Opening: 11 June 2023, Werk X-Petersplatz, Vienna

Heat. June. First: Yay! Then: Nay! We dream ourselves away from the city. Into the shade of citrus trees and tall pines. Away. To a holiday hideaway. Want to dive into the vacation bubble there. Already hear the Vespa rattling. Feel the ice-cold Aperol shoot through the straw into your mouth. Sucking on fresh figs and watermelons. While our thighs gradually melt into plastic chair surface.

It’s summer. Bauer + Baum collective dismantles the theatre chairs at WERK X-Petersplatz. And erects a glass bungalow. It’s not surrounded by lush, fragrant nature or the gently swaying treetops of a Mediterranean place we long for. But by the audience, who can see into the life of an ensemble of four. Not a family on paper, but still one somehow. Not a typical one, and yet already a love story.

Bauer + Baum fish with relish for familiar clichés in the nostalgia box and serve them garnished with feminist perspectives. In the process, they question the so-called romantic love and what it is supposed to be able to achieve with its sheer unbridled power. They deal with family and other constructs and ask themselves how political intimate connections are. Inspired by Şeyda Kurt, Josephine Apraku, bell hooks and many others, a diverse text is created based on interviews with tenderness experts and in collaboration with the ensemble, which demands space for BIPoC and LGBTIQ* voices. Who can allow themselves to completely ignore “society”? Who enjoys the luxury of not being in the mood for politics at all? Who is allowed to withdraw and relax in a “hideaway”?