Peter Weiss’s The Investigation (1965) is based on the transcripts of the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial. Across eleven cantos, the play traces the victims’ journey from the arrival ramp to the crematoria. This production of the first canto renders the mechanisms of violence, guilt and self-exoneration tangible through choral and physical language — and asks how hope can remain possible.

Production and Ensemble

Peter Weiss’s play The Investigation, first published in 1965, is based on the first Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, which took place between 1963 and 1965. Weiss attended the proceedings as an observer and developed the play from the trial transcripts. The result is a sequence of eleven cantos—so called because the language of the transcripts has been shaped into a rhythmic, almost musical form. Together, they symbolically trace the victims’ journey from the arrival ramp to the crematoria.

Pierre Azar, Gwen Bauer, Sophie Goppert, Jonathan Hau, Luisa Ott, Dominik Prade, Christa Röscher, Bastian Seelmann, Ivan Taran, Vincent Ummenhofer, Adrian Weigel, Tymofi Zahkvataiev

Philip Hemmer, Marek Rodatos – technical support
Marc Eichhorn, Jasmin Casimiro Ribeiro, Dominik Stoecker – directors