News from Berlin

News from Berlin – “The best school for dialectics is emigration. The most penetrating dialecticians are exiles. There are changes that have forced them into exile, and they are interested only in changes. From minute signs they deduce the most fantastic events, on condition, of course, that they are able to reflect on them. If their adversaries win the day, the exiles calculate the price that they will have to pay for that victory, and the contradictions they have unwittingly brought to light” (Bertolt Brecht, Refugee Conversations).

Flüchtlingsgespräche (Refugee Conversations), is a play written by Bertold Brecht in 1940-41, formulated as a series of dialogues between two exiles, a former scientist and a former laborer. The main characters will be interpreted by director Manfred Karge, playing the role of Ziffel, and Roman Kaminski, playing Kalle. The plot rotates around the two exiles who meet in a new land and exchange witty conversations about political circumstances and life as exiles. Beer can be good or bad, but it is always beer, whereas a person can be good or bad, but will not exist without a passport.

The play will be on stage in Berlin on the 2nd October under the direction and adaptation of Manfred Karge; it will be presented at the Berliner Ensemble, named after the theater company originally created by Berthold Brecht himself and his wife Helene Weigel in a post- Second World War, Eastern Berlin. Within these walls, the play is invested with a particular meaning: the Berliner Ensemble’s “own house” was in fact launched in 1954 with Molière’s “Don Juan”, directed by Benno Besson, after which Brecht restaged his own play “Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis” (The Caucasian Chalk Circle) to die in 1956. Ever since, the Berliner Ensemble has experienced different eras and directions; it remains nowadays an example of excellence in the theatrical scene worldwide.

News from Berlin – Berlin Global