A few years ago, the director Katie Mitchell’s daughter gave her a seemingly simple task: not to create any more theatre productions that ended with women killing themselves. Mitchell’s production of “Bernada Albas Haus” opens the 2025 Theatertreffen. In staging this new version of the classic by Alice Birch, Mitchell has nevertheless made the artistic decision that the female characters should decide to die at the end of the production. In the director’s vision, it is impossible for people at present to envisage themselves and their future escaping a spiral of increasing violence.
“How did we end up in this position?” could be the implicit headline for a section of this Theatertreffen. Whether they are family histories in Jan Friedrich’s production of “Blutbuch” and “Unser Deutschlandmärchen” by Hakan Savaş Mican or histories of the theatre and the material it uses in “Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78” by Meryl Tankard and “Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar / Würgendes Blei” by Luise Voigt, the productions are looking for their own place and responsibility in a time that offers us little in the way of agency. René Pollesch’s “ja nichts ist ok” even takes the view that we would probably need to go back 560 million years to reconnect with a past that was free from violence in the age of the arthropods. “How can this peace process be revived?” a wide-eyed Fabian Hinrichs asks his audience.
Other productions turn their attention to the future and the possibilities for humans and machines to coexist in a digital theatre aesthetic still to be invented. “Die Maschine oder: Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh” by Anita Vulescia explores the language of this nascent theatre while “[EOL]. End of Life” directed by Victoria Halper and Kai Krösche examines the entire theatrical convention of a stage space where actors and audience are physically present. Ersan Mondtag’s “Double Serpent” takes its title from an early computer game. Media and periods of time coincide in this theatre which is related to Mitchell’s in its diagnosis of the violence experienced in the way live our lives together, both intimately and politically. And for Florentina Holzinger and her ensemble, aggression against the autonomous (female) body also lies at the centre of “SANCTA” – though here an anarchic and joyful sisterly celebration is the chosen outcome: one that offers an assured interpretation of the opera’s history and a sublimation of its horrific experiences.
In addition to its selection of ten outstanding productions, this year’s Theatertreffen also offers something else to look forward to: we warmly congratulate the Theatertreffen’s International Forum on its 60th anniversary, which will be celebrated with a public programme. In keeping with its spirit of a collaborative and transgenerational theatre landscape, former participants from all over the world will gather in Berlin to inform young theatre-makers about their professional lives and encourage them to see the theatre as a place of international solidarity and co-creation. The International Forum is a format representative of a Berlin that has benefitted over the last 60 years from the diverse forms of knowledge and aesthetic visions of its guests.
We wish visitors to the Theatertreffen an exciting experience. And our sincere thanks go to the Director of the Theatertreffen Nora Hertlein-Hull and this year’s jury, to the Director of the Berliner Festspiele Matthias Pees and the entire team. Finally, we wish all those taking part both on and off stage “toi toi toi”!
Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska – Executive Board / Artistic director
Kirsten Haß – Executive Board / Administrative Director