Which year are we living in?

“This morning I went berserk.” In her new homeland, a woman begins to tell her story. At first, she talks about harmless walks; but then, a police check becomes an assault, and an encounter with her compatriots turns into a brutal humiliation. The man in whom she confides these anecdotes repeatedly asks probing, detailed questions. Is he her partner, or does he want to expose her? Where is she? Where is he? Has their escape to a new life been a success, or have they been separated? Somewhere, a tape recorder is running – crucial evidence, or notes for self-reassurance? What story must the woman tell in order to be given the right to stay?

The Iranian author Afsane Ehsandar recently moved to Berlin, where she works as a writer and editor. As one of three pieces, the short play “What year are we living in?” won the Authors’ Competition at the city’s 2017 Autorentheatertage theatre festival. For Ehsandar, an important model for “Which year are we living in?” was the British dramatist Harold Pinter’s “Ashes to Ashes” dialogue, in which much initially seems fantastical and mysterious, but is decoded as a logic of different narrative levels in the course of the story.