Botho Strauss's play (with Martin Crimp sparkling translation) sees Cate Blanchett play a chattering woman, Lotte, who is desperate to belong. As the ten scenes play out we follow Lotte on her slightly surreal search for meaning and friendship.
Her travels take her to Morocco where she becomes alienated from the rest of the tour party, Essen where she becomes alienated from her husband and Saarbrücken where, well you've guessed it, things don't go well meeting up with her childhood friend. Even her brother doesn't seem to want to know.
But this particular Chatty Cathy is an eternal optimist and slightly too good for this world. She is the outsider always looking in - sometimes literally - as she does through a pane of frosted glass.
Ultimately we sympathise with Lotte and want her to find a human connection with someone. To the author's credit this never realised, the open-ending mirroring the ambiguity that happiness be achieved by anyone inhabiting our grossly materialist society.
Cate Blanchett puts on a dazzlingly uninhibited performance here and the standing ovation was well deserved. A triumph.
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