Profile

Schaubühne
The Schaubühne was founded in 1962 as a private theatre with a politically and socially committed repertoire under the name »The Schaubühne at Hallesches Ufer«. Of the original four founding members, Jürgen Schitthelm continued to be a managing director of the Schaubühne until October 2012. Since then, the Schaubühne has been under the managing direction of Dr. Friedrich Barner, who has been a boardmember since 1991, and Tobias Veit.
Well-known directors and actors in the German theatre, including Peter Stein, Klaus Michael Grüber, Luc Bondy, Robert Wilson, Andrea Breth, Bruno Ganz, Edith Clever, Jutta Lampe, have led the house to worldwide fame. The theatre staged its first plays at the Hallesches Ufer in Kreuzberg (in today’s HAU 2) and, from 1981, in the Mendelsohn-built building on Lehniner Platz. Under Thomas Ostermeier, Jens Hillje, Sasha Waltz and Jochen Sandig, who led the Schaubühne artistically from 1999 to 2004, the theatre evolved into an internationally plugged-in theatre for contemporary speech and dance. Today, under Ostermeier’s artistic direction, the stage is the only major dramatic theatre in west Berlin. The repertoire includes both contemporary texts as well as those of past centuries.

The most relevant consideration as to what goes into the repertoire, that is the choice of text and director, is determined by a critical-analytical, and frequently political view, on social reality and its consequent questioning of the forms of contemporary realism in terms of staging, acting and stage design.

Engagement with the lives of people in today’s Germany includes the consideration of marginalised groups and of the excluded, as well as of those at the heart of bourgeois life between the new centre and the old West Berlin. After works such as »Human Circle 3.1« by Lars Norén in the 1999/2000 season, Ostermeier took up the 19th century classics:
In the productions of Henrik Ibsen’s »Nora – A Doll’s House«, (invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen 2003), »Hedda Gabler« (invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen 2006), »John Gabriel Borkmann«, (which won the Grand Prix de la Critique in France for the best foreign production of the 2008/09 season) and »An Enemy of the People« (Premiere at Festival d’Avignon 2012), the critical public sees its fears and hopes reflected and its material and mental situation analysed. The accessible and internally coherent representation of texts from the bourgeois canon opens to the audience – when it’s done successfully – the actuality of a conflict, as well as its historic dimensions.
Moreover, Ostermeier has made his mark as the director of world premieres of plays by contemporary playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Richard Dresser, Jon Fosse, David Harrower, Sarah Kane, Lars Norén, Marius von Mayenburg, Mark Ravenhill and Karst Woudstra.

Ostermeier’s work as artistic leader and director at the Schaubühne has been characterised by the development of and support for the ensemble. The intensive work with the actors has been decisive in the theatre’s contemporary interpretation of classic theatre texts and its engagement with new drama. Ostermeier has developed specific acting styles for these hugely divergent texts. Both the formal and substantive characteristics of the material are thus questioned as radically as the traditional aesthetics and performance aspects of a piece. This can be seen most clearly in Ostermeier’s productions of plays by Shakespeare. Having expanded the boundaries of interpretation with a production of »A Midsummer’s Night Dream« (together with the choreographer Constanza Macras) he succeeded in creating an internationally acclaimed and award-winning »Hamlet« (critics’ prize for »best foreign production« in Barcelona) of the ever-hesitant Danish prince for the 2008/09 season. His engagement with Shakespeare continued in 2009/10 with his production of »Othello« and »Measure for Measure« in 2011/12.

The directors, brought to the Schaubühne by Ostermeier and his team, get to grips in specific, often political ways, with social reality and the possibility of its representation on stage whereby the theatre places great worth on a multi-facetted and, if possible, contradictory aesthetics and acting styles:

While Falk Richter explores the postmodern individual, Volker Lösch rains powerful blows against social injustices.
Ivo van Hove’s detailed work on the text seeks out personal, touching stories in the context of great social upheaval.
By contrast, Constanza Macras’ choreography, with its powerful images, physically springs right into life’s centre.
Friederike Heller’s work on prose and plays from the epic theatrical tradition starts on the other hand with the musicality and the aesthetics of performance.
In her on stage video productions, Katie Mitchell shows the perfect illusion as well as their making-of process.
One of the main characteristics of Egill Pálsson’s work is his playful handling of forms, meaning the transition between epic and dramatic representation, which allows empathy with the characters as well as intellectual reflection.
As a director, Marius von Mayenburg focusses on the essence of drama: the actors and the language.
With his ensemble of singers, actors and musicians David Marton explores the margins of spoken and musical theatre, discovering so far unknown potential of the theatre stage.
Michael Thalheimer´s radical reductions expose the core of the drama and its characters for a present audience.
Argentinian-born writer and director Rodrigo García unmasks with his angry self-deprecating texts the so-called achievements of western civilization. His productions show a both physical and radical picture language, which is very poetic at the same time.
The artistic programming of the house meets with a great response both within and beyond Berlin. Every year countless guest productions confirm how successfully the artistic team is succeeding in taking the international reputation of the Schaubühne ever further afield. So far, 618 guest productions with 1,653 performances – over one half of which took place since the 1999/2000 season and mostly abroad.

Since 2008, the Schaubühne has been a founding member of the European theatre union Prospero. Six theatres from Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Finland and Germany joined forces to develop a joint production and exchange guest productions. Ostermeier’s production of Ibsen’s »John Gabriel Borkman« launched the collaborative project in Rennes. This initiated further coproductions like »La menzogna« by Pippo Delbono (2008), Falk Richter and Anouk van Dijk’s »PROTECT ME« (2010) and Krzysztof Warlikowski’s »African Tales by Shakespeare« (2011) as well as the works of promising young directors, such as Jan-Christoph Gockels adaption of Patricia Highsmith´s novel »The talented Mr. Ripley« (2011).
Between now and 2012, the network will develop productions by, among others, Alvis Hermanis (Latvia), Krystof Warlikowski (Poland), Pippo Delborno (Italy) and Falk Richter (Berlin) and present them in participating theatres.

Additionally, Prospero will produce the works of young directors within the context of an up-and-coming young director’s programme. It has also created a network of European theatre scientists that will present their findings in 2010 and 2012.

1962 - 2012

1962
the theatre was founded as a private theatre with a politically and socially committed repertoire under the name ‘The Schaubühne at Halleschen Ufer’. Of the original four founding members, Jürgen Schitthelm continued to be a managing director until September 2012.

1970
a youth theatre group of theatre makers and actors came to the Schaubühne with Peter Stein. Against the background of the ‘68 movement and driven by a dissatisfaction with the then city theatre system, the idea was to counter an alternative to German city theatres using new forms of collaborative working.
All participants in the artistic process had a say in the choice of play and politics of the repertoire, while the paramount importance of a scientific and long-term concept of dramaturgy enabled the creation of one of the most important acting ensembles and an unusual penetration into society’s day-to-day life, as well as a more concentrated working style within the theatre.
More than 30 invitations to the Berliner Theatertreffen festival, 44 broadcasts on television of Schaubühne productions and many international performances document this in an impressive manner. The »Schaubühne style« was considered to be a careful handling of and a precise illumination of texts and epochs in world literature. Alongside an engagement with the Greek tragedies, the age of Shakespeare and Chekhov, 19th century dramatists and the German and French classics, contemporary plays by writers such as Botho Strauß and Peter Handke were also fixtures of the Schaubühne repertoire.
Peter Stein stayed on as artistic director of the Schaubühne until 1985. His most significant productions include »Peer Gynt« (1971), »The Piggy Bank« (1973), »Prince Friedrich von Homburg« (1972), »Summer Guests« (1974), »Large and Small« (1978), »The Oresteia« by Aeschylus (1980), »Three Sisters« (1984), »The Cherry Orchard«, (1989) and »Roberto Zucco« (1990). Stein’s companions, the directors Klaus Michael Grüber, Luc Bondy and Robert Wilson, worked at the Schaubühne until the end of the ‘90s.

1981
The Schaubühne moved into a 1920s building designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn located at the top end of Kurfürstendamm and has been known since then as the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. The house has three venues that can work independently from one another but are also used together. This makes it possible for directors and designers to develop complexes where the audience members are present within the stage area as opposed to the classic, rigid proscenium arch principle.
After Luc Bondy and Jürgen Gosch, the director Andrea Breth led the theatre and continued its tradition. Her trilogy of 19th century plays »The Lonely Way« (1991), »Hedda Gabler« (1993) and »Uncle Vanya« (1993), count among the outstanding Schaubühne works.

From 1999 to 2004
the Schaubühne artistically completely re-invented itself under the leadership of a group of young theatre makers: Thomas Ostermeier, Jens Hillje, Sasha Waltz and Jochen Sandig proposed that the house should not only position itself as a dramatic theatre but also as a dance theatre. With a strong programmatic position, an entirely new ensemble came together to take on the heritage of the now legendary Schahubühne and take it further. The new artistic directorate and the renewal of determination, the new positioning of contemporary drama as the focus of the repertoire as well as dance sparked off a huge amount of dynamism in the house as well as in the Berlin cultural landscape.

From 2005 to 2009
Thomas Ostermeier and Jens Hillje were the artistic directors. Luk Perceval and Flak Richter were working on a regular basis as in-house-directors at the Schaubühne.

Since 2009
Thomas Ostermeier has been the theatre’s artistic director.
The Schaubühne sees itself as a laboratory that works in dialogue with other disciplines such as architecture, the visual arts, music, literature and film, to develop a contemporary theatrical language with the objective of raising its distinctive profile of the theatre, which it has had since its foundation, and the reputation as one of the leading German-language theatres at home and abroad.

2012
Jürgen Schitthelm hands over the responsibility as managing director to Dr. Friedrich Barner, boardmember since 1991, and Tobias Veit. As a corporate member he’s still involved in his life’s work.