Peymannbeschimpfung

"Anyone who wants to transfer money can hand it in to Mrs. Noack! C.P." This is how Claus Peymann, then director of the Stuttgart Schauspiel, commented in writing on a letter from Ilse Ensslin, the mother of the imprisoned Gudrun Ensslin, in which she asked for donations for dental treatment for RAF prisoners. Peymann posted the annotated letter on the theater's bulletin board. The resulting scandal turned the Staatstheater into a point of attack in the heated atmosphere of the German Autumn. Some time later, a weapon from the Staatstheater's armory turned up during the RAF raid on the German embassy in Stockholm. Even though Peymann demonstrably had nothing to do with it, he was insulted by the citizens of Stuttgart and received various threatening letters, in the end he left Stuttgart prematurely and became artistic director in Bochum. The theater collective Rimini Protokoll developed a radio play from this material, which was premiered in 2007 on Deutschlandfunk Kultur and takes an analytical look at Stuttgart in the 1970s under the title Peymannbeschimpfung. With a view over the cauldron from the third tier of the opera house, we listen together to a piece of theater and city history.

Part of the supporting program for our world premiere Der rote Wal