On The Boards: Robert Wilson, Frank Castorf, Katie Mitchell and Yael Ronen
- Jan 1, 2017
- 3 min read
Our theater picks for the first week of 2017
Over the past two decades, Robert Wilson has furnished the Berliner Ensemble with some of its finest shows, including the company's classic Dreigroschenoper and Krapp's Last Tape. After last season's marathon production of Faust 1 & 2, Wilson returns to the BE for one last hurrah. It seems appropriate that the veteran director has chosen Beckett's Endgame for his final curtain at the BE. (January 5 & 6)
Also currently in rep at the BE is Wilson's delightful musical adaptation of Peter Pan, in Erich Kästner's classic translation and featuring music by musical duo CocoRosie. (January 1)
In the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is euphemistically referred to as The Situation (HaMatzav, in Hebrew). It also provides a title for Yael Ronen's play at the Maxim Gorki Theater (where she is the in-house director) about various Middle Eastern communities exiled by choice or force in today's Berlin, including Syrian refugees, Israeli expats and long established Palestinian and Lebanese communities. Ronen and her ensemble work closely, devising their pieces using autobiographical (and sometimes bracingly personal) detail. The Situation examines various Middle East conflicts through the lens of individual stories of exile, displacement and integration in today's melting pot districts of Kreuzberg and Neukölln. "Theater heute" voted The Situation best play of 2016. (January 6)
The Deutsches Theater lost no time bringing Michel Houellebecq's controversial bestseller Submission, about a Islamic fundamentalist takeover in 2022 France, to the stage. Director Stephan Kimmig and David Heiligers adapt Houellebecq's dystopic yet tender satire, which on the page is full of emotional pain and unexpected artistic insight.
The Schaubühne kicks off the new year with Compassion. The History of the Machine Gun, by the young Swiss writer and director Milo Rau. A theatrical interrogation of the refugee crisis that is currently testing the limits of European humanist ideals, the show had its world premiere here exactly a year ago and has since been seen in Moscow, Zagreb Lausanne and Belgrade.
The British director Katie Mitchell's work combines theater and film in stunningly intricate and tightly choreographed productions that sink or swim on the appropriateness of her aesthetic to the work in question. Her triumphant 2011 production of Miss Julie, co-directed with Leo Warner, is retold from the point of view of the cook, Kirstin, a secondary character in Strindberg's original. (January 2).
Don't expect Ralph Fiennes to show up in Baumeister Solness, Frank Castorf's 4-hour-long adaptation of The Master Builder. Castorf, the Volksbühne's longtime intendant ,who steps down at the end of the season, has turned to Ibsen on four previous occasions, starting in 1985 with a production of A Doll's House in Anklam, which helped establish the young director as a force to be reckoned with in East Germany. In a 1988 interview, Castorf explained his affinity to Ibsen and how the Norwegian master's influence of his dramatic aesthetic and practice. "„The thing which interests me and what interests me about Ibsen, is moral ethics and continuity – just how long will people stick to a cause, support you, show solidarity and remain loyal? And where is the point when this continuity is suspended and put out of force? I’m talking about opportunism and such things. That’s rather difficult to grasp. You cannot use simple dramatic forms for that. Not even satirical or grotesque techniques like those used in plays by Bulgakov or Mayakovsky will do..." (January 6)
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