Grotesque, bizarre and endearing

I still have fond memories of the enjoyable book launch of Anaïs Meier's debut novel in autumn 2021 in the club room of the Rote Fabrik, billed as a "top-class criminological evening on the topics of severed human feet and omniscient ducks". In addition to reading a few passages from the book, the author projected quirky videos, played a similar soundtrack and shone with laconic humour in the panel discussion.

All of this was perfectly suited to the bizarre story of her now award-winning, absurdly funny provincial crime novel about an outsider who encounters a talking duck and love while trying to solve a supposed murder case. The story is told with a fine feel for the fringes of society and in refreshingly idiosyncratic language full of eccentric formulations. I was enchanted by the book and the event.

This spring, the Neue Theater Dornach staged the story as a play and from 7 November there will now be three guest performances at the Zürcher sogar Theater. As I missed the mostly sold-out performances in Dornach, I quickly arrange a video call with Anaïs to ask her if she is happy with the stage version. "Absolutely", she tells me enthusiastically.

The spirit of the story is captured perfectly, the play is superbly told and acted, and the language is very close to the original book. Some storylines had to be left out to allow for a fluid stage version, but the essential scenes were included.

She also likes the minimalist stage design, because that is, after all, the art of creating the greatest possible effect with few resources. There are also some details that don't appear in the book, but which complement the characters of the two stage characters perfectly: Gerhard wears 5-toed shoes and Rita vapes these modern e-cigarettes. And she also thinks the music composed for the play is very successful.

I was already curious to see whether the stage version could keep up with the book, but now one thing is certain: this time I won't miss the play.