About the work
“Wunde Stadt” (Wounded City) is a theatre text by the playwright and director Kevin Rittberger, written as a commission for Theater Magdeburg. For a year Rittberger met people in Magdeburg affected by the attack on the Christmas market, as well as chaplains, experts and politicians, followed some of them over several months and condensed what he heard into a many-voiced collage with fictionalised characters. Sebastian Nübling directed the world premiere on 23 May 2026 at the Schauspielhaus of Theater Magdeburg.
Plot
The starting point is the attack of 20 December 2024, when a man drove a car at speed through Magdeburg's Christmas market, killing six people and injuring more than 300. The attack itself is not re-enacted; the play is about the time that follows. The voices include members of a grief circle, a painter in her studio, a nurse originally from Iraq who considers leaving in the face of xenophobic agitation, and a chaplain. They look for a way back to their former lives, wrestle with grief and anger and ask where justified rage turns into hatred; at the same time the text recalls older wounds of the city, such as its destruction in the Thirty Years' War and in the Second World War.
Cultural significance
The premiere drew attention beyond the region, for example from nachtkritik.de, the taz and Der Tagesspiegel; critics described the evening as an attempt to start talking to one another again after a shared shock and praised the space it gives to those affected, while some considered the historical digressions unnecessary. Even before the premiere, right-wing groups had demonstrated against the project.