Deutschstunde

Based on the novel by Siegfried Lenz
Adapted for the stage by Lukas Rosenhagen

Directed by Christian Tenbrock

About the Play

Siggi Jepsen, an inmate at a reform school for troubled youth, is assigned to write an essay as part of his duties. But where to begin? He has so much to tell—about his childhood, his family, and his father, Jens Ole Jepsen, who served as a village police officer in the far north of Germany during the war. 

Jepsen meticulously enforced the ban on painting that the Nazis had imposed on the artist Max Ludwig Nansen. Siggi, too, was supposed to spy on Nansen; he was supposed to do his duty, just like his father. He was supposed to be obedient, no matter what his conscience told him. Was he? 

The novel *The German Lesson*, whose central theme is the question of guilt and duty in the context of National Socialism, is considered a milestone of postwar German literature and became Siegfried Lenz’s best-known work. Only a few German theaters have staged the novel to date. VB Thalia would like to thank Lukas Rosenhagen, dramaturg at the Landestheater Schleswig-Holstein, for allowing us to use his adaptation, making us the first amateur theater in Germany to stage *The German Lesson*. 

The Cast

Simon Wilburger
Armin Frost
Michael Meyer
Kornelia Flemming
Tanja Vieth
Dirk Timmermann
Urte Bileviciute