Katharina Thalbach

Irmgard Keun’s humor and her extraordinary ability to translate life into literature have inspired audiences for generations. In 1931, her first novel "Gilgi - Eine von uns" made Keun famous overnight because of its completely unique style that mixed pop songs, typewriters, inner monologues, and delicate lyricism with precisely recorded colloquialisms, film, advertising posters and revue numbers. In her work, the author simultaneously created and satirized the modern woman of her time. She specialized in stories about young women in the Weimar Republic who find their very own path to emancipation in a world of paternalism and economic as well as emotional dependencies. Her protagonists are self-confident, quick-witted, grounded in reality, and hungry for life. Incensed by this portrayal of female independence, the Nazis banned Keun’s books in 1933 and decried her work as "asphalt literature."

Katharina Thalbach, the grande dame of German stages and screens, brings Keun's "Gilgi - Eine von uns" to life. As a master student of Helene Weigel, she has a long history with the Berliner Ensemble. Oliver Reese stages this very special reading, Jörg Gollasch arranges the musical accompaniment.