"Pony Show" (German Premiere)

Reading and moderated conversation
presented by Thalia

Why would Juli Zeh - a celebrated novelist and constitutional court judge - turn her attention to a tabloid-ready loverboy story? What makes this case compelling beyond its scandalous surface? And why does this book grip us the way it does?

Because the public - like Zeh herself - is drawn to the story behind the story, and to the question of whether court proceedings and their media coverage can actually bring one of our highest goods to light: the TRUTH. We all cling to the idea that there must be a truth out there that can serve as a moral compass.

The case Zeh constructs is deceptively simple: a married, successful businesswoman is found with a gun and suspected of killing her employee and alleged lover, twenty-five years her junior: MURDER SUSPECT. The case lands before the Hamburg regional court and spirals into a media spectacle that divides public opinion - so women, once they reach positions of power, turn out to be just as toxic as men?

The legal process and its media circus, both supposedly in service of finding the truth, risk doing the opposite: twisting and burying it.

What happens to our ethical compass when the truth stays hidden? What happens when the press - the so-called fourth estate - undermines the judiciary, sets itself up as arbiter of truth, but in reality only manipulates the very truth it claims to be uncovering?

The courtroom drama becomes a mirror of a society wrestling with its relationship to TRUTH in an age of fake news - with that non-negotiable core.

That the trial Zeh describes takes place in Hamburg - a city where a spectacular real-life case has been playing out in the media for over a year...