About the work
"Herzfaden" ("Heart Thread") is a stage adaptation of the novel of the same name by Thomas Hettche (2020), which tells the story of the legendary Augsburger Puppenkiste marionette theatre. The theatrical version was premiered, among other stagings, at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in a production by Moritz Sostmann – an homage to marionette theatre in which human performers and marionettes act directly alongside one another. The evening interweaves the post-war history of the famous Augsburg marionette theatre with a moving coming-of-age frame story.
Plot
The frame story follows a twelve-year-old girl who, after a quarrel, finds herself in the attic of a theatre, where she encounters the famous marionettes of the Augsburger Puppenkiste – figures such as Urmel, Jim Knopf and Kasperl. In conversation with "Hatü", the carver and puppet-maker (modelled on Hannelore Marschall-Oehmichen, daughter of the founders Walter and Rose Oehmichen), the history of the marionette theatre unfolds: from the destruction of the city in the Second World War, through its founding in 1948, to its great television successes in the post-war era. The girl's personal coming of age and the chronicle of a German cultural institution thus become intertwined.
Cultural significance
The Augsburger Puppenkiste is one of the best-known cultural institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany; its television productions – from "Urmel aus dem Eis" to "Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer" – shaped generations. Hettche's novel, a major popular and critical success, honours this legacy while revealing the craftsmanship and human story behind the marionettes. The stage adaptation returns the material to the theatre and, in doing so, reflects on the art of marionette play itself – the visible interplay of hand and thread, human and figure.