The young, idealistic doctor Raspe chooses to work in the closed ward of a psychiatric hospital. Raspe is driven by the desire to heal people and make psychiatry a better place. But soon he begins to struggle with the institution and its rules. How much order do people need, and how much madness can society tolerate?

Rainald Goetz’s autobiographically inspired novel resounds as a kaleidoscope of voices: lunatics, doctors, relatives, opponents, and advocates of psychiatry appear and disappear again. Scenes, songs, and documentary footage energetically intertwine, throwing the categories of normality and madness into turmoil. In collaboration with choreographer Vasna Aguilar, Henri Hüster stages a mixture of drama and dance that asks, along with Goetz: “How do we want to live? What must I think in order to truly understand what I feel when I see what is happening?”