Dramatist Alexander Zeldin expresses his long-standing fascination with embodying the role of an outsider.

Alexander Zeldin, a British-born, Paris-based playwright and director, is the Artist in Focus at Schaubühne's FIND festival this month. Known for his socio-realistic works, Zeldin views theatre as a concentration of life, offering an intensity of feeling that is difficult to achieve outside of the theatre.

Zeldin chooses to maintain a certain distance from his surroundings to create conditions for observation and self-reflection. This distance, coupled with his heritage and experiences, has contributed to his feeling of being an outsider, which he finds beneficial for his art.

The critically-acclaimed The Inequalities trilogy, including the final piece Faith, Hope and Charity, focuses on societal inequalities and the experiences of invisible working classes in precarious employment situations. Zeldin never saw these plays as political theatre, but as works that illuminate the collective fabric of an audience and society.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Zeldin felt a need to look within and change something. This led to a shift in focus from The Inequalities to The Confessions, a deeply personal work based on the life of his mother. The trilogy, however, continues to work through documentary and collectively developed forms to address societal themes.

Zeldin's plays aim to create a resonance that comes from the artist asking this question from a deep place within themselves. For The Confessions, he found inspiration in several texts, including Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Matthew López's The Inheritance, novels by Annie Ernaux, and works by Rachel Cusk.

Zeldin's newest work is a very political play about a woman from a working-class family trying to create herself against the structures of her time. He seeks to put himself at risk and break with what he had done in the past to grow as a writer.

Meanwhile, Zeldin's play Beyond Caring will be performed at Schaubühne on the 27th and 28th of April, and tickets can be purchased here. In this play, he believes that theatre can perform acts that are not possible in real life, such as helping people see the dead or the natural forces of life.

Zeldin considers theatre a mystery and a constant question, requiring artists to continually ask what the need for theatre is. He stages the final piece of his The Inequalities trilogy, Faith, Hope and Charity, at Schaubühne this month, inviting audiences to join him in exploring the depths of human experience through the art of theatre.

Dramatist Alexander Zeldin expresses his long-standing fascination with embodying the role of an outsider.