Dolores schrei(b)t

In the organizer's words:

a staged reading based on Lea Ruckpaul's novel Bye Bye Lolita | LabBOX

PREMIERE: June 05, 2026

"Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins." So begins Nabokov's novel Lolita (1955). From Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation to Tumblr subculture to Lana del Rey, Humbert Humbert's story is received worldwide as a tragic and forbidden love story. One of the "great romance novels of modern world literature". Really?

In Nabokov's novel, the literary scholar Humbert Humbert logs his obsession with the "graceful, childlike nymph" who seduced him and whom he eventually abducts as a stepfather on a road trip and makes his "lover" over hundreds of pages in his pocket diary. Who doesn't get a chance to speak? Dolores herself - whom he calls "Lolita".

This is exactly where Lea Ruckpaul's novel "Bye Bye Lolita" comes in: Dolores writes her own story from the back page of the pocket diary. She painfully recounts her childhood, the sexualized violence at the hands of Humbert Humbert and its effects up to the present day. Overwriting the story, she reclaims the power of interpretation and makes an accusation against Humbert Humbert, the role imposed on her and the patriarchy.

In this staged reading based on Ruckpaul's novel, we follow Dolores' voice: With her, we ask about power in storytelling and in experience. We follow the reception of Nabokov from book covers to internet culture to song lyrics and shatter the patriarchal framework of interpretation, pushing it to its limits. We ask: What does this have to do with our present? And realize: Dolores was never alone.

Acting: Marleen Müller | Concept & direction: Jette Drewanz & Maria Păcurariu Music: Vico Rosenberg | Production assistance: Ella Edelmann

The novel was published by Voland & Quist in 2024.

LabBOX is the Cammerspiele series for theatrical experimentation.

Price information:

Soli price system