About the work
“Kleine Verbrechen unter Liebenden” (original title “Petits crimes entre amants”) is a crime comedy by the French writer Franck Duarte for two actresses and two actors. The play opened on 11 July 2023 at the Théâtre La Boussole in Paris, directed by Bruno Bachot, and follows on from Duarte's much-performed “Petits crimes entre amis” at the same theatre, this time with four new characters. The German translation is by René Heinersdorff; the German-language premiere took place in February 2026 at the Komödie Winterhuder Fährhaus in Hamburg.
Plot
New York in the 1950s: the housewife Jenny is married to Robert, editor-in-chief of an influential newspaper, and is having a secret affair with John, a young employee of her husband. John is supposed to kill the husband during a dinner, but Robert unexpectedly brings along his new secretary Susy. Against the backdrop of the McCarthy era and the hunt for communists, the four become entangled in a spy story in which loyalties keep shifting and hardly anyone is who they appear to be.
Cultural significance
The play combines marital comedy and crime story with political suspense and takes aim at the gender roles, double standards and social conventions of the 1950s. It marked the first production of a Franck Duarte play in Germany; after Hamburg, further productions followed in 2026, for example in Chemnitz.