About the work
„Gittersee" is a stage version after the debut novel of the same name by Charlotte Gneuß from 2023. The title names a district of Dresden. It tells a coming-of-age story in the GDR of the 1970s, in which a young woman is unexpectedly caught between first love, family and the mechanisms of the surveillance state.
Plot
In the Dresden of the 1970s, sixteen-year-old Karin lives in the conditions of the GDR. When her boyfriend one day suddenly disappears — he has fled to the West — Karin comes into the view of the State Security. A man of the apparatus takes an interest in her, wins her trust and gradually begins to put her under pressure and to draw her into the logic of observation and denunciation. Between school, family, friendship and the longing for closeness, Karin must learn whom she can trust. What begins as a story of growing up becomes an experience of mistrust, entanglement and betrayal in a system that reaches into the most intimate relationships.
Cultural significance
Charlotte Gneuß's novel „Gittersee" was among the most-discussed German-language debuts of 2023 and was longlisted for the German Book Prize. The work combines a coming-of-age subject with a precise depiction of life in the GDR and the omnipresent presence of the State Security. Stage versions transfer this material — about trust and guilt in a surveilled society — to the theatre.