About the work
"Antrag auf größtmögliche Entfernung von Gewalt" ("Application for the Greatest Possible Removal of Violence") is a documentary-based play by the playwright Felicia Zeller. It grew out of interviews with former and current residents of the Oberhausen women's shelter, as well as victim advocates, a lawyer and the shelter's management. It premiered in May 2023 at Theater Oberhausen (directed by Eike Weinreich). Zeller condenses the real experiences into an idiosyncratic, highly artificial stage language.
Plot
Six women – Anna, Ronja, Aylin, Charifa, Melanie and Maria – have experienced violence and found refuge in a women's shelter. From their voices the evening unfolds a panorama of female experiences of violence across all age groups and social classes. Instead of a linear plot, Zeller assembles fragments of language that precisely expose verbal power strategies, experiences of powerlessness, formative conditioning and the deflection mechanisms of authorities. A recurring motif is the barely penetrable bureaucracy surrounding admission to a shelter – the "application" of the title.
Cultural significance
Domestic violence is among the most widespread and yet least visible forms of violence. Felicia Zeller, one of the most distinguished contemporary German-language playwrights, makes the subject audible through her characteristic, rhythmic artistic language without putting those affected on display. The play stands in the tradition of documentary theatre and, after its premiere, was taken up by several theatres in Germany and Austria – evidence of its social urgency.