Dichterdämmerung - Eine Komödie von Friedrich Dürrenmatt

A theater parody in the Dreigroschentheater

"Dichterdämmerung" (Written in May/June 1980) is the heavily modified theatrical version of the early work "Abendstunde im Spätherbst". Dürrenmatt adds a level of reflection to the plot about crime writer Korbes, whom his admirer Fürchtegott Hofer wants to convict of a series of murders, in which the characters comment on the performance and its creation as autonomous stage characters.

Korbes and his opponent and admirer Fürchtegott Hofer have to contend with a number of obstacles when staging the play: changing directors have circulated different versions of the play, and a growing number of dramaturges have wanted to realize just as many ideas. Korbes is sure that the audience won't mind the constant back and forth, they will simply believe they are in a modern play. They both complain loudly about the direction when it occurs to them, boiling hot, that the gentlemen might be sitting in the audience. On the other hand, there's hardly any need to worry about that, Fürchtegott suspects, surely at least someone in some nest is staging Dürrenmatt.

Just as Korbes considers the play to be over, his lover Joan appears with the claim that Dürrenmatt has written a new ending and that there is still more to come. "Is he still writing?" asks Korbes, exasperated. "Only um," replies Joan. At the end of the new ending, there are dead and injured people, but the paramedics are still waiting. No one in the city knows where the theater is anymore, the late-arriving rescuers apologize.

Dürrenmatt's poetry parody "Dichterdämmerung" is a play "packed with wit, intelligence and erudition", wrote The Stage, adding "All the mastery we saw in 'The Physicists' is employed here and happily intertwined with the cunning and skill Dürrenmatt displays in his crime novels." At the same time, this late work provides an insight into Dürrenmatt's collected prejudices against "Regietheater" at the time.

Participants: Ulrike Wolf, Heidrun Scholz, Ajla Buljubasic, Annamaria Kurtovic, Johannes Rost, Julian Miebach, Niklas Michalla,

Director: Helen Pavel, Assistant director: Johannes Rost

Performance rights: Verlag Felix Bloch Erben GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin