THE TIN DRUM

About the show

Günter Grass’s The Tin Drum takes a winding path through half a century of European history—leading from a Kashubian potato field in 1899 to 1950s Düsseldorf—as its protagonist tumbles down cellar stairs, hides beneath political podiums to disrupt speakers, seeks refuge under his grandmother’s skirts, roams cemeteries, performs in front-line theater, witnesses acts of procreation and executions, embarks on a jazz career, and is eventually institutionalized in a psychiatric facility. The story’s (anti-)hero is Oskar Matzerath, who decides on his third birthday to stop growing and henceforth views the world from the perspective of someone who has remained, in appearance, a child. Equipped with a tin drum that he plays passionately, and the gift of shattering glass with his voice, Oskar is not merely an obstinate—and at times amoral—observer of human monstrosity; he is himself a transformer and obstructer of reality, wielding the destructive yet saving power of art. Karin Henkel—whose directorial work is distinguished by a keen sense for the fragility of any self-contained narrative—brings this “rampage of an outlandish imagination” (H. M. Enzensberger) to the stage during the centenary of Günter Grass’s birth.