Where the 1895 play revolved around a Germanic court hearing, the new version is about a session of the Etstoel, which for centuries was both the highest court and the government of Drenthe. There, someone from Drenthe has to answer for the death of a Frisian monk in Rolde. Most of the text is in Drents, the regional language, and the wolf, crop spraying, nitrogen and mountain bikers also make an appearance. Jacco Fluks was the narrator, and at the end the choir and the audience sang a new Drenthe anthem together.
The premiere on Friday evening only just went ahead, because after a heavy thunderstorm the team was not ready until the last moment. In 1895, too, the weather caused a delay, the society writes: because of a thunderstorm just before the start, Emma and Wilhelmina had to wait for a while.
Anne Doornbos wrote the script and directed it with help from Gerdien Veneboer. Martijje Lubbers updated the music and led the project choir, and historian Henk Nijkeuter advised on the history. The actors came from amateur drama clubs in Balloo/Loon, Rolde, Grolloo and Ekehaar. Volunteers from the society raised the money and handled the organisation, with contributions from the municipality of Aa en Hunze, the province of Drenthe, the Claas van Gorcumfonds, the Rossing-Koops foundation and the cooperative fund of Rabobank Noord.
About 150 people could fit in the hollow for each performance. According to the Rolderpost, Rolde's village paper, that maximum was agreed with local residents and Het Drentse Landschap, a nature conservation trust, so that the neighbourhood and the hollow itself are disturbed as little as possible. The neighbourhood association De Spoorzoekers got the site ready beforehand.
The original was performed on Saturday 7 September 1895, when Emma and Wilhelmina took a carriage ride from Assen to Rolde and visited the hunebeds, Drenthe's prehistoric stone tombs. State archivist Gratama devised a Germanic trial for the occasion, in which Theodgrim, son of Aldgrim, was declared an outlaw because he was said to have fought on the side of Charles Martel against the Frisians and the people of Drenthe in 734. At the end, a seeress predicted that the country would one day be ruled by a woman. The society wanted to bring the play back in 2020, when it turned fifty, but the coronavirus pandemic prevented that.