In the organizer's words:

Literature and reality - art and war, if that doesn't sound cynical - have hardly ever clashed as harshly as in David Grossman's critically acclaimed, impressive novel. In 2006, while working on the book, the Israeli author's youngest son died during a military operation in the final hours of the Lebanon war.

The central motif of the book is repeated in real life. Ora, the woman fleeing from a message, sets herself in motion and begins to tell of her love for two men who have been in her life since her early youth, of anger and tenderness, despair and passion - and of her son Ofer, who volunteers for a military mission in the West Bank. Ora sets herself in motion because she cannot and will not accept the impending event. She tries to keep her son alive by incessantly remembering, to avert the disaster by telling her childhood friend Avram, Ofer's biological father, who himself was a soldier in the Six-Day War, about her son. She makes herself unreachable for the news that would arrive if the terrible happened. On Ora's long journey through Israel and the landscape of her memory, we encounter the sons, the men, the war and everything that has remained and is left over from three lives. - Author and peace activist David Grossman reflects one of the greatest conflicts of our time in minimalist experiences of everyday life. In countless moments, he shows his characters' lives inextricably intertwined with politics and war. Paradoxically, it is the power and tenderness, vulnerability and openness of his language, his special way of telling stories, that make the murderous in its all-encompassing violence tangible. Dušan David Pařízek has already brought Grossman's novel "Kommt ein Pferd in die Bar" to a successful German-language premiere for the Salzburg Festival, which was shown in many places.

Ute Hannig was awarded the Theaterpreis Hamburg - Rolf Mares 2020 for her portrayal of "Ora".

The actors are: Ute Hannig, Paul Herwig, Markus John
Director and stage: Dušan David Pařízek
Costumes: Kamila Polívková
Lighting: Rebekka Dahnke
Dramaturgy: Ralf Fiedler

Further information: A woman flees from a message | Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg