Zement

On Munich’s posh Maximilianstraße, of all places (or maybe this is just the place for it?), Gotscheff, unflinching and desperate, tells us once again about revolution and about how hard it is to carry out, and even harder to sustain and justify, to learn from. In the end, there can be only failure – or maybe just a spark of hope that not every sacrifice has been in vain. “Old-fashioned” in the best sense of the word, uncompromising in its archaic imagery and painfully clear without any scenic frippery, Gotscheff tells us this story, searching for the visions of the future in the ashes of the past. A utopian dream (and certainly not just the old Russian version) is carried to its grave in a threateningly grey non-space, by extraordinary actors (above all Valery Cheplanova, Bibiana Belgau, Sebastian Blomberg), and at the same time, the dream of betterment and the eternal necessity of changes are invoked. Dimiter Gotscheff’s final production premiered six months before his death.

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