The Last Word, based on a novella, Le Dernier Mot by Maurice Blanchot. Directed by Martin Reckhaus, set/stage design, Philip Brehse; adapted for the stage by J.P. Slote
It seemed daring to conceive a theater evening which takes language as its problem…. In eleven scenes, the difficulties are exhibited that occur in the use of an ideological, injured, misused language. This kind of language does not permit communication any longer, has already become a power by itself…. It was a suspenseful and furious evening. “The words I heard that day rang strangely in my ears.” With this statement, the evening began—and probably also many of the audience’s dialogues following the 70-minute performance.
Hamburger Abendblatt, 12.8.96
Not [only] the story of a judge on his way to the Tower of Power, the theme is language itself. A collection of fragments is the form: fragments not only of a story; fragments also of aesthetics…. On stage is a scaffold with ropes and wheels, blocks and tackle…. Towers arise out of a few boards; a wobbly table as the spinning world.
Die Tageszeitung, 12.8.96.