Der Vorleser
Based on the novel by Bernhard Schlink
In the late 1950s, 15-year-old Michael meets Hanna. She is 36. From the initial excitement and the longed-for yet unexpected act of love, a relationship develops that becomes a key experience for both, shaping them for decades. As regularly as they sleep together, it is important to Hanna that Michael reads literary works to her, which he studies at school and which she suggests to him. He becomes her reader. And she becomes the instance to which he orients himself. Until she suddenly disappears. When Michael, seven years later as a law student, attends a war crimes trial against former guards of an external camp of Auschwitz concentration camp, he discovers Hanna among the defendants. It is only now that he realizes she is illiterate and therefore could not have committed one of the acts charged against her. Yet Hanna remains silent in court. Michael could intervene, he could save her – and he does not.
Bernhard Schlink's novel "Der Vorleser," published in 1995, deals with the complex questions of guilt and responsibility in the aftermath of the Holocaust and is a key work of the 20th century. With this novel, which has been translated into over 50 languages to this day and filmed by Stephen Daldry with Kate Winslet and David Kross in leading roles, Schlink achieved his breakthrough as a writer.
From 1982 to 2009, Bernhard Schlink taught as a professor of public law and legal philosophy in Bonn, Frankfurt, Berlin, and New York. In addition, he served as a judge on the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1988 to 2006. He appeared multiple times before the Federal Constitutional Court as a representative and expert, including in proceedings for the first unified German Bundestag election and on abortion. After his retirement, Schlink focused on his literary work. Today, he is one of the most successful authors of novels in the German language.
Production: Westfälisches Landestheater
Stage adaptation: Mirjam Neidhart
Director: Pia Böhme
Design: Rabea Stadthaus
With: Guido Thurk, Arikia Orbán, Tobias Schwieger, Mike Kühne, Lesley-Ann Eisenhardt
Photo: Volker Beushausen
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
