The weather has changed. The fall is here. It’s become too cold to lounge at the parks. So take refuge from summer’s dreary end in Berlin’s theatres—where the season is just heating up.
Das Schiff der Träume [fährt einfach weiter]
Anna Bergman directs the first premiere of the Deutsches Theater season with The Ship of Dreams [just keeps going], a piece that draws inspiration from Federico Fellini’s film about scattering the ashes of an opera diva in the sea.
- Deutsches Theater, October 2 and 28, German with English surtitles, details.
La fiamma
Deutsche Oper’s first premiere of the year is Ottorino Respighi’s modernist opera—emerging out of Fascist Italy—about the entangled personal and political conflict of a son and stepmother.
- Deutsche Oper, October 2, 7, 11, 15, 18, Italian with English and German surtitles, details.
Glaube, Geld, Krieg, und Liebe
From the celebrated Quebecois director Robert Lepage, Faith, Gold, War, and Love is an expansive exploration of Germany’s postwar history through four scenarios knitted together through fate or chance.
- Schaubühne, October 3-5, 10-12, German with English surtitles, details.
Be thankful, they said
Feted dancemaker Olivia Hyunsin Kim attempts to address the lack of discourse on transnational adoption with her interdisciplinary troupe ddanddarakim’s newest work.
- Sophiensaele, Oct 4-7, in English, German and Korean, details.
2050- Unsere Utopien
Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, the hip hop dancer last seen at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and 2020 recipient of the German Dance Prize, jets into the future at Radialsystem. In concert with Eurico Ferreira Mathias on cello and Djielifily Sako on the kora, Hillebrand and Joy Alpuerto Ritter will attempt to conjure on stage new forms of community, more equitable and egalitarian than our flawed present, and two step toward a better future.
- Radialsystem, Oct 3, 4, 5, 6, details.
Ellbogen
This one-woman show, starring Aysima Ergun, really does—as its name, Elbow, suggests—throw some ‘bows. Under the direction of Studio Я artistic leader Murat Dikenci, the play confronts its audience with a striking tale of intersectional rage and woe, adapted from Fatima Aydemir’s novel of the same name.
- Studio Я, October 4, 7, 30, German with English surtitles, details.
The Hunger
Drawing inspiration from Juan Jose Saer’s novel about a kidnapped 16th century cabin boy among indigenous cannibals, Constanza Macras contemplates contemporary addiction, excess, and overconsumption in this provocative, cynical spectacle that dances always along the line of critique of our fallen society and a reproduction of those very same tendencies.
- Volksbühne, October 9, 18, in English, details.
Lasting Generation: A Post-Digital AI Climate Symposium
This ambitious immersive production from Theresa Reiwer hands the stage, or rather, screen over to AI-generated humanoid avatars, who attempt to intervene to save humanity from the climate crisis that it is clearly failing to solve alone.
- HAU, Oct 10, 11, 12, 13, in English, details.
Spielerfrauen
In this play about pairs (ostensibly the player and his wife, i.e. “Player Wives”) by pairs—conceived by Lena Brasch and Sina Martens, written by Laura Dabelstein and Leo Meier, and performed by Martens and Gabriel Schneider—the central pair proves to be more sport and theatre than sport and patriarchy. While it might not deliver some profound epiphany, the undeniable energy and brio of Schneider and Martens makes this an evening where, by the piece’s end, you will be rooting them on like your favorite football team.
- Berliner Ensemble, October 12, 18, German with English surtitles, details.
Stardust
Can you conceive of dying as empowering, perhaps even a form of self-care? This question animates Ming Poon’s 8-day installation performance, which draws its name from recent developments in science that suggest humans are made of the minerals formed by extinct stars—scientific validation of Joni Mitchell’s lyric “we are stardust.” Poon, who cites Judith Butler’s ethic of vulnerability as a key inspiration, conceived Stardust—composed of 7 different performances from 7 different artists—to develop a deeper sense of the interconnection among human and non-human life.
- Uferstudios 1, October 20-28, details.
