"Confusions" by Alan Ayckbourn

"You might as well talk to yourself."

The Spieltrieb theater group is staging Alan Ayckbourn's "Confusions" - a variation on differences of opinion, misunderstandings and isolation.

In five turbulent one-act plays, overly concerned and caring neighbors clash and a cheerful saleswoman meets a windy salesman at the hotel bar. Two couples have dinner in the same restaurant, where many a faux pas comes to light over lobster and foie gras. An entire village waits patiently for its town councillor to give a festive speech while trying to meet all the demands of a successful village festival. In the end, individuals try to pour their hearts out, but find no one to catch them.

The play impressively demonstrates how difficult it can be to communicate with one another. In a sometimes surprising, sometimes comical way, characters interact with each other in a realistic way, despite all the exaggerations. The everyday problems dealt with in the play may be named differently nowadays, but they are still virulent: What are the consequences if only one partner takes on the care work? How do you escape a situation in which your partner does not respect their own boundaries? Can you find solace in a fling when the fire of your relationship has gone out? Does a one-night stand open up new perspectives? Is silence always golden?

The inter-faculty student theater group Spieltrieb was founded in Freiburg in 2012, now consists of 18 people and has staged a play every summer since 2013. After works by Shakespeare (2013 and 2025), Schnitzler (2014 and 2023), Schwarz (2015), Spregelburd (2016), Dürrenmatt (2017 and 2024), Wilder (2018), Canetti (2019) and Rose (2022), we will be performing a play by Alan Ayckbourn, who is considered one of the most important contemporary English playwrights, for the first time in the summer semester of 2026.