The Boy in the Last Row

A schoolboy writing essays about how he sneaks his way into a classmate’s middle-class family, confusing father and son, and finally seducing the mother.  And a literature teacher who is so fascinated by this reading that he first becomes the boy’s mentor, then his accomplice and finally his victim.

With The Boy in the Last Row, the Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga has created a dense psychological study about the limits of pedagogy and class affiliation, and a sophisticated thriller where reality and fiction are the main protagonists: the schoolboy’s text and the teacher’s feedback influence the course of actual events, and vice versa. In a rapid succession of scenes, Mayorga mixes life and literature.

Christiane Jatahy puts both actors and spectators inside an oval room, where all separation between stage and audience disappear. The spectators find themselves at the same time at the last row of the classroom – “the best place for an observer” according to the play – and accomplices in the gradual invasion into the intimacy of the classmate’s family. Reality and fiction become indistinguishable.

The boy in te last row is the second creation of Christiane Jatahy with actors from the ensemble of the Schauspielhaus Zurich (among them Daniel Lommatzsch with whom she’d collaborated earlier in Before the sky falls). It marks a reconnection with contemporary dramaturgy, staging a text by one of the main contemporary European theater writers. But in spite of the German language, or the theatrical setting, it also demonstrates the sophistication of Christiane Jatahy’s language, and even in the absence of film projection, the performance gains a strong cinematographic dimension.

Author JUAN MAYORGA

In a translation by STEFANIE GERHOLD

Created and directed by CHRISTIANE JATAHY

With TABITA JOHANNES, DANIEL LOMMATSCH, LENA SCHWARZ, THOMAS WODIANKA, OTTO KOSOK, SILAS LIO GLANZMANN

Artistic collaboration, set design and lighting THOMAS WALGRAVE

Costumes PAULA HENRIKE HERRMANN

Soundtrack and sound design PEDRO CUNHA VITURI

Dramaturgy BENDIX FESEFELDT

Production director HENRIQUE MARIANO