NIEMANDES SCHWESTER

About the show

In September 1959, the philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt is set to become the first woman and the first Jewish person to receive the Lessing Prize, traveling from New York to Hamburg for the award ceremony. Arendt, who was forced to flee the Nazi regime in 1933, views this honor with suspicion. Would she appear a coward if she refused the prize—or perhaps a heroine? Should she conduct herself peaceably and wisely, like Lessing’s Nathan, or—as her close friend Mary McCarthy suggested—vindictively, like Shakespeare’s Shylock? In this dialogue-based drama, Hannah Arendt is confronted with both her human responsibility and a profound political responsibility. Yet it is the witty way in which questions about power, coming to terms with the past, and humanity are raised that makes this text by Heinz Bude, Natan Sznaider, and Karin Wieland so distinctive and relevant to the present day. Simone Geyer has been working as a freelance director and video artist since 2019. Her work has been presented at venues including the Thalia Theater Hamburg, Theater Konstanz, Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, and the Staatstheater Augsburg. In her work, she addresses themes such as classism, war, displacement, and coming to terms with the Holocaust.