Winter at dawn

based on the novel by Jens-Martin Eriksen

The contact with the Danish author Jens-Martin Eriksen came about in 2008, after Frank Heuel discovered the novel WINTER IM MORGENGRAUEN for himself and the ensemble. He was attracted to a stage adaptation. Jens-Martin Eriksen met the request with great openness and curiosity. He didn’t see the result until the premiere. Frank Heuel and Jens-Martin Eriksen were clear that this work would be followed by other joint projects (see Finland and The Trial of Malaparte.

For the stage adaptation of WINTER IN THE MORNING GREY, director Frank Heuel has shortened the text and breaks up the perspective of the individual narrator: with three actors he realizes the haunting story in several voices and also heightens the tension between individual and group acoustically, almost to the music of speech.

The play deliberately leaves empty spaces, leaves the viewer alone with questions about guilt, responsibility, norms. It does not raise an index finger. That is its strength: Here, the audience is responsible for judging. The author of the novel, Jens-Martin Eriksen, was enthusiastic about the realization of his novel.”
Westphalian News

You can’t bring literary texts to the stage more precisely than Heuel.
Bonn Review

Heuel’s idea of casting the role of the protagonist with the three actors Manuel Klein, David Fischer and Harald Redmer, who are rising in age, proves to be almost ingenious.[…] Klein, Fischer, Redmer lend the character a threatening, banal intensity.
General-Anzeiger Bonn

It’s worth getting involved in this theatrical study of human manipulability.
Muenster newspaper


Learn more about the piece on the fringe ensemble‘s website.


WINTER IM MORGENGRAUEN is sponsored by the City of Münster, the Kunststiftung NRW, the Minister President of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the City of Bonn.