"SONJA - ein Junkieleben"
This is the first time Joel Basman has appeared on a theater stage. The internationally acclaimed film actor plays Sonja - a drug-addicted woman who tells her story from Platzspitz to Letten and Langstrasse.
Directed by Michael Steiner. After Mein Name ist Eugen, Sennentuntschi and Wolkenbruch, Sonja - ein Junkieleben is already their fourth collaboration. Basman and Steiner have been working on this material since 2009. It's their most personal project.
What's it about?
It's Sonja's birthday. Actually a reason to celebrate. But Sonja has been a drug addict for 36 years. Heroin is to blame. And perhaps also Frankie, her first great love. He hooked her up - not out of malice, but rather out of closeness, out of this crooked form of love. Thus begins a story that takes Sonja from Platzspitz to Letten, through the open drug scene of the 1990s, right through the middle of a generation that is falling apart because of addiction.
Out of desperation, Sonja flees to Thailand in the hope of building a life without heroin. But a stroke of fate brings her back to Zurich. Back to the Bäcki in district 4, to the survivors of her past. And back to addiction.
The city takes Sonja in and manages her: Drug drop-off point, social housing, registration office.
For years, she has spent her life on Langstrasse. She begs, parleys, philosophizes and delirious. Her only companion is her dog Tyson.
For her birthday, Sonja has one wish: she wants to tell us everything.
Once. So that we can hear this story - from Platzspitz to today. So that we might see her as a person the next time we meet her.
Basman grew up in Zurich's Kreis 4 district. Sonja was part of his everyday life long before she became a character. He saw her almost every day on the way to school. He saw her friends lying dead in front of the fountain in his school building. He was taught never to touch the used syringes under the bushes in the Bäcki. His childhood took place in the midst of this reality - between normality and a state of emergency.
Michael Steiner is the director and co-author because he is also part of this time. Older, closer to it - and someone who has lost friends himself. From a time when heroin was not only destructive, but also glorified. When heroin was cool. When heroin was chic.
"Sonja - a junkie's life" tells of the people we pass by every day. About those who live on the margins and have long since been written off by society. The story shows what lies behind addiction: a life characterized by loss, hope and dignity.
Cast & Crew
Play & Text: Joel Basman
Director & Lyrics: Michael Steiner
Sound design: Adrian Frutiger
Make-up: Marc Hollenstein
Prosthetics: Esther Grob (Arteco)
Stage design: Reto Trösch
Light design: Dario Marty
Lettenfilm: Tuna Productions
Tysonfilm: Steiner/Badertscher
Press: Arnold Meyer
Production: Manifest Film GmbH and Karacho Karamba GmbH in collaboration with KLIBÜHNI, DAS THEATER.
