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    ‘The Inheritance’ Arrives at a Festival of German Drama

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    A new production of Matthew López’s seven-hour play was among 10 shows chosen for Theatertreffen, a celebration of the best theater from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.Midway through Matthew López’s “The Inheritance,” a character lashes out at E.M. Forster, the British author of “Howards End,” who appears as a spiritual guru to the play’s protagonists.“Why should we listen to you lecture us about fearlessness and honesty? You were never honest about yourself,” the character screams, excoriating Forster for spending his long life in the closet.When “The Inheritance,” a seven-hour intergenerational saga about gay men in New York, opened in London in 2018, it was praised to the heavens. When the production transferred to Broadway a year later, there was far less critical love.This month, a reprise of the first German production of “The Inheritance” kicked off the annual Theatertreffen, a showcase of the best German-language theater, for which organizers selected “10 remarkable productions” from 461 theatrical premieres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that debuted last year. The ethics of storytelling and of responsible representation emerged as unofficial themes of the lineup.López’s skill as a dramatist comes through in Hannes Becker’s translation, but the lyricism of his prose less so. Despite the impressive plotting and memorable characters, “The Inheritance” often fizzles during its generous running time. And the play’s cliché-riddled depiction of New York — an entire scene consists of little other than a lesson in how to order correctly at Peter Luger, the celebrated steakhouse — often had this New Yorker rolling his eyes.In the end, the production, which hails from the Residenztheater in Munich, is redeemed by heroic performances from the company’s ensemble. It’s a tough call, but for my money Vincent zur Linden gives the evening’s most indelible turn: Playing both the aspiring actor Adam and the hustler Leo, zur Linden shifts between coyness, arrogance and twitching brokenness. As Eric Glass, the play’s central character, Thiemo Strutzenberger fills a bland role with emotional complexity. And Michael Goldberg, one of the troupe’s older members, inhabits the play’s two mentor-like figures, Forster and Walter Poole, with avuncular gentleness and secret sorrow.Theatertreffen loves a good theatrical marathon, like Frank Castorf’s seven-hour “Faust,” seen here in 2018, or Christopher Rüping’s even longer “Dionysos Stadt” a year later. Yet sheer length does not an epic make. Compared to those gutsy avant-garde extravaganzas, Philip Stölzl’s sleek, handsome production of “The Inheritance” felt tame.“The Bus to Dachau” considers how the Holocaust is depicted in art and how it will be taught and commemorated when no survivors are left.Isabel Machado RiosWhen I returned to the festival several nights later, it was for a production much more in line with the formally daring, conceptually knotty theater more commonly found at Theatertreffen: “The Bus to Dachau,” a coproduction between the Dutch theater collective De Warme Winkel and the Schauspielhaus Bochum theater in western Germany.Subtitled “a 21st century memory play,” this absorbing production takes a singular and idiosyncratic approach to confronting the Holocaust through art, and asks what form commemoration and education will take once all of the survivors are gone.Featuring audience participation and live video — including blue-screen effects and Snapchat filters — the production tackles its weighty themes with an off-kilter mix of irreverence and severity. As the actors feel their way through the material, they explore the moral implications of depicting the Holocaust onscreen and how Germany’s culture of memory can carry a whiff of arrogance and even, perversely, of possessiveness.“The Ego and Its Own” was inspired by an 19th-century paean to radical selfishness by Max Stirner, the German philosopher.Arno DeclairYet while “The Bus to Dachau” found compelling ways to dramatize its risky and sensitive themes, another aesthetically bold production at Theatertreffen was ultimately less successful at bringing unlikely material to the stage.That work, “The Ego and Its Own,” from the Deutsches Theater, was one of two shows on the lineup that originated at Berlin playhouses. (The other was the choreographer Florentina Holzinger’s latest freak-out vaudeville-style revue, “Ophelia’s Got Talent.”)Inspired by an 1844 paean to radical selfishness by the German philosopher Max Stirner, the abstract production finds six actors cavorting on a white spiral ramp that resembles the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The play’s director, Sebastian Hartmann, a festival favorite, and the composer PC Nackt fashion a musical revue from Stirner’s opus that is equally arresting and bewildering.The actors intone and belt out slogans from the 19th-century text while Nackt and a drummer accompany them with a wild, mostly electronic score. Stark lighting, live video, fog and even 3-D projections contribute to the trippy expressionistic atmosphere. But despite the constant multisensory stimulation and energetic performances, it quickly grows tiresome. It’s a trip, to be sure — but I’m not sure how it illuminates Stirner’s influential and contentious ideas.One of the festival’s closing plays, “Zwiegespräch” by the Nobel Prize-winning author Peter Handke is an emotionally resonant production about intergenerational conflicts.Susanne Hassler-SmithControversy often attends the works Peter Handke, the Austrian who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019. For many, Handke has been tainted by his sympathy for Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian war criminal. The news of the writer’s Nobel win was met, by some, with disbelief, and his 2020 play “Zdenek Adamec” premiered at the Salzburg Festival under the threat of protest. Still, Handke, now 80, continues to publish and be performed at an impressive clip.His latest text for the stage, “Zwiegespräch,” was published as a book shortly before its world premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The author dedicated the dramatic dialogue to the actors Otto Sander and Bruno Ganz, the stars of the Wim Wenders film “Wings of Desire,” which Handke wrote the screenplay for; much of this brief, poetic text is concerned with the essence of acting and storytelling. There is also a sense of fraught struggles between grandfathers, fathers and sons.At Theaterteffen, “Zwiegespräch” will be performed on Saturday and Sunday as one of the festival’s closing productions. Not long ago, it headlined another one of Germany’s main theater festivals, “Radikal Jung,” at the Volkstheater, in Munich, which is where I caught it last month.The dazzling production, overseen by Rieke Süsskow, a young Berlin-born director, heightens the dialogue’s intergenerational conflicts. She sets her production in a nursing home and distributes Handke’s text to a cast of actors playing frail residents and their sinister caregivers, somehow creating a convincing dramaturgy without clearly differentiated characters or a conventional plot.Much credit is due to her stage designer, Mirjam Stängl, and her ingenious set, a succession of folding panels that expand and contract over the width of the stage like a fan, and Marcus Loran for his hallucinatory lighting design. Thanks to the attentive artistry of Süsskow and her team, Handke’s 60-odd page pamphlet comes to life in an emotionally resonant performance about memory, loss, regret and the nature of art.Separating the art from the artist shouldn’t mean giving artists a free pass. In the context of this sensitively paced and finely wrought production, however, there seemed little doubt that Handke is attuned to the moral responsibilities of storytelling.TheatertreffenThrough May 29 at various venues in Berlin; berlinerfestspiele.de. More

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      The Best (and Worst) Theater in Europe in 2022

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      The Times’s three European theater critics pick their favorite productions of the year — plus a turkey apiece for the festive season.Matt WolfFour favorites from The Times’s London theater criticFrom left, Samira Wiley, Ronke Adekoluejo, Sule Rimi and Giles Terera in “Blues for an Alabama Sky” at the National Theater.Marc Brenner“Blues for an Alabama Sky”National Theater, LondonWhen the American writer Pearl Cleage’s 1995 play crossed the Atlantic this fall, it was the high point of a variable year for the National Theater, England’s flagship playhouse. Set in adjacent apartments in 1930s Harlem, the play takes an unsparing look at a cross section of Prohibition-era Americans yearning for release from the racism and homophobia that mar their daily lives. An expert Anglo-American cast was led by Giles Terera (“Hamilton”) and the Juilliard-trained TV actress Samira Wiley as roommates who talk of packing up and moving to Paris; at the helm was Lynette Linton, making a terrific National Theater debut with a production that embraced freewheeling comedy as well as deep sorrow.Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein’s reimagining of “Oklahoma!” at the Young Vic.Marc Brenner“Oklahoma!”Young Vic Theater, LondonIt was an indifferent year for musicals in London, until the arrival from New York of a much-lauded revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 “Oklahoma!” The dilemma of the farm girl Laurey Williams (a dazzling Anoushka Lucas), forced to choose between the affections of two men, possessed an unusual urgency. And the directors Daniel Fish and Jordan Fein found a primal darkness in the material that made a buoyant-seeming American classic look very bleak. In February, the production is set to transfer to the West End for a limited run.From left, Emilia Clarke, Indira Varma, Daniel Monks and Tom Rhys Harries in Anya Reiss’s interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” directed by Jamie Lloyd at the Harold Pinter Theater.Marc Brenner“The Seagull”Harold Pinter Theater, LondonThe director Jamie Lloyd revived Chekhov’s 1896 play in a stripped-back, modern-dress production, with the cast seated on plastic chairs against a nondescript chipboard set. The absence of props and period detail helped focus attention on the anguish at the heart of this celebrated work. You felt, more acutely than ever, the thwarted passions that drive a play about artistic ambition and misplaced love. Indira Varma was in peak form as the charismatically self-regarding actress, Arkadina, and she was superbly matched by the Australian actor Daniel Monks as her suicidal son, Konstantin. The “Game of Thrones” alumna Emilia Clarke made a memorable West End debut as the hopeful young Nina.Lennie James, left, and Paapa Essiedu in Caryl Churchill’s “A Number,” directed by Lyndsey Turner at the Old Vic.Manuel Harlan“A Number”Old Vic Theater, LondonCaryl Churchill’s 2002 play has been revived many times, but rarely with the scorching intensity that the director Lyndsey Turner and the designer Es Devlin brought to bear at the Old Vic in January. Nominally about genetic cloning, Churchill’s hourlong drama moves beyond scientific inquiry to address more human issues, like sibling hatred and the slippery nature of happiness. In the superlative cast, Paapa Essiedu excelled playing three cloned sons who confront a toxic parental inheritance, as did Lennie James as a father who wants to make a fresh start.And the turkey …From left, David Harbour, Bill Pullman and Akiya Henry in Theresa Rebeck’s “Mad House,” directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel at the Ambassadors Theater.Marc Brenner“Mad House”Ambassadors Theater, LondonDysfunctional family dramas are a staple of American drama. But they rarely come drearier and more overwritten than Theresa Rebeck’s “Mad House,” which had its world premiere in the West End this summer. Rebeck, a New York theater regular, gave the play’s choice role to a fellow American, David Harbour; he played one of three children gathered at the home of a cantankerous father (Bill Pullman) roaring his way to the grave like a dime-store King Lear. The writing felt borrowed and inauthentic, and the director Moritz von Stuelpnagel couldn’t lift an evening rife with tired confessions (“none of us had a childhood”) and clichéd plot devices (the belated emergence of an all-important letter). More than once, I groaned.Laura CappelleFour favorites from The Times’s Paris theater criticRomeu Costa, left, and Rui M. Silva in “Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists” at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.Filipe Ferreira“Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists”Bouffes du Nord, ParisTiago Rodrigues, the incoming director of the Avignon Festival, was on a roll in 2022. He brought several revelatory productions to Paris this fall, none more so than “Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists” at the Bouffes du Nord. The unlikely subject of the play, which Rodrigues also wrote, is a fictional Portuguese family that hunts down and kills fascists, following a tradition passed down through generations. Is that an honorable contribution to society, as most of the family members believe, or is doing harm always unacceptable, even when fascists threaten democracy? Rodrigues and his cast walk a fine line to avoid caricature, yet the conversations that result onstage — starting with the youngest daughter, who experiences doubts about her right to kill — are consistently thoughtful and engage the audience critically, without feeling forced.The cast in “One Song,” developed by the Belgian artist Miet Warlop.Christophe Raynaud de Lage/Avignon Festival “One Song”Avignon FestivalSome of the best shows to debut in France in the past year brought unclassifiable feats of virtuosity onstage, like “One Song,” which played at the Avignon Festival. Created by the Belgian artist Miet Warlop, it was another idiosyncratic entry in the “History/ies of Theater” series that the Belgian playhouse NTGent has developed in collaboration with the festival. In “One Song,” a group of musicians/competitors perform a single song on a loop while doing an extreme workout. (A violinist plays while doing squats and leg lifts on a high beam.) Throughout, as the performers thoroughly exhaust themselves, a male cheerleader and a group of fans take turns encouraging and booing them, while a referee mumbles incomprehensibly in the background. The instant standing ovation in Avignon wasn’t merely a way to reward the performers for their efforts: “One Song” lingered in the mind as a wild, exhilarating study in absurdity.Pierre Guillois and Olivier Martin-Salvan in “Fat People Skate Well. A Cardboard Caberet.”Gestuelle“Fat People Skate Well. A Cardboard Cabaret”Paris l’Été FestivalAnother oddball success, “Fat People Skate Well. A Cardboard Cabaret” won a number of awards in France this year, and they were thoroughly deserved. The show’s two actors and directors, Olivier Martin-Salvan and Pierre Guillois, tell their story almost entirely through dozens of cardboard objects. Words written on the signs and boxes, of various shapes and forms, explain what each represents — including a “fjord” and a “fly swatter” — and with the help of assistants, Guillois, a lithe, clownlike figure, in boxer shorts throughout, manipulates them at lightning speed. In the tale he spins, Martin-Salvan’s character goes on an adventure around Europe to reconnect with a siren, all the while mumbling in a mix of gibberish and English. How does this all add up, you ask? The duo’s fantasy world coheres thanks to extraordinary stagecraft in this “cardboard cabaret,” and the result is serious theater magic.Juliette Speck as Caster Semenya, the South African runner and Olympic gold medalist, in “Free Will,” directed by Julie Bertin at the Théâtre Dunois. Simon Gosselin“Free Will”Théâtre Dunois, ParisTheaters that cater to young people often fly under the critical radar. With Léa Girardet and Julie Bertin’s “Free Will,” however, the Théâtre Dunois in Paris landed a hit for all ages. This new play explored the life of the South African runner Caster Semenya, an Olympic gold medalist caught in a long-running fight with her sport’s governing body — and repeatedly banned from competition — because of elevated testosterone levels. Girardet and Bertin, two gifted young writers and directors, depict the frequently inhuman treatment of Semenya (the excellent Juliette Speck) with instructive clarity, weaving together verbatim excerpts from court proceedings and witty spoofs of femininity standards that even top athletes are forced to abide by.And the turkey …From left, Julien Frison, Denis Podalydès and Christophe Montenez at the Comédie-Française in “Tartuffe,” directed by Ivo van Hove.Jan Versweyveld“Tartuffe”Comédie-Française, ParisThis “Tartuffe” was supposed to launch France’s yearlong celebration of Molière’s quadricentennial in style. Staged by Ivo van Hove for the Comédie-Française, a descendant of Molière’s own theater ensemble, it offered an intriguing experiment: a reconstruction of the play’s 1664 original version, censored by the French religious establishment and subsequently lost. Yet van Hove undermined it with a stultifying black-and-white production that had less to do with Molière than with his own directorial tics. The suited cast was left to wrestle with bewildering character arcs: When Tartuffe, who fakes piety to secure a position within a bourgeois family’s home, attempts to seduce the wife, Elmire, van Hove manufactured a love story between the two — leaving Marina Hands, as Elmire, to take Tartuffe’s abuse with puppy-eyed adoration. Thankfully, stronger Molière productions followed at the Comédie-Française later in the year.A.J. GoldmannFour favorites from The Times’s Berlin theater criticA scene in Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” an exploration of texts by the experimental Austrian writer Ernst Jandl.Nikolaus Ostermann/Volkstheater “humanistää!”Volkstheater, ViennaThe director Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” which premiered at the Volkstheater in Vienna in January and traveled to Berlin for Theatertreffen, the prestigious German theater festival, in May, is rightly one of the most acclaimed German-language productions of the year. This theatrical homage to the Viennese experimental poet and writer Ernst Jandl (1925-2000) is a musically supercharged and visually arresting work from one of Germany’s very best theater directors. Exuberant performances from the Volkstheater’s excellent actors are perfectly calibrated to this gleefully surreal production, in which 10 of Jandl’s key works come to eye-popping life in a Gesamtkunstwerk that combines spoken word, music, dance and pantomime. While delighting in Jandl’s linguistic games, the production, which remains in the Volkstheater’s repertoire, crackles with fresh and euphoric inventiveness. This is the one show I can’t wait to see again.The ensemble in “Oasis de la Impunidad” (“Oasis of Impunity”), directed by Marco Layera, at the Schaubühne’s Festival International for New Drama, or FIND.Gianmarco Bresadola“Oasis de la Impunidad”Schaubühne, BerlinThis show, from the Chilean director Marco Layera and his company, La Re-sentida, is brilliant but harrowing: I don’t ever want to revisit it. A coproduction between Berlin’s Schaubühne, where it premiered in April, and the Münchner Kammerspiele, the rigorously choreographed exploration of state violence is one of those extreme works of art that is all the more disturbing for the delicate artistry of its execution. Darkly comic in some places, poetic or balletic in others, this “investigation into the origins and mechanisms of violence,” to quote the program, feels like being trapped in a carnival of torture and brutality that is profoundly unsettling for the performers and spectators alike.“Crazy for Consolation,” directed by Thorsten Lensing.Armin Smailovic/Salzburg Festival“Verrückt nach Trost”Salzburg FestivalThorsten Lensing’s long-awaited follow-up to his 2018 adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” is possibly even more astonishing. In “Verrückt nach Trost” (“Crazy for Consolation”), which premiered at the Salzburg Festival, in Austria, in August, Lensing and his group of four brilliant actors achieve something close to a theatrical miracle. The lengthy and often surreal play, which revolves around an orphaned brother and sister who go through life craving love and human connection, is one of the most profoundly moving new plays I have seen in a long time. The work’s emotional impact has much to do with the finely chiseled performances of Ursina Lardi, Devid Striesow, André Jung and Sebastian Blomberg, who guide us through a long evening of unpredictable and incandescent episodes, including what is quite possibly the most moving monologue ever written for an octopus.The “Hamilton” cast in Hamburg.Johan Persson“Hamilton”Stage Operettenhaus, HamburgIn October, the German premiere of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning musical, “Hamilton,” landed with volcanic force in Hamburg. The first production of the show in a language other than English, it was a herculean undertaking. The ingenious translation of Miranda’s abundant and inventive lyrics took four years, and the cast hails from 13 countries. Hard to believe, but the original Broadway production, directed by Thomas Kail, is already seven years old; if anything, this one seems galvanized by its new language and cultural context. There has never been a show like this before in Germany. From the dazzling linguistic feats of the translators to the convincing and handsome staging and gripping, Broadway-caliber performances, everything about “Hamilton” in Hamburg feels revolutionary.And the turkey …Christian Weise’s “Queen Lear” at the Maxim Gorki Theater.Ute Langkafel“Queen Lear”Maxim Gorki Theater, BerlinGermans love their Shakespeare, and Berlin has seen many fine stagings of the Bard’s work, both traditional and deconstructed. Christian Weise’s goofy sci-fi production of “Queen Lear” at the Maxim Gorki Theater is possibly the most bewildering Shakespeare reimagining ever conceived. The modern-language adaptation is by Soeren Voima, an authors’ collective, and it recasts Shakespeare’s darkest play as an outer-space soap opera with echoes of “Star Wars” and “Doctor Who.” The chintzy, low-budget aesthetic, the hammy acting and the lightsabers are all good, if mildly tedious, fun for the first hour. But hark! There are two more hours to go! The only thing this intergalactic spacewreck of a production proves is Lear’s maxim that“nothing will come of nothing.” More

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      Meat Loaf, Britney and a ‘Cancel Culture’ Musical

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      At Theatertreffen, an annual celebration of the best in German-language performance, music plays a profound, and intelligent, role.HAMBURG, Germany — During the five and a half hours I spent immersed in “Die Ruhe” (“The Calm”), a performative installation that was one of the 10 productions selected for this year’s Theatertreffen, I put a live worm in my mouth, cut off a lock of my hair and held a giant African snail.I also participated in a group therapy session, during which a severe doctor pushed us to share our secrets and fears, and drank bitter mushroom tea (non-psychedelic, I hope), vodka and schnapps.Along with the other 34 ticket holders for that day’s performance in the Altona district of Hamburg, I had checked in as a prospective patient at a fictional facility for people exhausted by modern life.At once intimate and visionary, “Die Ruhe” was far and away the most unusual and daring title in the remarkable first live Theatertreffen since the start of the pandemic. After spending the past two years online, the festival, which celebrates the best in German, Austrian and Swiss theater, came roaring back to life with a wide-ranging and eclectic lineup that highlighted the creativity, resourcefulness and persistence of German-language theater in 2021.Originally staged by the Deutsches Schauspielhaus theater here, “Die Ruhe” was the brainchild of SIGNA, a Copenhagen-based performance collective led by the artist couple Signa and Arthur Köstler, which has specialized in large-scale, site-specific performance installations for the past two decades. SIGNA was previously invited to Theatertreffen, in 2008, with an eight-day performance held in a former rail yard in Berlin. This time around, the installation was too complicated to transfer to Berlin, where all the other Theatertreffen performances have taken place, so in a break with tradition, “Die Ruhe” has been mounted in the former post office in Hamburg where it was originally seen in November.With the other members of my small group, I was guided through a sinister sanitorium whose inhabitants — patients and doctors alike — seemed to have all suffered a psychological collapse. Upon entering the post office, we were welcomed to the institute by being asked to lie down on mattresses on the floor. Shortly afterward, we changed out of our clothing and into the institute’s baggy uniform of gray hoodies and sweatpants.Simon Steinhorst in “Die Ruhe,” which was staged in Hamburg.Erich GoldmannAs I was led with the group through dimly lit corridors and rooms — including a simulated forest filled with damp earth and dry leaves — by a fragile and haunted guide, Aurel, it became clear that the institute was the center of a threatening and shamanistic sect. Over the multiple floors of the post office, SIGNA and its large cast (there’s an almost even number of paying participants and institute members) formulated a holistic worldview for the cultlike institute, complete with an origin story and a rigid creed that its adherents, even the mild-mannered Aurel, were fanatically devoted to: a vision of Edenic return symbolized by becoming one with the forest.Aesthetically, this stylishly designed immersive experience seemed to take inspiration from movies: from recent films of dystopian horror, including Yorgos Lanthimos’s “The Lobster” and Ari Aster’s “Midsommer,” as well as Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, masters of atmospheric dread. As a marathon plunge into a complex and intricate world, “Die Ruhe” resembled another recent and more infamous project: the scientific institute DAU, devised by the Russian filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky in Kharkiv, Ukraine, between 2009 and 2011, which was recreated in Paris in 2019. Like that controversial performance, “Die Ruhe” contained deeply unsettling elements: a strong, pervasive atmosphere of menace, as well as a demanding (and at times exhausting) format that forced the viewer-participant into disturbingly close confrontations with cruelty, manipulation and violence.Back in Berlin, none of the other Theatertreffen shows I saw came close to “Die Ruhe” in sustained intensity and startling originality, but the productions I caught were of a consistently high caliber, and formally innovative.A scene in Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” an exploration of texts by the experimental Austrian writer Ernst Jandl.Nikolaus Ostermann/Volkstheater One of the lineup’s most striking features was how profoundly, and intelligently, musical many of the shows were. In several of the best plays, live music played a fundamental role in generating a distinctive aesthetic as well as meaning. In thinking so musically about theatrical practice, it seemed that many directors at the festival were pushing against the limits of language.From the hits by Britney Spears and Meat Loaf crooned by the cast of Christopher Rüping’s “Das neue Leben — where do we go from here,” to Barbara Morgenstern’s vast and haunting original score for Helgard Haug’s “All right. Good night,” a hypnotic and mostly wordless production about the 2014 Malaysia Airlines disaster, this Theatertreffen seemed to insist on the primacy of music both to conjure and to enrich intellectual and emotional states.The single most astonishing show on a traditional stage was Claudia Bauer’s “humanistää!,” a surreal and dazzlingly inventive exploration of poetic and dramatic texts by the experimental Austrian writer Ernst Jandl.Bauer is one of Germany’s leading directors, and she created this breathtaking theatrical immersion in Jandl’s playful linguistic cosmos at the Volkstheater in the poet’s native Vienna, which is where I caught the production several months ago. (It remains in the company’s repertoire and is also available to stream on Theatertreffen’s website until September.)In “humanistää!,” 10 works by Jandl attain new vitality through conventional monologues, onstage projections and elaborate vocal performances reminiscent of Jandl’s radio plays. Bauer complements the torrent of highly musical texts with startling visuals and energetic performances that beautifully match the rhythm of Jandl’s sound poems. Eight actors perform vigorous and highly choreographed pantomimes and dances amid Patricia Talacko’s shape-shifting set, which is spectacularly lit by Paul Grilj. Throughout, Peer Baierlein’s propulsive music, performed live, accompanies the performers as both their bodies and their voices twist through Jandl’s linguistic games.Lindy Larsson in Yael Ronen’s “Slippery Slope,” an English-language musical about cancel culture.Ute LangkafelText and music combine in a much more straightforward, yet no less riotous, way in the Israeli director Yael Ronen’s “Slippery Slope,” an English-language musical about cancel culture with infectious songs and foul-mouthed lyrics by the singer-songwriter Shlomi Shaban. When it premiered at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin in November, it was an immediate cult sensation. It’s not hard to see why.The plot, about a disgraced Swedish pop star (Lindy Larsson) trying to stage a comeback, and his protégé (Riah Knight), whose meteoric rise is inversely proportional to her mentor’s fall, is both sordid and deliriously enjoyable.What’s more, the five actors in the show can actually sing — a true rarity at German theaters — and they belt out Shaban’s rousing and cheeky numbers with gusto. For perhaps the first time I can remember, Broadway-caliber musical entertainment has come to a German dramatic stage. (It’s the only production from a Berlin repertory theater at the festival.)Cultural appropriation, political correctness, #MeToo debates and social media trolling are gently skewered in a production that is eye-popping and outrageously glam. At the same time, everything is so loopy and chock-full of schlock that there’s little danger of anyone’s taking offense at this vulgar and punchy musical burlesque. Although its themes are urgently contemporary, “Slippery Slope” handles them with a lightness and wit that are rare in theaters here. I’m glad that the Theatertreffen jury, a high-minded bunch of tastemakers if there ever was one, selected it alongside the festival’s more straight-faced entries. It’s a sign of their belief in theater’s ability to startle, to provoke and, yes, to entertain.TheatertreffenThrough May 22 at various theaters in Berlin, and at the Paketpostamt in Hamburg; berlinerfestspiele.de. More

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      For Female Directors, a Generational Shift

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      In Germany, a country with few theater leaders who aren’t men, professional success has often meant becoming one of the guys. Now, a new group of women are developing their own way. dFRANKFURT — Of the 24 new productions expected on Schauspiel Frankfurt’s three stages this season, two-thirds will be directed by women. This is an astonishing statistic in Germany, where gender inequality is still pronounced across the vast theater landscape. Despite advances in recent decades, women run only a small fraction of the 142 publicly owned playhouses, and, according to the latest available statistics, in 2016 only 20 percent of theater directors were female.Two current productions at Schauspiel Frankfurt, the municipal theater company, show how the theatrical ground here has shifted over a generation to allow more confident explorations of female self-expression. Both plays lie far outside the standard repertoire, which is consistent with a general trend in German theater to break out of the narrow canon of acknowledged masterpieces. But only one seems to provide a uniquely female perspective on the work in question.Claudia Bauer, born in 1966, is one of German theater’s most acclaimed and prolific directors. A fixture on stages throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland for the past quarter-century, she enjoys a certain seniority among Germany’s female theatermakers. But both formally and thematically, her productions often feel very similar to those of her male colleagues. Like them, she has spent much of her career sifting through the (mostly male) theatrical canon: Some of her most acclaimed recent productions have been based on plays by Brecht, Molière and Tennessee Williams.At Schauspiel Frankfurt, Bauer has turned her attention to Luis Buñuel’s 1972 film, “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise,” adapted for the stage in a surprisingly faithful version by the writing team PeterLicht and SE Struck.In a memorable sequence from Buñuel’s surreal Oscar-winning movie, a band of affluent Parisians, trying in vain to eat a meal together, inexplicably find themselves dining onstage at a theater. That scene takes on a heightened degree of absurdity when it is recreated in Bauer’s antic production. The audience, of course, has been there all along. Getting the actors onstage to acknowledge the spectators’ presence could come off as an all too obvious gag, but here it’s a subversive joke that suggests a sort of mutual recognition between the out-of-touch elites portrayed onstage and the affluent theatergoers of Frankfurt, Germany’s financial center.It is one of the inspired moments when Bauer finds clever ways to translate Buñuel’s mischievous provocations to the stage. Her production eschews the film’s ironic detachment and pretense of normalcy in favor of something far more energetic and flamboyant. With a gypsy swing soundtrack and live video projections by Jan Isaak Voges that roam Andreas Auerbach’s set — an upscale residence inside a giant white container — the production feels halfway between a sitcom and a revue.Aided by a nimble eight-person cast that forms a tight unit, Bauer turns the digressive and episodic film into a gleefully absurd carnival where farce coexists with horror.Like Buñuel’s actors, Bauer’s maintain their composure in the face of increasingly perplexing circumstances. But they also preen and pose with evident relish, performing as much for one another as for the audience. “Discreet Charm” was a hit here when it opened this month, and some local critics wondered whether it might be a contender for next year’s edition of Theatertreffen, an annual celebration of the best German-language theater, to which Bauer has been invited four times. The festival recently instituted a quota to help promote the work of female directors: At least half of the 10 shows chosen must be female-led. However, the past few years have seen the dawning of a new generation of bold and self-confident female theatermakers, and I doubt that Theatertreffen’s quota, intended as a corrective, will be necessary much longer.“I and I,” written by Else Lasker-Schüler some 80 years ago and directed by Christina Tscharyiski, also at the Schauspiel Frankfurt.Robert SchittkoMany of the emerging female directors in Germany seem more committed to work that explicitly engages with feminist and post-feminist topics than directors of Bauer’s generation, who were pioneers in a male-dominated landscape where professional success often meant becoming one of the guys. Along with addressing issues of women’s representation, history and psychology, some of these younger directors — including artists from all over Europe, as well as the United States and Israel — are creating exciting stage aesthetics to address those themes.On Schauspiel Frankfurt’s smaller stage, the Kammerspiele, the Austrian-Bulgarian director Christina Tscharyiski, 33, has bravely taken a stab at one of the strangest, most obscure and most difficult-to-perform German plays of the 20th century: “I and I” (“Ichundich”) by Else Lasker-Schüler.That German-Jewish Expressionist poet and artist, who fled the Nazis in 1933, called her sprawling work, in six acts and an epilogue, a “hell play.” Composed in 1940 and 1941, “I and I” is an infernal romp that features characters from Goethe’s “Faust” and real-life personalities, including Lasker-Schüler herself and much of the Nazi high command. The unlikely group meets up in a version of hell somewhere in Jerusalem, which is where the author lived in unhappy exile until her death in 1945.The play was long ignored as an unperformable oddity: It made it to the stage for the first time only in 1979. In the barely four decades since, productions have been exceedingly rare. Tscharyiski’s take on “I and I,” stylishly designed by Verena Dengler and Dominique Wiesbauer, resembles a kind of Dadaesque haunted house where characters in Hasidic robes, medieval garb and Nazi uniforms wander a stage strewn with ash.Unfortunately, the production’s charms are largely visual, and the shortened performing version of the text fails to cohere in a compelling thematic, narrative or poetic way. Despite inspired performances by Friederike Ott as the poet, Lasker-Schüler’s alter ego, and Florian Mania and Tanja Merlin Graf as a pair of rival Mephistos, the demon who bargains for Faust’s soul, the production seems both overstuffed and underdeveloped, and much longer than its 75 minutes. Yet despite the production’s limitations, it feels momentous that this complex work is being reconsidered 80 years after it was written. And it’s heartening to know that a director as prodigiously talented as Tscharyiski can be enlisted to aid in our rediscovery of a key 20th-century artist whose theater works are too little known.Der diskrete Charme der Bourgeoisie. Directed by Claudia Bauer. Schauspiel Frankfurt, through May 1.Ichundich. Directed by Christina Tscharyiski. Schauspiel Frankfurt, through April 17. More

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      Theater to Stream: Stars Gather for ‘Miscast’ and More

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      Other highlights include a new show by Kristina Wong, Joshua Harmon’s “Bad Jews” and “Broadway by the Year.”“It is about access.” That, put plainly, is the main reason the Young Vic in London will continue to livestream shows even after in-person theater resumes. “Access is our driver,” Kwame Kwei-Armah, the theater’s artistic director, said in a recent interview. “And this is a way that we make that access just a little more here and now.”As Broadway and theaters around the United States prepare to return to live performances, there are still many questions around issues of ticket price, fairness and programming. Streaming is likely to remain part of those discussions since, as you can see in the selections below, it is more varied and, well, accessible than ever.‘Miscast21’Since 2001, the annual “Miscast” benefit for MCC Theater has created an alternate universe in which gender roles are not so much erased as gleefully subverted, with performers taking on numbers they would be unlikely to land in typical productions. This year will see the return of Gavin Creel and Aaron Tveit for another power duet after their take on “Take Me or Leave Me,” from “Rent,” became an instant classic five years ago. Other participants include Kelly Marie Tran, Annaleigh Ashford, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Cheyenne Jackson (welcome back!), LaChanze, Idina Menzel, Kelli O’Hara and Billy Porter. May 16-20; mcctheater.org.TheatertreffenWhat is mainstream theater to German eyes can be completely wild to American ones. So this annual event should blow a few minds. Like the Golden Mask Festival in Russia, Theatertreffen showcases exciting shows from diverse companies. This year’s productions — online, with subtitles — include revisited classics and new works, both livestreamed and on demand. Dive in. May 13-24; berlinerfestspiele.de/enKristina Wong in “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord.”via New York Theater Workshop‘Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord’The writer and performer Kristina Wong continues to use her own experiences to interrogate politics and civics with this follow-up to “Kristina Wong for Public Office” last year. In that monologue, Wong talked about her stint on the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles. Now, she turns her attention to how she enrolled family and friends to make face coverings during the pandemic. May 14-16; nytw.org.Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell in “The Importance of being Earnest” on Broadway.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times‘The Importance of Being Earnest’When Brian Bedford took on the role of Lady Bracknell in 2011, Charles Isherwood wrote in The New York Times that the formidable character had “perhaps never been more imperious, more indomitable — or more delectably entertaining.” Now L.A. Theater Works is making the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Oscar Wilde’s best play available again. The ace supporting cast includes a rising Santino Fontana as Algernon Moncrieff. Through May 31; theatermania.stream.If one gender-reversed Lady Bracknell just isn’t enough, check out the L.A. Theater Works audio production starring Charles Busch. latw.org.Michael Zegen, left, and Tracee Chimo in “Bad Jews” Off Broadway in 2013.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThis Jewish American LifeThe excellent Play-PerView series is rolling out a reading of Joshua Harmon’s lacerating “Bad Jews” with the original cast members Tracee Chimo Pallero, Philip Ettinger and Michael Zegen. Harmon went on to bigger things, including “Significant Other” on Broadway, but this show is arguably his sharpest — or at least his funniest — and was propelled by Chimo’s etched-in-acid portrayal of venomous self-righteousness. May 15-19; play-perview.com. ​Happily, Chimo also turns up in the Spotlight on Plays reading of Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Sisters Rosensweig” as Pfeni, the youngest of the title siblings (a role originated by Frances McDormand in the Off Broadway premiere, in 1992). There’s more: Lisa Edelstein will read Sara (Jane Alexander way back when) and Kathryn Hahn will be Gorgeous (once the great Madeline Kahn). May 20-24; stellartickets.com.Jassa Ahluwalia, left, and Sophie Melville in a rehearsal for “Herding Cats.”Danny Kaan‘Herding Cats’This livestreamed version of Lucinda Coxon’s twist-filled dark comedy about a pair of roommates will star Jassa Ahluwalia (“Unforgotten”) and Sophie Melville in Britain, with Greg Germann (“Grey’s Anatomy”) joining from the United States. Coxon is a fine writer, of the play “Happy Now?” and the film adaptation of “The Danish Girl,” and this trans-Atlantic setup should make for an interesting experiment. May 19-22; stellartickets.com.The cast of the opera adaptation of Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel,” whose premiere was delayed by the pandemic.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBackstage StoriesLet’s face it: Behind-the-scenes shenanigans are often more fun than what’s onstage. In the virtual benefit “Tales from the Wings: A Lincoln Center Theater Celebration,” stars including Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Rosemary Harris, Paulo Szot and Ruthie Ann Miles will share what we hope will be juicy anecdotes, interspersed with footage from some classic productions as well as teasers for two shows that were postponed by the pandemic: the musical “Flying Over Sunset,” from James Lapine, Tom Kitt and Michael Korie; and Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage’s operatic adaptation of her play “Intimate Apparel.” May 13-17; lct.org.In Britain, “For One Knight Only” gets an encore airing after its premiere in November. Kenneth Branagh hosts Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Maggie Smith as they reminisce about their incredibly long careers — imagine a highbrow installment of the “Red” film series, except with stars firing off bons mots rather than guns. May 21-30; www.stream.theatre/season/116.‘Crave’In the United States, it’s hard to fathom how wildly popular the playwright Sarah Kane is on European stages: Her uncompromisingly bleak “Crave” hits a raw nerve and responds to a malaise that is often hard to pinpoint. Now, the Chichester Festival Theater in England is again making available its acclaimed production of this “throat punch of a play,” from November. May 19-29; cft.org.uk.‘Grey Matters’The company Colt Coeur may be small, but it has an impressive track record unearthing intriguing shows, so we’re ready to gamble on this play about an interracial marriage in 1970s and ’80s Brooklyn, by Eden Marryshow. Steve H. Broadnax III, of Katori Hall’s “The Hot Wing King” and the coming “Thoughts of a Colored Man” on Broadway, directs. May 22-26; coltcoeur.org.‘Broadway by the Year’As this cabaret series’ name suggests, it usually focuses on musicals that opened in a given year, but this spring the attention is shifting to songwriters. Start off with “The Kander & Ebb Years” (through May 12), in which Beth Leavel, Ute Lemper and Tony Yazbeck tackle material from “Chicago” and “Cabaret,” but also “Flora, the Red Menace.” Next, Max von Essen, Liz Callaway and Ethan Slater help celebrate everybody’s favorite pandemic hero with “The Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber Years” (May 24-26). So, “Love Never Dies”: yea or nay? thetownhall.org. More