Theater quick check

What you need to know: The Homer Odyssey

Theater quick check by Larissa Schütz

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Tschepp, stock.adobe.com)

Whether you're on the trolleybus on the way to the performance, having a cigarette before the premiere or waiting in the toilet queue, with the quick check you'll be perfectly prepared for the evening in just 2 minutes. The "Krone" has the most important information about Homer's "The Odyssey".

What's it about? Today, the Landestheater is showing perhaps the longest journey home in literature: "The Odyssey". An adventurous odyssey that proves that patience pays off and that the journey is the goal, but sometimes the goal is also in the way.

Plot: After his victory in the Trojan War, Odysseus wants to get home to Ithaca as quickly as possible. The gods, natural events and, to some extent, his own fault ensure that it takes him ten years to get home. A selection in chronological order: Odysseus enrages a Cyclops, who asks Poseidon for revenge and high waves. Odysseus' men are given a mysterious windbag which they are not allowed to open - and open it anyway. Shortly afterwards, some of them fall victim to man-eaters, while others are turned into pigs by the sorceress Kirke. Although Odysseus is able to resist the beautiful sirens, he is unable to escape the clutches of the nymph Calypso for many years. At some point, Odysseus does return home and finds that his wife Penelope is besieged by numerous suitors who want to marry her. Penelope is and remains faithful. Before she recognizes her husband, he kills the unwelcome rivals with the help of his son Telemachus. The family is then finally reunited.

Bragging knowledge for the break: Written in the 8th century BC, the Odyssey is considered the second oldest work of Greek and Western literature. The oldest, the "Iliad", was also written by Homer.