Together with Thomas Brasch and Einar Schleef, Lothar Trolle is one of the most important innovators
of German-language drama in the generation after Heiner Mü ller. Like Elfriede Jelinek and (from
the younger generation) Wolfram Lotz, he is still regarded today as a dramatist whose texts are
not written in the service of theatre but rather constantly ask new questions of it and challenge it
afresh, taking it to its limits and beyond—to create a theatre of the future.
Lothar Trolle celebrates his 80th birthday on 22 January 2024, at which point he will have been
working as a freelance writer for over 50 years: as a playwright, storyteller, poet, radio dramatist,
and translator. His diverse texts with all their formal variety deserve readers—new readers. They
do not conceal their character as work-in-progress but rather make a virtue of it. As edited material,
the texts should show traces of the work involved in creating them, an expression of the reality of
writing. This may initially entail unwonted effort in reading them. But this effort is most enriching.
Lothar Trolle, b. 1944 in Brü cken near Sangerhausen, is a German playwright, storyteller, poet, radio
dramatist, and translator, who lives and works in Berlin. Hermes in der Stadt, one of his best-known
plays, was staged by Frank Castorf at the Deutsches Theater Berlin in 1992.weiterlesen