Die Abweichlerin

In the organizer's words:

based on the novel "Vilhelm's Room"
by Tove Ditlevsen
German by Ursel Allenstein
Director: Karin Henkel


The Danish author and artist Tove Ditlevsen is one of her country's most famous literary greats. She has recently been rediscovered for the German theater. Her last novel, "Vilhelm's Room", which she published in 1975, is considered her masterpiece alongside the "Copenhagen Trilogy" and is described as her most artistic and modern novel.

In unsparing, crystal-clear and highly poetic sentences, Tove Ditlevsen looks back on her eventful life. "I want to write a book about Vilhelm's room and everything that happened in it or emanated from it; those events that led to Lise's death, which I only survived so that I could write down her and Vilhelm's story. My existence has no other meaning."

In her autofictional, literary writing, Tove Ditlevsen splits herself up into several characters: there is the malicious neighbor Mrs. Thomsen, Lise's ex-husband Vilhelm, who is also the husband of the "I", his new lover Mille, Lise's son and the eternally clammy lodger Kurt. A curious panopticon of failed existences who meet in their loneliness and yet are unfit for a relationship and a normal life. And in the end, no one knows whether they are not the figment of an "I" fantasy or whether they actually live in this house around Vilhelm's room.

Growing up in poverty as a working-class child, a life as a writer seemed inconceivable to Tove Ditlevsen. Throughout her life, she struggled for recognition as a woman in the male-dominated literary world. She offers up her entire artistic output against her mental illness, her addiction to pills and her failed relationships - most recently in "Vilhelm's Room", where she transforms the last of her four marriages into a poetic inferno.

Director Karin Henkel, who recently caused a sensation with her production of "Richard the Kid & the King" based on Shakespeare, will continue her many years of artistic work at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg with the German-language premiere of "The Deviant" by Tove Ditlevsen.

With: Lina Beckmann, Daniel Hoevels, Matti Krause, Mirco Kreibich and Linn Reusse

Dancer: Liina Magnea

Director: Karin Henkel
Stage: Barbara Ehnes
Costumes: Teresa Vergho
Sound: Arvild J. Baud
Video: Chris Kondek Chris Kondek
Lighting: Holger Stellwag
Dragaturgy: Finnja Denkewitz and Sybille Meier

Further information: The Deviant | Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg