In the organizer's words:

The most dangerous woman in America

WORLD PREMIERE BY TINE RAHEL VÖLCKER

from 17.2.2024 brechtbühne at the Gaswerk

At the beginning of the 20th century, she was considered "the most dangerous woman in America": the anarchist Emma Goldman, to whose life and passionate fight for self-determination the Staatstheater Augsburg is dedicating a world premiere. At the center of this touching and stirring, performative and sensual-aesthetic evening of theater is the equally ambivalent and impressive personality of Emma Goldman - resistant and combative, rhetorically brilliant, persecuted and criminalized, prepared to protest violently and yet an icon of the peace movement.

"It cannot be that we pass on violence to the people closest to us! It cannot be that we have to become tough in order to survive." - Emma Goldman

New York, end of the 19th century: The second anniversary of the Haymarket massacre is approaching, the young Emma Goldman gives a speech to women and propagates the 8-hour day, the emancipation of women, free love and liberation from the capitalist world of work. She is accompanied by one of her lovers, Alexander Berkman, an ardent activist in the anarchist movement. Together they fight for their progressive ideas of social justice and are prepared to use radical means in their political struggle.

The life of the anarchist Emma Goldman offers unprecedented material for the urgent question of social ideals based on solidarity, the breaking down of existing norms and the proportionality of means in political struggle. A struggle that, in all its urgency and radicalism, is always linked to its own demons. And so in "The Most Dangerous Woman in America", those things and body parts speak that often elude a superficial view of revolution. Ova have their say, nerves, hands, newspapers and - how could it be otherwise - the weapons of struggle.
Author Tine Rahel Völcker has conducted intensive research into the historical and political figure of Emma Goldman and woven her findings into a dramatic text for the Staatstheater Augsburg, which lead director Nicole Schneiderbauer transfers to the stage in her usual performative manner.