lukas hofmann / saliva

Long story short.

MUDAM, Luxembourg

Performance: Oct 12 and 14, 2023

As its title suggests, Lukas Hofmann’s Long story short. is a performance that teases you. It’s misbehaved. It makes you laugh, frown, pout. It makes you feel in your gut. In the same way one of the characters spits in a visitor’s champagne flute, it savours watching you wrestle with your own discomfort.

The audience is introduced to five larger-than-life characters, each representing a different human tendency, a separate fate. They’re slightly absurd, sometimes comical, yet heartbreakingly real. The Traveller seeks meaning in an uncertain world, the Nihilist rejects it all with a grin, the Satanist embraces chaos with a wicked twinkle in their eye, the Anarchist rages against the system, and the Materialist clings to futile desires.

These characters are more than just symbols — they’re tangible forces that seem to punch through the fourth wall, drawing you into the madness. They force you to see your own tendencies mirrored in their extremes, and as they evolve in cinematic tableaux that recall religious imagery, it’s hard to tell whether you should laugh or squirm. The performance is playful but menacing, a twisted dance between humour and horror that refuses to settle into any neat category.

The script oscillates between a deep sense of control, a geometric quality that echoes the glass, church-like space where it unfolds, and an embrace of human flaws — an amateur ballet dancer, hyperpop songs sung a cappella, often off-tune. And beneath the surface, something menacing simmers. The tragicomic nature of Long story short. lies in the tension between these colourful characters and the human truths they embody. The humour that pervades the performance doesn’t soften the blow. Instead, it exposes the rawness of our human contradictions.

The piece unfolds like a fever dream, with Hofmann using a mix of symbolic gestures that resemble pagan rituals, dramatic entrances, cinematic pauses, and chaotic imagery to create an immersive narrative. There’s a palpable sense of urgency, one that grabs you and refuses to let go. It throws you into a world where pleasure and discomfort coexist in the same breath. The work doesn’t ask for your approval. It takes you on an intense ride paced by famous pop songs. Perhaps that’s where the misbehaving aspect of Long story short. truly lies: it insists on being felt.

You feel the tension in your body as the characters move through their extremes, leaving you to reckon with their contradictions. These characters might be absurd, but they represent real struggles — from the search for meaning to the disillusionment with a world that feels out of control. And in this, Hofmann challenges you to question where you, as a viewer, fit in. Are you laughing at these characters? Or are they laughing at you?

In the end, the performance leaves you with a sense of unresolved disorientation. It’s chaotic, it’s funny, and it’s tragic, all at once. And to the long story of life, as much as to its short performance version, there’s no neat resolution.

Performers: Annemarijn Bulsink, Lukas Hofmann, LOW LOV, Chris Owen, Nico Walker

Costume design: Rui Zhou

With the support of: Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic

Lukas Hofmann’s “Long story short.” was part of the After Laughter Comes Tears, curated by Joel Valabrega and Clémentine Proby.

Text: Clémentine Proby

Photographer: Fabrizio Vatieri