Dea Loher

Dea Loher is one of the most powerful and individual voices in German theatre today. This volume brings together three of her plays, translated into English. Olga’s Room Communist. Jew. Revolutionary. Lover. Mother. Olga Benario’s story is a searing tale of survival as alongside her fellow prisoners she struggles to hold onto her disintegrating sense of self. Based on real events of the 1930s-40s, Dea Loher’s gripping first play spans Brazilian revolution and Nazi dictatorship. Innocence A city by the sea. 14 people on the edge. Illegal immigrants afraid of being arrested for a good deed. A philosopher who burns her own books. A woman seeking forgiveness for crimes she didn’t commit. A young married man who finds fulfillment laying out corpses. A blind stripper who spends her life being watched by men she cannot see. Innocence is a darkly comic panorama of urban restlessness. Land Without Words War meets art in this intimate parable. A painter seeks the perfect image, but in K., a Middle Eastern city, she experiences the effects of war, violence and poverty, impossible to depict. Now she is forced to confront her lifelong beliefs in the value of art, and how to deal with her position in the world today. Dea Loher is one of Germany’s most highly regarded contemporary playwrights. Her plays have been translated into over fifteen languages and staged all over the world. They include Tatowierung, Stranger’s House (Fremdes Haus), Adam Geist, Innocence (Unschuld), The Final Fire (Das Letzte Feuer), Thieves (Diebe) and Black Lake (Am Schwarzen See). She has won numerous awards including the Else-Lasker-Schuler-Dramatikerpreis (2005), the Bertolt-Brecht-Preis der Stadt Augsburg (2006), and the Berliner Literaturpreis (2009). Currently living in Berlin, her most recent work is a novel, Bugatti taucht auf. David Tushingham’s translations include: Mr. Kolpert, The Woman Before, Waiting Room Germany, Stranger’s House (Royal Court), The Golden Dragon, Arabian Night, Jeff Koons (ATC) and State of Emergency (Gate Theatre). He has worked as a dramaturg for numerous high-profile European institutions and is currently Artistic Advisor to the Salzburg Festival.