This bold and challenging work is compelling theatre of the highest calibre
Judges' comments, 2012 Dunedin Fringe Festival
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22 February - 3 March 2012, The Tannery, Christchurch
21-23 March 2012, Temple Gallery, Dunedin Fringe Festival Nominee, BEST OF FRINGE, 2012 Dunedin Fringe Nominee, BEST THEATRE, 2012 Dunedin Fringe Nominee, STAND-OUT PERFORMER (George Parker), 2012 Dunedin Fringe Winner, 'GET TO ADELAIDE FRINGE' Award, 2012 Dunedin Fringe Festival In Hereafter, author and filmmaker Werner Fritsch, described by the German magazine Der Spiegel as “Germany’s boldest poet”, dares to go deep down into the soulscape of a man who all his life was under the spell of the underworld.
Wolf “Sexmachine” Bold, who is a suspect for the murder of his wife Cora, the mother of his son Felix, is beyond reality and hallucination, perhaps even beyond his own body. Before the police can arrest him he is threatened by somebody hiding behind a carnival mask of Hitler and holding a revolver to his head. But who is the man behind the mask? Director Peter Falkenberg has translated and adapted this radical monologue in which a man reflects in seconds of horror on what remains in his memory and what dominates our pictures of sex and violence. Hereafter uses video to provide a Christchurch context from an underworld point of view and juxtaposes the often inarticulate male voice with a female singing voice and double-bass that comment upon, balance, counteract and provide an emotional subtext to the production. This project is a continuation of the collaboration between Fritsch and Free Theatre that in 2008 led to Faust Chroma, nominated for Most Original Production at the 2009 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards and described by Radio New Zealand’s Lynn Freeman as “mindblowing”, “gutsy” and “quite unlike anything I’ve seen before”. In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut, Werner Fritsch was in residenence in Christchurch during the development of this work and for its premiere on February 22nd at The Tannery where he was present for a post-show discussion. During his stay, Fritsch was again hosted by Te Puna Toi (Theatre and Film Studies, UC), which organized a preview of Fritsch’s film Faust Sonnengesang. 
PublicityFantastic Fringe Fun is all french to me
Nigel Benson, Otago Daily Times New Theatre The Press, 17 February 2012 ResearchEmma Johnston used Hereafter as material for her PhD research Between Liminality and Transgression: Experimental Voice in Avant-garde Performance, Emma Johnston, PhD 2014
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ReviewsIt is light years away from the comfortable, the predictable, the classic. It is provocative in the best sense. Peter Falkenberg's direction is appropriately unflinching. ...the play was one of the hardest I have ever had to sit through.... I just can't see the average student audience appreciating this one; even the non-engineering crowd. In a rugged Woolston alley where Canterbury quakes hit hard / For an hour and a half we are subjected to a manic monologue, delivered with unflagging energy and absolute conviction.... This is undoubtedly challenging theatre. But if you have the stomach for it, you are in for a powerful and memorable experience. But we have heard this all before, in many, many, many different stories, films, plays, operas and songs, not only those of Germany in the lead up to WWII, but also internationally. Hereafter is more explicit in its sexual language, but so what? I do not need one to tell me about sperm found in a dissected corpse to know that it is there. In George Parker's delivery, Wolf is a completely recognisable Kiwi bloke, whom any of us might love or hate to know.... Stick it out, and you will find in yourself a greater and perhaps even useful understanding of various kinds of toxic thinking in our world. 
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