About the work
“The Silence” is an autofictional monologue by Falk Richter, who also directs it. It premiered in 2022 in a French translation by Anne Monfort at the Théâtre National de Strasbourg, co-produced with MC93 Bobigny and the Maison de la Culture d’Amiens, with Stanislas Nordey playing the author figure. The German-language premiere followed on 19 November 2023 at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin with Dimitrij Schaad, complemented by video recordings of conversations between Richter and his mother Doris Waltraud Richter.
Plot
An author returns in his thoughts to his parents’ house in the Nordheide region of Lower Saxony, which he left after coming out. His father has died without any reconciliation; now the son questions his mother about everything the family never talked about. This brings up the mother’s flight from West Prussia at the end of the Second World War, the father’s war experiences and the violence the son suffered as a young gay man. The family history thus becomes an exploration of how war trauma and silence continue to affect later generations.
Cultural significance
The Berlin version was invited to the Theatertreffen and the Mülheimer Theatertage in 2024 and received the 2024 Friedrich Luft Prize for the best production in Berlin and Potsdam. Dimitrij Schaad was named Actor of the Year in Theater heute’s 2024 critics’ poll for his performance.