DIE VERLORENE EHRE DER KATHARINA BLUM

THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM
or: How violence arises and where it can lead

by Heinrich Böll
Stage version by Clemens Mädge

An evening that shines a spotlight on power structures, sexism and the limits of journalistic practices. Heinrich Böll's story as a live interview with Katharina Blum - twenty-five years after her crime!

"If, in the description of certain journalistic practices, similarities have arisen with the practices of the Bild newspaper, these similarities are neither intentional nor coincidental, but unavoidable," is how Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll begins his story, published in 1974. He subtly describes the absurdities of reporting and, with Katharina Blum's fate, a media spectacle as an old West German forerunner of today's shitstorms.

Katharina Blum comes to the attention of the press as a "person of contemporary history" because she is said to have helped a wanted criminal to escape. In the course of the investigation, her statements are taken out of context, witness reports are misquoted and her privacy is exposed to the public in the worst possible way, until she finally shoots a journalist during a planned interview in her apartment.

In his adaptation for the Vagantenbühne, playwright Clemens Mädge focuses on the pressure Katharina Blum is under and the psychological violence she is subjected to as a young woman in an environment of male investigators, journalists and admirers. In doing so, he allows two journalists to look back on what happened two years after Katharina Blum's crime and thus skillfully draws parallels to the present day.

with Magdalene Artelt, Daniel-František Kamen & Nils Malten
Directed by Kathrin Mayr
Version Clemens Mädge
Stage Kathrin Mayr, Amelie Müller
Costumes Amelie Müller
Dramaturgy Fabienne Dür
Sound Clemens Mädge
Assistant director Alexander Schatte
Lighting Janis Willhausen, Frederik Wohlfarth

Duration: approx. 90 minutes (no intermission)