High Fever
The paranoia project

Premiere June 2025 
Théâtre National du Luxembourg

 

Director: Maximilien L. Blom

Dramaturg: Florian Hirsch

Stage & Costume: Christoph Rasche

Music: Jorge de Moura
With: Christiani Wetter, Jorge de Moura

Description


Don’t freak out: if you think they're out to get you, you're not alone. Paranoia, once assumed to afflict only schizophrenics, may be a lot more common than previously thought. According to valid research nearly one in four Londoners, for instance, regularly has paranoid thoughts.


Still, some experts said that a tiny little bit of paranoia, in a world full of threat, may be kind of beneficial. Be on guard. See who's following you and what's happening. Not everybody is trying to get you, but some people may be. That‘s as comforting as it gets. The original ancient Greek meaning of paranoia was "derangement", or "departure from the normal", but also "delirium" or "high fever".


High Fever, departing from the comfort zone, sets out on a strange, deranged and savage journey into the minds of poets, writers, singers, and other explorers of the paranoid existence: Hunter S. Thompson, Jerry Stahl, Bruce Robinson, Eric Bogosian, Dan Fante, Patti Smith, Lydia Lunch, Dylan Thomas, William S. Burroughs, Sylvia Plath, Charles Bukowski, Jeffery Bernard, Lou Reed, Nico, Fever Ray, PJ Harvey, Laurie Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and Francis Bacon, to name just a few.


This deliriously damaged, darkly comical performance on shame, excess and paranoia, directed by Maximilien Ludovicy-Blom, starring Christiani Wetter and live musician Jorge de Moura, may possibly haunt you forever. Beware: He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.