Der zerbrochne Krug

In the organizer's words:

Village magistrate Adam is at the center of Heinrich von Kleist's comedy. He is supposed to find out who smashed her mother Marthe's valuable jug in young Eve Rull's room. Eve accuses her fiancé Ruprecht - but he protests his innocence.

In Lola Fuchs' production, the classic courtroom comedy becomes a biting media satire. Eve is known here as "Pottery Fairy" on Instagram, Marthe is a failed serial entrepreneur with a penchant for Stevia pills, natural sanitary towels and selfies with C-list celebrities. Village magistrate Adam, alias 'Mr. A', who likes to present himself as a moral authority and caretaker, gradually reveals himself to be an overbearing power seeker with a highly unhealthy obsession for Eve.

That night, he harasses her - and destroys the handmade Instagram jug, a unique piece of art and key piece of evidence, as he flees. Instead of facing up to his responsibility, he begins to twist the truth and entangles the village in a web of lies, suspicions and public staging.

Court councillor Wendy Walter, an ice-cold angel of authority in a Balenciaga two-piece, travels from the city for the appeal in order to counteract the moral decay in the countryside. But between Instagram ceramics, natural wine and a snowstorm in July, even she begins to lose sight of reality.

Clerk Licht, a pedantic court reporter with a penchant for gloomy playlists and pop song choreos, tries to clear things up - and fails miserably. Perhaps because he is Mr. A's secret nemesis. Maybe because he's just too woke for Huisum.

The decisive twist comes with the return of the mysterious village medium Brigitte, sometimes a fortune teller, sometimes a revenant - who, as a witness of the night, finally tips the events into the surreal.

The revelation of the truth shakes Huisum to the core. And what begins as a small court hearing becomes a mirror of social abysses - somewhere between court show, Instagram reality and repressed provincial madness.

With a keen sense of intuition and sharp humour, Lola Fuchs shows how closely truth and deception, power and medialization are intertwined. She transforms The Broken Jug into a razor-sharp social satire that takes Kleist's original seriously - and at the same time filters it through the present with virtuosity.

After Der Dämon in dir muss Heimat finden, with which she was invited to the Radikal Jung Festival 2025, Fuchs is now devoting herself to a classic for the first time.

The Broken Jug: Theater Dortmund

Price information:

9.00 - 39.00€