About the work
“Eine Sache der Auslegung” (“A Matter of Interpretation”) is a courtroom drama by Olga Bach, a playwright born in Berlin in 1990 who has also completed legal training. The performance rights are held by the publisher schaefersphilippen. The world premiere is announced for 30 January 2027 in the Kleines Haus of Schauspiel Köln, directed by Stephan Kimmig.
Plot
A man stands trial, charged with negligent homicide. On New Year's Eve his neighbour had badly injured his legs on a shattered glass door in the courtyard; the defendant is said to have taken him into the flat and given him makeshift first aid, but then to have left him alone until he bled to death. He was reported by a neighbour, yet whether she really saw and heard everything that night is uncertain. As the trial goes on, the court and the witnesses follow ever stranger rules, and the action, set in the near future, slides into the Kafkaesque.
Cultural significance
The material brings together Olga Bach's two fields of work, law and theatre: at its centre is the question of whether guilt is ultimately decided by the law or by the reading of those who apply it, as the title already suggests. Bach's first play, “Die Vernichtung” (Konzert Theater Bern, 2016), was nominated for the Mülheim Dramatists' Prize and invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen in 2017. As the premiere is still to come, there is no reception of the play yet.