Nach Mitternacht - based on the novel by Irmgard Keun

based on the novel by Irmgard Keun
Stage adaptation by Gottfried Greiffenhagen

Directed by Irene Christ
with Johanna Marie Bourgeois

48 hours in 1936. Nineteen-year-old Susanna narrates - at first with exuberant vitality and satirical wit - the events unfolding around her: her passionate love for Franz, with whom she is making plans for the future; the shifting behaviour of the people close to her; life under the "racial laws"; and the new normal in general - everyday life under Nazi rule. Hitler's appearance before an ecstatic crowd at the Opernplatz in Frankfurt triggers a chain of shattering events. The noose tightens. Denunciations are routine. "Mothers report their daughters-in-law, daughters their fathers-in-law, brothers their sisters, sisters their brothers... neighbours their neighbours." Within a very short time Susanna is no longer a wry observer but caught in the middle of it all, forced to grow up fast. At a sprawling party, just before midnight, a momentous decision must be made. What follows happens after midnight.

Irmgard Keun was a literary star of the 1930s, later rediscovered, who wrote the novel "Nach Mitternacht" during her years in exile. It was published in the Netherlands in 1937. Her earlier novels - "Gilgi, eine von uns" and "Das kunstseidene Madchen" - had also been sensational successes. Gottfried Greiffenhagen's monologue adaptation distils Keun's sweeping novel into a desperately cheerful and pitilessly sharp-eyed piece of theatre.