Originating from many sources, including Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (a short novel, published in 1774). The
story in diary form of a young man falling in love with an unattainable girl (Charlotte) and finally in despair killing himself.
It caused many young people to commit suicide, its central character became a cult figure, as young people dressed as him.
"The Werther Effect" was born.

Roland Barthes’ The Lovers Discourse (a philosophical treatise, published in English in 1978) was also an inspiration.
Presented as a (non-exhaustive) list of "fragments" pertaining to the discourse of lovers. Barthes calls them "figures" –
gestures of the lover at work.

Woven around these works are narratives of love and despair, a Hollywood actress and her doppelganger, a rock band with
a love lorn lead singer (inspired by Kurt Cobain maybe or Ian Curtis of Joy Division), and the Liede of Schubert (lyrics by
Goethe), and exhilarating songs of Michael Cerveris.

Its an examination of Romantism and “being young”.

The figure of the old Goethe (who did not commit suicide) as director travels through these narratives, measuring time, and
his disillusionment.

The piece is also on one level about the internal and external processes of acting and the defining moment when acting
became an internalized process, when our understanding of the place of the heart changed our view of acting, and about
the history of our changing relationship to our feelings.

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