About the work
Fremde Seelen / Âmes étrangères is a documentary-oriented theatre work by Swiss writer, dramaturg and director Eva-Maria Bertschy, credited with concept, text and direction. It was produced by Theater Neumarkt Zürich and Vorarlberger Landestheater in co-production with Belluard Bollwerk International and euro-scene Leipzig. It was created as a world premiere; the exact premiere year is not firmly documented.
Plot
The investigation begins with the death of a Catholic priest of Vietnamese origin in a small village in the Swiss Alpine foothills roughly twenty years before the production was made. Bertschy connects research into his biography with her own family history because her mother grew up in the village. Migration, racism, religion, cultural belonging and experiences of otherness are treated not as a closed historical case but as an investigation that deliberately exposes gaps, uncertainty and the limits of reconstruction.
Cultural significance
The production combines documentary research with autobiographical and transnational perspectives and later appeared as a guest production at Deutsches Theater Berlin. A particularly important aspect is its explicit engagement with the limits of documentary knowledge: rather than concealing uncertainty, the work incorporates speculation and missing evidence into a wider reflection on migration, memory, racism and the construction of cultural identity.