The Play
Five office workers, three men and two women, are outside the Boss’s office waiting for their daily execution. Anything is possible, from having your head ripped off (it can happen) to being completely humiliated (it will happen), and in times where you can be downsized faster than you can photocopy, the spine quickly becomes a very expendable part of the body.
The careerists, Alpha man-boy Hufschmidt, social climber Kretzsky, power woman Schmitt, hysteric Kristensen and loser Kruse, have been hard at work on themselves. They’ve spent night after night rehearsing in front of the mirror, memorizing the precise choreography for the meeting with the Boss to the smallest detail. They know how to use a nervous tic just as effectively as calculated backstabbing. They shorten their wait with hidden intrigues and resounding slaps to the face. The Boss remains unseen but the outcome of the meeting is hard to overlook. One comes out wearing a cute little hat while another returns with a knife stuck in their back. Despite massive wounds and deformities, they all insist that the meeting “went really well”. Creative career gymnastics with full contact mobbing. Quitting is a definite option. But in these times? And then what?
“Ingrid Lausund’s hilarious farce is a comic-absurd portrait of the daily life of German office workers. After nearly thirty plays, Lausund has truly arrived. She takes aim at the war in the workplace. Whoever sees Slipped Disc will start by laughing their head off and then give much more attention to their posture.”
(H. Kluthe, Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 13, 2004)
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