• Stage
  • Three questions for… Jörg Albrecht

Stage

Three questions for… Jörg Albrecht

INTERVIEW. Albrecht's NASTY PEACE, a fantasy-inspired audio tour, uses dragons and swords to explore the consequences of increasing privatisation in Kreuzberg. Experience his so-called "Game of Zones" Nov 20-Dec 6.

Image for Three questions for... Jörg Albrecht
Photo by Silke Bauer

Albrecht’s Nasty Peace, produced by his theatre collective copy & waste, sends listeners on a fantasy-inspired audio tour of Kreuzberg privatisation. 

How visible is the heritage of the Wall in Berlin now?

It is less visible than we would wish it to be. You sometimes have to look for its remains to find them. And then, it is often a rather touristy look at it. I remember some years ago someone I know said: “Oh, can you imagine, when the Wall was still up, you couldn’t just go to Bar25 by bike. How awkward!” That intellectual level of speaking about Berlin’s past is perhaps also due to the Wall being almost invisible now. 

Why did you choose Kottbusser Tor to stage this tour?

Kotti is perhaps the most confusing and crude place Berlin still has to offer. It’s still a pulsating example of public life. And still, the protests against rising rents have found a place here for three years. People with many different backgrounds connect to each other because they love this district they live in. And doesn’t that collective love, this tenderness towards Kottbusser Tor, sound like a damn good motivation to fight capital investment? 

The tour’s climactic battle involves swords, war horses and dragons…

Before 1989, the warlords of global capitalism were not able to conduct their campaign for privatisation in western and eastern Europe as fiercely as they wanted. After that, everything was possible. When Warren Buffett speaks of class warfare, it is meant in the original sense of warfare. Perhaps it’s time to not only defend just our own private property, but to collectively attack those who have stolen one of the most important things from us: public life. And why not use swords and dragons? Game of Zones, I’d say. 

Nasty Peace: Nov 20-Dec 6 | Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor, see etberlin.de for details.

Originally published in issue #132, November 2014.