For the first time in Berlin on February 5 and 6, 2025 at the Sophiensaele: Rachel and I is a performance about a twenty-year transatlantic friendship, about memory and about the aftermath of the Holocaust for the so-called third generation. In their first artistic collaboration, Rachel Troy and Lulu Obermayer combine Lee Strasberg’s method acting, therapeutic techniques, social games and storytelling to explore the aftermath of historical trauma and intergenerational narratives.
Image above: © Dominique Brewing.
Rachel and I is a performance about a twenty-year transatlantic friendship, about memory and about the aftermath of the Holocaust for the so-called third generation.
Theater maker Lulu Obermayer and therapist and performer Rachel Troy met in 2005 at the Professional Performing Arts School in New York, where they studied acting and developed a close friendship. Obermayer grew up in Munich and has German ancestors, while Troy’s Romanian-Hungarian-Jewish grandparents and Auschwitz survivors emigrated to the USA in 1947.
In their first artistic collaboration, Rachel Troy and Lulu Obermayer combine Lee Strasberg’s method acting, therapeutic techniques, social games and storytelling to address the aftermath of historical trauma and intergenerational narratives. The performance explores the interstices of consciousness, time and language that shape the understanding of history and personal and cultural identity. Through rituals and symbolic elements, Troy and Obermayer enact their relationship and reflect on the possibilities and limits of empathy and memory, as well as the aftermath of history. They use the theater for a lively practice of remembrance culture – as a place where personal and political dimensions meet and an intensive confrontation with the past and present can be experienced.
Lulu Obermayer is an internationally active artist whose practice moves between opera, theater, performance art and dance. She uses the European canon as a point of friction to transform the hidden potential of dominant narrative strands and uncover invisible perspectives. She studied acting in New York, contemporary performance practice in Glasgow, dramaturgy in Leipzig and dance in Berlin. Her performances have been staged at the rodeo Festival (Munich), Freischwimmen-Festival (Stuttgart), Theater Neumarkt (Zurich), Steirischer Herbst (Graz), O Festival (Rotterdam), Buzzcut Festival (Glasgow), deSingel (Antwerp) and Sophiensælen, among others.
Rachel Troy, actress, comedian and psychotherapist in Los Angeles, studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute and with The Groundlings. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Theater and a Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling. Her solo BABY won Best World Premiere and Top of The Fringe at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.
WHEN?
Premiere: Wednesday, February 05 and Thursday, February 06, 2025, at 8:00 pm.
WHERE?
Hochzeitssaal, Sophiensæle
Sophienstraße 18
10178 Berlin
COST?
Regular: 15 EUR
Reduced: 10 EUR
