The play lasted 120 minutes, interrupted by a 15-minute interval. The local press sat in the front row. No one knew what to expect, as one journalist mentioned, saying: (in German in the text):   "Alles kling zunächst nach gut gemeinter Kulturarbeit: inklusives Ensemble zwischen sechs und 84 Jahren, Verein Fairleben, 3.000 Euro Förderung durch die Bürgerstiftung. Man denkt: sympathisch. Man bekommt: Substanz." 

Which means : "At first glance, everything seems to be part of a well-intentioned cultural project: an inclusive troupe made up of people aged 6 to 84, the Fairleben association, a €3,000 grant from the citizen foundation. You think to yourself: nice. What you get: substance."

A true story:

Young Stina (1980) is following in the footsteps of her grandfathers, who both worked at the LWL-Klinikum Gütersloh clinic, one as a nurse and the other as an administrative employee. 

Her grandfather Edwin was buried in the cemetery in the clinic's grounds. The grounds of the establishment were also the little girl's playground. 

Stina considered the people she met there to be completely normal.. 

One day, while paying her respects at her grandfather's grave, Stina meets the gardener (Serge), a patient suffering from schizophrenia. 

The latter tells him the story of the establishment in the 1930s and 1940s, when his grandfather worked there.

1930s and 40s - LWL Klinikum

During this period, there is a cult scene in which the head doctor dictates a letter to his secretary Lotti. 

Sylvie plays the role of the chief physician's secretary at the LWL-Klinik Gütersloh psychiatric clinic.

Her role is central, almost invisible – and that is precisely where its strength lies..

1941 - Klinikum Gütersloh - Cult scene between the chief physician and his secretary Lotti (Sylvie Müller)

But behind these actions lies the fate of women labelled as "sick" and deported under the political regime of the time. 

The play suggests horror through the silences, glances and hesitations of a secretary caught up in the machinery of a system.

On stage, Sylvie brings this ambiguity to life :

• Professional loyalty or moral doubt?
• Obedience or conscience?
• Routine or responsibility?

Each line is a thread stretched between the past and the present. Each silence weighs heavier than a cry.

However, played accurately, as one journalist puts it « A vibrant evening of theatre. Stimulating. Exciting. With just the right amount of humour: enough to tackle difficult subjects, but without weighing them down. » 

1980 - the gardener and memory

A change of era.  The light becomes softer, almost nostalgic. 

Raphael (Serge), gardener at the LWL Klinikum cemetery, tells young Stina, "Dies ist ein Ort der Lebenden, nicht der Toten" (This is a place for the living, not the dead).

I carry within me a memory that no one comes to claim, until the day the young girl appears.

1980 - Klinikum Gütersloh - Cult scene between Stina and Raphael, the cemetery gardener (Serge Carène)

Stina seeks to understand the life of her grandfather, who was employed in the 1930s and 1940s. She seeks answers. Facts. The truth.

Through this intergenerational dialogue, the play poses an essential question: What do we do with the legacy of the past?

The answer lies in the second act. 

The scene takes place in the present day in an imaginary café called "The World of the Pink Cockatoo", where my wife Clara (Philo) plays the role of a waitress. 

This café has a special feature: it never closes its eyes – "Die Welt im Rosa Kakadu macht nemals ihre Augen zu."

It's carnival time. People have grown older and Stina has become a grandmother, but she let her childhood sweetheart slip away... only to find him again by chance, in a series of events that could only happen in Gütersloh. 

Gütersloh, where nothing is normal: the clinic, now a place of care and rehabilitation, old loves reunite in a café... In short, joy, love, just life itself.