Titchfield Festival Theatre is delighted to announce the winner of its 2023 Playwright Competition: Reverb, written by Anna Clart. 

East Germany, 1982: Mira is a low-ranking employee of the Stasi, tasked with transcribing the phone calls of those betraying their loved ones to the state. As she gathers proof after proof that no one is to be trusted, her relationships and grasp on reality begin to fracture.

Reverb is a dramatic thriller which explores life in the German Democratic Republic’s (GDR) culture of fear and self-censorship: what happens when a state weaponizes its people against each other? Reverb creates a rich world unfurled by Mira and Steff, Mira’s girlfriend. The narrative of the play is a mixture of audio and live theatre, the two forms increasingly intermingling, interacting and substituting for each other as the story progresses. Its disturbing story is rooted in the past; however, does it provide a chilling warning for the future, if we fail to learn the lessons of history?

Ian Hylands is director of Reverb:

“Reverb is an arresting piece of fresh, innovative writing. It is a privilege to direct its world première and I think audiences will get an entry point to a piece of history that they are not expecting, an approach to the Cold War, East Germany and the way of life under an authoritarian regime in an accessible and romantic way. This play allows us to see what the genuine cost of nationalism really demands of people.

“I love that Anna, our playwright, is part German. This informs the piece with a point of view that would be unlikely from a British writer and grants us the true reward of great drama; to discover another life and feel for just a moment or two, what living a different life really means.”

Anna Clart, Titchfield Festival Theatre’s 2023 Playwright Competition winner, says:

“Reverb is rooted in my family's history: My great-aunt and grandfather both moved from East to West Germany in the 1950s, while continuing to visit their family in the GDR. I've been inspired by their stories - and the stories of other German family members - about what the East/West divide was like, and decided to set the play in the East German city of Leipzig, where my parents are currently living.

“The whole idea for the plot came from the voices - that is, learning just how prevalent "ordinary" phone calls to the Stasi were. If you were being spied upon by the government, the spies usually weren't shadowy figures in trench coats. They were your colleagues, neighbours and family members making reports, either voluntarily or under coercion. Years after the Berlin Wall came down and the Stasi records were made public, the full scale of the horror became evident. So I wondered: What would it do to you, psychologically, if your job exposed you to that every day – proof that you can trust no one?"

Reverb performs in the Acorn Studio at Titchfield Festival Theatre from 19 – 24 February 2024. For more information including booking tickets please go to http://titchfieldfestivaltheatre.com/  or contact our Box Office on 0333 666 3366.