Sunday 12 January the Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti prose season goes on with THE LOST HONOUR OF KATHARINA BLUM, taken from Heinrich Böll‘s novel, in the adaptation by Letizia Russo.
«Staging a novel – comments director Franco Però – implies counting on actors who fully embody the various characters conceived by the authors». In The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Franco Però directs actors from the Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia, flanked by Elena Radonicich (Katharina Blum), and Peppino Mazzotta of “Il commissario Montalbano” fame.

Irreproachable secretary Katharina Blum meets hoodlum and alleged terrorist Ludwig Götten at a carnival ball, spends the night with him and unawarely eases his escape the morning after. Brutally questioned by the police, she offers little collaboration. In the meantime, tabloids sceam through the voice of ruthless Werner Tötges, repeatedly violating Katharina’s privacy and manipulating the gathered information. Katharina is painted as a bandit’s accomplice first, then as an extremist; her life is turned upside down, she is threatened and abused, her acquaintences face societal marginalisation, her honour is jeopardised. Police and the state do not protect her. In the desperate, lucid isolation she falls into, she takes avenge by killing Tötges, and turns herself in to the police.

In spite of the dramatic theme, the light, ironic structure built by Böll results in full sympathy for the character. Throughout the story, the writer does nothing but parody the language of the tabloid press, with its clichés, small moralizations, fashionable expressions, its intrinsic flatness. The crime story starts from an act that has already taken place, goes forward and backward allowing us to see the media nightmare that surrounds the protagonist, with the lies that destroy her social and intimate relationships, leading to the extreme gesture. More than forty years have passed since the release of the novel, yet one is still struck by the topicality of some problems that emerged in the post-war period and explored by Böll in the early 70s: among these there are those concerning the use of the means of mass communication and the forms of violence intrinsic to the media language. 

You can reserve on the phone, by calling the Botteghino Telefonico Regionale 075/57542222, on every weekday from 16 to 20, till the day before the play. Reserved tickets will need to be withdrawn at the theatre not any later than half an hour prior to the play, or they shall be re-sold.

You can also buy online on: www.teatrostabile.umbria.it.