Actor Maximilian Paier leans against an old, worn gas pump at a gas station
"The Stranger" | Maximilian Paier
© SLT / Christian Krautzberger

The Stranger

Albert Camus

Stage adaptation by Murat Dikenci

Premiere: March 28, 2026 / Kammerspiele

Synopsis

“Man seeking meaning must feel a stranger in a meaningless world.” –  Albert Camus

 

The story of a young Frenchman in Algeria who is made a murderer by a ridiculous coincidence was a literary sensation in occupied France in 1942 and became one of the most-printed French novels of the 20th century. The work marked Albert Camus’s breakthrough as an author and is today considered one of the main texts of existentialism.

“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure.” This is how Camus’s protagonist Meursault begins his story, in a few unemotional words. After the wake and the funeral in the country, Meursault returns to his unexcited daily life in Algiers. He perceives the details of his surroundings without taking a stand – neither on violence and injustice nor on love and connectedness. The offer of a career in Paris holds no appeal for him; he is satisfied with his life continuing as usual. His neighbour, Raymond Sintès, draws the emotionless man into a revenge story involving a former lover. When Meursault is blinded by the reflection of the sun on the knife of an attacker, he grabs a gun and kills the opponent with one shot. “I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy.” In its unsparing depiction of indifference, Camus’s work contains a plea for human compassion.

Albert Camus (1913–1960) is considered one of the most significant French authors of the 20th century. During World War II, he was the leading intellectual figure of the French Resistance against the German occupation. His work as a journalist is strongly influenced by the philosophy of existentialism. Camus received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his life’s work in 1957. He died in a car accident in 1960.

Murat Dikenci has been working as a director, dramaturg, curator, author, and actor on national and international projects since 2007. As a director (including at Schauspiel Hannover, Schauspiel Dortmund, and the Maxim Gorki Theatre), he combines literary material with a politically poetic aesthetic. His self-written play “The Avenged,” inspired by Albert Camus’s existentialist philosophy, was invited to the Radikal jung Festival in 2024. Since the 2023/2024 season, he has been directing and curating STUDIO Я at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. “The Stranger” marks his first directing work at the Salzburg State Theatre.