• Fear
• Dizziness
• Comfort

In the autumn of 1946, a young Swedish author travelled through Germany. Back home, Stig Dagerman was a rising star; on behalf of the daily newspaper Expressen, he visited Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr region – cities and regions lying in misery, hunger and ruins. Dagerman titled this literary travelogue, in which he weaves his political analyses, Deutscher Herbst (German Autumn).

It rains incessantly, and the young Swede – who, a few years later, would be consumed by his own inner darkness – grapples with the question: is this country, so alien to him, teetering so precariously between end and beginning, ready for freedom? Eighty years is a human lifetime. The biological tipping point in the architecture of human memory. For with the passing of every human being, an organ of memory is lost. Memory then becomes codification; stability gives way to a faltering search for what once was and what lies within us.

For the theatre production Deutscher Herbst, the acclaimed director Christopher Rüping, together with his team and ensemble, embarks on this quest. Like Dagerman, he listens intently to German history. How much freedom lies within us, how many autumns? How much beginning and how much end?