‘She’s too fat.’ Everyone seems to agree how much a woman’s body may weigh. For anyone who breaches this unwritten rule, there’s a relatively simple and effective penalty: loss of dignity and self-determination. This is made explicit in Lies About My Mother when the mother is put on the scales by the father and her body is commented on, pathologised and made responsible for everything that goes wrong in the day-to-day life of the family. She’s just ‘too fat’. And it’s her own fault.
Within the traditional societal norms of the Hunsrück region in the 1980s, the mother’s self-determination is smothered by the misogynistic behaviour of the father and in-laws. She becomes a spectator to her own fate, and Ela, her daughter, a powerless witness to her mother’s constant degradation. The lack of social advancement and recognition in the village community is projected onto the mother.
Daniela Dröscher paints a touching and empathetic picture of life within the family microsystem, skilfully shifting between the comedy and tragedy of everyday life. Through the explicit and unsparing depiction of fatphobia, she poses extremely pertinent questions about the self-determination of female-socialised individuals and their bodies.

Katharina Bill is a director, performer and fat acceptance activist. In her production, non-professional performers immerse themselves in the story of Ela and her mother. This allows for an examination of the under-represented topic of weight discrimination in combination with misogyny.

Production Staff

Director: Katharina Bill
Stage and Costume: Tatjana Kautsch
Music: Jakob Jokisch
Dramaturg and mediation: Jascha Fendel, Viktoria Lewowsky

MIT: Anne Behrenbeck, Charlotte Beckmann, Vivian Kassem, Carmelina Kissel, Alicia Susanna Nsukami, Annkathrin Schwedhelm, Umut Ulusoy

Bilder

trailer