Far-right character’s monologue prompts violent scenes at German theatre | Germany

An actor at a theater in Germany was shouted at, pelted with fruit and stage invaded over the weekend as he performed a final monologue in the character of a far-right activist.

The scenes of violence took place on Saturday during the German premiere of Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’ Catarina, or The Beauty of Killing Fascists, in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia.

2020’s provocative, award-winning play tells the story of a family with a terrifying annual tradition: avenging the murder of a farm worker Catarina EufemiaA real-life resistance martyr who was shot and killed during the Salazar dictatorship in 1954. Every year they kidnap a “fascist” to execute him at a family banquet.

Over the course of the play, an intergenerational conflict arises between bloodthirsty parents and their more sensitive adult daughters over what means are legitimate to defend democracy. At the end of the final act, the chosen victim of the year, a far-right party official, delivers a 15-minute monologue describing a nightmarish extremist agenda.

Theater spokesman Alexander Kruse said that the audience became increasingly uneasy when actor Ole Lagerpusch began to speak provocatively. At first people started whistling and heckling, insulting Lagerpusch and urging him to stop. An orange was thrown at the player, narrowly missing.

Some in the audience then got up from their seats, Kruse said. “Also, two audience members appeared on stage, apparently with the intention of dragging them away. [the] “The actor was prevented from being taken off the stage,” he said, describing the attack as “completely unacceptable.”

Lagerpusch told Martin Krumbholz of the cultural site Nachtkritik.de, who was at the Bochum Schauspielhaus to review the play: Persevered despite hostile reaction and managed to say his chilling final sentence: “The future belongs to us.”

The play’s acclaimed Slovenian director, Mateja Koležnik, said by phone from Ljubljana that he was “incredibly proud” of Lagerpusch and condemned the “stupidity” and brutality of the audience attack. “It was quite shocking for me; we expected people to respond, even shout, because the last monologue was of course a provocation,” he said.

He said Lagerpusch, whom he described as “traumatized”, was so effective in the role because he delivered his hateful, divisive message in a soft-spoken, even gentle way. “[But] I’m truly amazed by this stupidity. “I never thought, no one did, that someone from the audience would jump on stage and try to shoot the actor… I expected that from the people we voted against, but not from the people who were supposed to be on our side.”

Koležnik said that his goal in the production was not to “make the liberal, petty-bourgeois society in Europe feel good” around a consensus on condemning intolerance, but to scare them. “The next wave of fascism will not be monsters. It will be normal, good people,” he said.

Critic Christoph Ohrem from regional public broadcaster WDR attended the premiere and posted: a short audio recording He said the chaos reminded him of something from the age of Shakespeare.

He noted that Rodrigues’ work often receives intense reactions from audiences and concluded that it is a “good play” to get viewers out of their comfort zones. “It’s truly surprising that a game can still cause such reactions in 2026,” he said. Rodrigues said aiming to create excitement with the game.

In his review, Krumbholz placed the blame for the mayhem on the audience. “Some of the Bochum audience, considered to be among the most theater-savvy people in the country, are, frankly, too stupid to distinguish fiction from reality,” he said.

People express their support for theater in Bochum Instagram pageA reviewer later commented on a performance security measures have been increasedand left peacefully after deputy principal Angela Obst called for calm.

Another viewer of Saturday’s debacle said he was “surprised at how disrespectful some people can be in the theater” when “the actor was just doing his job.”

A third described it as “frightening” when “so-called anti-fascist theatergoers stormed the stage and attacked the actors”. “This is fundamentally a fascist attitude towards art and theater and, in my opinion, should never happen.”

Rodrigues’ play won several awards, including best foreign performance at Italy’s Ubu awards and the equivalent award from the French Critics Circle.