A story between lust and suffering, a play about the vagaries of love and the constant change of emotions. The fictional kingdom of Illyria is the setting for a society of chronic lovers and sufferers. They are all drunk on wine as much as love. Intoxicated by music and dance, they fall in love and beat each other up. It is a world where idleness counts before work, where pleasure is worth more than frugality. Yet gloom and stagnation prevail. For Duke Orsino, who rules the realm, is unhappily in love with Countess Olivia. His unfulfilled longing paralyzes everyone.
Only when a shipwreck washes Viola up on the beach does the lethargic society stir into action. Viola, who has disguised herself as a man for her protection, enters the Duke's service. As his messenger of love, she first seduces the countess with her androgynous charm, but she also creates confusion in the emotional life of Orsino and his party-addicted courtiers. In this cosmos of deceptions and disappointments, of missed goals and screwed-up lives, soon no one knows who they are, man or woman, what is disguise and play, what is serious and what is real.
Source and further information: http://www.staatstheater-wiesbaden.de/programm/spielplan/was-ihr-wollt-2018-2019/5301/#performances
