Dog Eats Grass (Hund frisst Grass)
by Meike Hauck

Meike Hauck was born in 1977, studied Scenography at the University of Toronto and completed an internship at an advertising agency. She later studied theater and film studies, sociology and journalism in Leipzig and Berlin. She studied playwriting at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2000-2004 and was invited to the 8th World Interplay Festival for Young Playwrights in Townsville, Australia in 2003. In the same year she participated in the renowned Autoren-Werkstatt-Tagen (Writers' Workshop) at the Burgtheater in Vienna where she wrote Hund frisst Gras (Dog Eats Grass). Her play Blauer Himmel (Blue Sky) was produced in 2003 at the Schauspielhaus Bochum and Mad in America premiered at the Staatstheater Mainz in 2004. Hauck taught the course "Dramatic Text and Theater Reality" at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz in the fall of 2004 and participated in the Introduction Course at the Royal Court Young Writers Programme in London and was brought back for the Invitation Class in 2005. She was invited to the 2005 Festival of Contemporary European Drama in Chile and Hund frisst Gras (Dog Eats Grass) will premiere at the Staatstheater Stuttgart (Depot) in April of 2006.

The Play
A hot and wet summer night. A small rooftop cocktail-party. In the house across the street, Vera and Paul's marriage is falling apart. Time passes, the small-talk on the roof plods along and everyone watches Vera and Paul. Over time, the voyeurism of the guests on the roof gets more intense: even the neighbor's intercourse is observed with cheerful comments. Where there used to be boundaries, the voyeuristic gaze has already crossed them. Where there used to be easiness, something sinister is already present. The penetrating gaze is soon followed by a visit to the neighbors' house. The desire for the unimaginable causes the intrusion into the unknown. What happens then can't be anticipated. And suddenly it's all over. A little party on a roof. It has rained. Everything seems unchanged.