrief/) ## Tragicomedy **by Audrey Schebat** Farewell Letter **by Audrey Schebat** **Director:** Peter Staatsmann **Dramaturgy and Costumes:** Bettina Schültke **Set Design:** Alana Nastold **Cast:** Valentina Sadiku and Martin Olbertz **8:00 PM at the Zimmertheater** _"We have better things to do than stay people like us."_ Leave everything behind, break up, just disappear—without writing a farewell letter? That is exactly what the experienced psychoanalyst Julien intends to do. Driven by a strange feeling, his wife Maud—who has just been named “Pianist of the Year”—returns early from her concert tour. A shock awaits her at home: Julien is sitting there with a noose around his neck—but he is alive. Even more unsettling: there is no farewell letter, no explanation. What follows is a harrowing night filled with pointed, emotional dialogues between two people who were once close—and now suddenly find themselves strangers to one another. What really holds a relationship together? Love? Habit? Fear? Or illusions? Furious, passionate, yet always full of wit, sharpness, and emotion, they wrestle with one another: Childhood memories mingle with intimate confessions, radical questions of meaning, and unsparing reckonings. Illusions crumble and long-suppressed truths come to light. This night will decide whether the two will part ways for good or fall in love all over again. The astonishing thing about Audrey Schebat’s play is that the gravity of the subject is carried by a humorous lightness. Perhaps only French comedy writers can do this—write a social comedy about a serious topic without sounding disrespectful or arrogant. Director and playwright Schebat has succeeded. Her first play, “The Parakeet,” ran over 200 times in France. “The Farewell Letter” (“La Note”) premiered in Paris in 2023 at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens, starring Sophie Marceau and François Berléand. An evening that tells of letting go and starting anew, but also of the courage it takes to master life—and perhaps the story of a courageous departure into an unknown future.