Persona

Jury Statement

Anna Bergmann re-narrates Ingmar Bergman’s avant-garde experimental film – and turns it into a psychological in-depth exploration of female identity. The relationship between the actor Elisabet, who has fallen silent, and her lively nurse Alma becomes an intimate psycho-duel between the great actors Corinna Harfouch and Karin Lithman, a duel that takes more than a few unexpected new turns and cuts across many a taboo and cliché. The show explores how women are tortured by the images they are expected to conform to, how they compare and measure and burn themselves out – finally replacing each other. Where is the line between one’s own identity and assigned (female) roles? The show’s content finds an intelligent equivalent in its form: Depending on which country the play is performed in, the actors switch roles, thus finding a way to include the age-old theatre conflict of jealousy in the story.