The Long Shadow of Alois Brunner

In the organizer's words:

Two actors come to the rehearsals with fragments of text, historical documents and personal memories. They puzzle over what their story is about. Where is the play? Which roles should they play? The documents deal with the true and shocking story of the Nazi criminal Alois Brunner, who was able to disappear unchallenged in the young FRG before he fled to Damascus in 1954 and, protected by the regime there, was involved in setting up the brutal secret service. They also find unfinished scenes by their Syrian friend and playwright Mudar Alhaggi, in which he imagines meeting Brunner as a young man in Damascus. He also writes about how he is coping with his current exile in Berlin. Why did Mudar disappear? Why didn't he finish writing the play?

Part archival research, part detective investigation, part re-enactment, the two actors reveal fragile and deeply moving experiences in which traumatic lives are caught in endless loops of fears, lies and the hope of an end.

THE LONG SHADOW OF ALOIS BRUNNER deals with questions of justice, going into hiding, the experience of flight and theater as an act of revelation - against the backdrop of two major conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Following THE RETURN OF DANTON (2021), the multi-award-winning Palestinian-Italian director Omar Elerian is collaborating with Collective Ma'louba for the second time on THE LONG SHADOW OF ALOIS BRUNNER. Collective Ma'louba (Ma'louba - Arabic for "upside down" or "turned inside out") was founded by Syrian theater makers living in exile in Berlin, Duisburg, Marseille and Paris, among other places. With their theater works, they question the political and social constitution of the Arab and European world in light of recent social changes.

In Arabic with German and English subtitles

Production Collective Ma'louba

Co-production Theater an der Ruhr, funded by the Ministry of Art and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia + euro-scene Leipzig

Support: Neustart Kultur / Fonds Darstellende Künste (research funding) + 1927 Art Space Athens + Berlin Mondiale

Price information:

Regular: 15€ Reduced: 9€