Time of the innocent
The time of the blameless is a play by Siegfried Lenz . The work premiered on September 19, 1961 in the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg under the direction of Peter Gorski .
action
In a country ruled by a dictatorial regime , a prisoner is said to reveal the names of underground resistance fighters. For this he is locked in a prison together with nine innocent citizens of the state. The government hopes the innocent will put such pressure on the man that he will reveal the names. This plan fails, the prisoner is strangled one night by one of the innocent fellow prisoners, the nine are then released. When the dictatorship is overthrown and a new government comes to power, the nine “innocent people”, one of whom is actually guilty of the murder, are again imprisoned together, this time to find out who the murderer was. After all, one of the nine who did not commit the deed takes it upon himself to enable the others to live in freedom. However, none of the prisoners can completely absolve themselves of all guilt, because, as Lenz says, "in a time of violence (...) you can only preserve your innocence if you are willing to take on a part of the guilt".
Emergence
Lenz had initially planned the play as a novella . However, the narrative possibilities of this literary genre soon appeared to him to be insufficient for his narrative intent, so that he made a radio play out of it, which in turn became the theater piece. It is the writer's first play.
Awards
Siegfried Lenz received the Gerhart Hauptmann Prize for the play in 1970 and the City of Bremen Literature Prize in 1962 .
The radio play
The inspiration for this radio play was a Chinese fairy tale in which 10 men flee to a temple during a thunderstorm. The old walls are threatened by lightning, so obviously there must be a great sinner among them. The men then hang their straw hats in front of the gate, assuming that the wind will be the first to blow away the sinner's hat. The victim is mercilessly pushed outside by the others. When lightning strikes, the nine are killed in the temple. The outcast remains unharmed because he was the only righteous one.
The radio play was produced by the SWF in cooperation with the NDR . The first broadcast took place on February 7, 1960 and had a running time of 68,05 minutes. It was directed by Fritz Schröder-Jahn . Friedrich Siemers spoke the role of Sasons . Other speakers included such well-known actors as Siegfried Wischnewski , Willy Trenk-Trebitsch , Herbert Fleischmann , Heinz Schimmelpfennig , Hanns Lothar and Gerd Martienzen .
The radio play was awarded the Gerhart Hauptmann Prize in 1961.
filming
Director Thomas Fantl filmed the work in 1964 under the title The Time of the Innocent . Fantl wrote the screenplay for the film together with Siegfried Lenz.
literature
- Verner Arpe: Knaur's actor. A story of drama . Droemer / Knaur, 1976, ISBN 3-426-23312-6 , p. 452.
Web links
- ARD radio play archive (online database)