Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar/Würgendes Blei (Senora Carrar’s rifles/Choking Lead)

An Andalucian fishing village in 1937, after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. General Franco’s troops are getting ever closer. In the house of Teresa Carrar and her two sons José and Juan, the distant rumble of bombs can already be heard as the hate-filled, intimidatory slogans of the fascists blare from the radio. Señora Carrar has forbidden her sons to join in the battle against Franco. Because they are poor people, she tells them, «and poor people cannot go to war». She desperately hopes they will be spared from war and terror. But how long can Señora Carrar continue to protect herself and her sons? And what should she say to her brother who urges her to hand out the rifles that are hidden in the house and asks the all-important question: «When sharks attack you, are you going to be the one who uses violence?»

In contrast with Bertolt Brecht’s Lehrstücke, his play «Señora Carrar’s Rifles» is a work of realism. Brecht himself spoke almost apologetically about «empathetic drama». Everything in his short play revolves around the disquieting question of whether it is possible to remain aloof and neutral in the face of a violent attack carried out for the sake of extermination or conquest – a shockingly topical question when viewed from a contemporary perspective.

In 1938 Brecht suggested that it might be possible to perform his play alongside the screening of a documentary film. Instead the Residenztheater has commissioned the playwright Björn SC Deigner to extend Brecht’s probing question into the present with a playtext of his own: «Würgendes Blei» (Choking Lead) attempts to find a language for the timeless horrors of war and destruction.

This two-part evening is presented by the director, media artist and audio dramatist Luise Voigt, whose richly visual and highly musical productions have caused a sensation and who is working here at the   Residenztheater for the first time.