Theatertreffen 2025
- PushPush Arts
- Jun 3
- 22 min read
Theatertreffen 2025 - Tim Habeger
Friday May 2, 2025 I arrived in Berlin today for the 60th Theater Meeting (Theatertreffen). Every May, Berlin rolls out the red carpet for this incredible event, which “showcases the very best of the bigger-budget, German-language theaters while attempting to foster dialogue and collaboration among artists and audiences alike.” The festival’s jury consists of seven theatre critics who pick their choices of standout productions from hundreds across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, offering a rich mix of performances, lively discussions, and thoughtful reflection on the role of theater in society.
As the artistic director of Atlanta’s PushPush Arts, this marks my 14th Theatertreffen — and every visit has been worth it (spoiler alert: this was my least favorite to date).
I first came in 2001 at the invitation of Dr. Michael Nentwich, then-director of Atlanta’s Goethe Institute, and it was a game-changer. It opened my eyes to ideas that have deeply shaped the way I approach the arts back home.
One of the clearest lessons I’ve carried with me is how, in the German theater tradition, there’s a meaningful distinction between art and entertainment. Sure, Germany has its share of popular movies, light comedies, and primetime TV, just like we do in the U.S. But theatergoers here are keenly aware of the difference between productions meant purely to entertain and those that serve a deeper purpose — works by the likes of Shakespeare, Heiner Müller, Tennessee Williams, Sarah Kane, Elfriede Jelinek, and so many others.
Purpose matters. Why do we make theater in the first place? In Germany, there’s a widespread understanding that the arts play an essential role in public life. Schiller, often called the poet of freedom, wrote in “What a Good Theater Can Do” that great theater helps us engage as citizens — it brings us together to grapple with human nature, morality, and society itself. Every time we see Macbeth’s bloody ambition or Medea’s raw fury onstage, we get to reflect, question, and confront these behaviors as a community. Tartuffe’s hypocrisy never gets old; we laugh, we cringe, and we think about how those same masks show up in our lives today.
Of course, American entertainment sometimes punches above its weight too — think of Archie Bunker’s bigotry or Homer Simpson’s fatherly foolishness. But in the U.S., we often blur the line between art and distraction. Most of us tune in for escape, not reflection, and the commercial market leans hard into whatever sells — often sex, violence, or spectacle. Without purpose, the commercial market ultimately runs its course and turns something meaningful into market goods for easy consumption.
It’s worth noting that we Americans live in one of the most violent cultures on earth, with more guns than people, routine school shootings, and political figures rising to power on bluster and bravado. When a U.S. president campaigns with lines like “I am your retribution,” it’s hard not to think of a comic book villain come to life. And it’s also not too difficult to imagine a mass murderer with a long-gun watching our violent films and imagining himself as a righteous hero taking action against perceived enemies. Violence begets violence and violence sells.
Meanwhile, on any given night in Berlin, theaters are packed, and the work is extraordinary by any measure. Theatermakers are seen as essential workers here, and public funding reflects that — Germans would sooner close a swimming pool than shut down a theater. And it’s not just theater: opera (four companies in Berlin alone), ballet, arthouse cinema, symphonies, and countless smaller music groups all thrive, feeding people’s minds and spirits. (Yes, there are currently big budget cuts, but things are still better here than most anywhere in the world.)
Berlin’s theater tradition stretches back centuries and remains vibrantly alive. In Atlanta, our first professional theater opened only in 1968, thanks in part to Tennessee Williams and others. We’re still young as a theater city, with plenty of room to grow.
That’s why I’m here — to soak up this remarkable scene and bring home insights that can help shape Atlanta’s cultural future. While our music scene is arguably Atlanta’s brightest cultural jewel, it’s important to recognize the deep influence Germany has had on most all of it, from Robert Shaw’s legendary choral work with German composers to the current work of
Nathalie Stutzmann leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And I could go on about how classical traditions have quietly fueled Atlanta’s alternative rock and hip-hop scenes, now globally dominant.
I hope you’ll stick with me as I share highlights from this year’s Theatertreffen — there’s so much more to come!
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Saturday May 3, 2025
BERNARDA ALBA’S HOUSE
For the past few years, I’ve kicked off Theatertreffen with shows that, let’s be honest, haven’t exactly blown me away. Not to worry, the past few years have also provided mostly shows that truly changed my life. It’s just that my first outings weren’t my favorites of the festival. This year kept the slow-start streak alive with The House of Bernarda Alba, Federico García Lorca’s masterpiece, staged by Hamburg’s Deutsches Schauspielhaus and directed by the acclaimed British director Katie Mitchell. It was presented as a claustrophobic dystopia — and while it certainly had atmosphere, its traditional, acting school style realism left me cold.
The premise is a powerhouse: after the death of a father, his five daughters are forced by their iron-fisted mother, Bernarda, into eight years of mourning, locked inside their home. It’s a brilliant, complex script, a classic that’s been performed countless times. But in this adaptation, it felt like all the nuance had been flattened into a heavy, moralistic wallow.
More than once, people I spoke with wondered aloud how, among all the German- language productions this year, this one ended up on the Theatertreffen lineup. Maybe it was the large cast of talented young women — no one in particular stood out, but they were uniformly well-trained. Maybe it was the sleek set design and Mitchell’s famously meticulous, slow-paced direction – a nice way of saying that it stayed on one fairly flat line of stoic victimhood throughout. It certainly looked artistic. But why the jury selected this, I couldn’t say? It fits a needed box, I’m guessing.
Here’s what I do know: when theater becomes a platform to deliver a message rather than a space to wrestle with the tensions and contradictions of a great script, it bores me to death. In this case, the obvious message might have been about fascism or, more broadly, the oppression of women under the ever-present shadow of male violence. But the treatment was so self-serious, so determined to push its point, that it squeezed out all the life and complexity. Humor seemed off-limits, and every conflict was cranked up to its most melodramatic extreme.
I see this a lot in American theater too. A group of like-minded artists gathers around a script that lines up with a cause they care about — usually some form of victimization — and they spend the rehearsal process fixated on presenting that injustice as starkly as possible, pointing the finger at their oppressors. But that’s not drama; that’s a sermon. Theater at its best is about opposing forces colliding, pushing and pulling in ways that surprise us, deepen our understanding, and leave us with more questions, not just tidy answers or cardboard characterizations.
Even the production’s setting felt vague. Instead of the original Andalusian backdrop, we were in a kind of nowhere-land — the daughters had cell phones, yet they lived under a suffocating, old-world code of obedience. If you introduce the cell phones of these young women, make something of it! The details were all fairly blurry, sacrificed in the name of making a bold statement. But let’s be real: is anyone showing up to the theater these days unsure where they stand on the oppression of women and girls?
What we got instead was a sledgehammer approach — less a thought-provoking world, more a moral lecture delivered over 90 relentless minutes. Even the few moments that could have conflicted the mood fell flat, like the daughter with an intellectual disability sitting in a wedding dress, waiting for a fiancé who will never arrive.
Lorca gave us a tragic drama, yes — but he also gave us humor, nuance, and layered human struggles. His work invites us to think, to reflect, to uncover something new each time we encounter it. My plea to directors: trust the script. Let it breathe. Don’t saddle it with a single-minded agenda that pounds one idea into the ground. Theater can — and should — be so much richer than that.
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Sunday May 4th, 2025
Ja, Nichts ist Okay (Yes, Nothing is Okay)
The second production I attended at this year’s Theatertreffen was Ja, Nichts ist Okay (Yes, Nothing is Okay). I’ll admit up front: I came in exhausted, having spent the day receiving more bad news about Trump cutting more arts funding in America, exacerbating the horrors in Gaza, trying to dig his greedy fingers into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and so much more. Even though I was at one of my favorite theaters — buzzing with young, lively theatergoers, (something rare compared to America’s aging audiences) — I took my seat at the very back, feeling worn out. Within ten minutes, I was inwardly groaning: Another solo show?
On the massive stage in front of hundreds of theater-goers, one lone actor moved frantically, at times trying to drown himself in an onstage hot tub (a striking but costly set piece, I thought, especially when you could just hire more actors). There was a lot of screaming and self-punishment, typical of certain strands of German theater, and the trigger-warning signs in the lobby had left me wondering for what, exactly? The chaotic energy, loud rock music, and apparent onstage self-destruction initially left me cold. I struggled to care about this man’s rage or sorrow compared to the world’s real woes.
About twenty minutes in, I had nearly given up. The actor began describing the house he lived in and its four inhabitants, and my tired brain thought, who cares? But then I caught myself: was I being unfair? This was Theatertreffen, and the sound and lighting techs working beside me in the last row were clearly running a show they seemed connected to. I sat up and resolved to give it a real chance.
Now, with your indulgence, I’ll skip to the end… I am wiping away tears — as were many around me. The house rose in applause, many people on their feet, and I had the unmistakable feeling that I’d just witnessed one of the most powerful pieces of theater I’d ever seen. Simple, clear, and ultimately human.
What had happened to change me so completely? What unfolded was a subtle, patient look at the people living in this house. The lone actor introduced us, slowly, to each member of the house, offering thoughtful reflections on what houses mean to us: they protect, they comfort, they hold space for connection, and now, with Alexa and Siri, they even “speak to us.
Yes, once the actor stopped beating himself up and screaming. He acted out each of the characters in a humorously mundane fashion. One particularly long sequence showed two of them simply trying to sleep, constantly disturbed by the noise one of them kept making. It was silly, frustrating, and, at times, boring — unless, of course, you’ve ever shared a living space, in which case it was sharply familiar and funny.
But then, a shift. Who, the actor asks, is the fourth housemate? That’s right, we realize, he’s only shown us three. He climbs to the roof and finds a rifle — a jarring prop quite out of place in this quiet German home. Then ever so briefly, he recounts the horrific 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where 58 people were killed and over 500 injured at the Harvest Music Festival, a tragedy still without clear motive.
Suddenly, the show’s opening rage and self-punishment return. A message scrolls across the subtitle screen, reminding the audience that help is available for anyone struggling with violence.
We are never told for certain if the three other housemates died on that fateful day in Las Vegas, but the actor tells us that it was the best day of his life – up to the moment of the shooting. He speaks of his life in terms of before and after that moment. For a time, I even wondered if the character himself was the one who had died, separated permanently from those he once shared a home with. The weight of that separation, the quiet ordinariness of lives now absent, struck hardest.
Notably, the text for the script is by René Pollesch — the former Volksbühne director, whom I first met in 2003 and have admired ever since. Pollesch passed away just over a year ago, and I am deeply grateful that Fabian Hinrichs, the actor, and Pollesch brought this text to life. I hope this production is performed widely, perhaps even in English, though Pollesch himself had resisted English stagings of his own works.
There is still more I could say, including the unexpectedly beautiful reflection on the prehuman, even pre-dinosaur, history of life on earth — a time when, by all accounts, existence was peaceful, maybe even mundane. While I understand that I first wanted something more overt or direct to deal with the violence in this world today, I’m glad I stayed awake to find a much deeper response – one not steeped in victimization but in full reflection of what it is we find so valuable about life. Something mundane that each of us has without always realizing it.
Ja, Nichts ist Okay left me stunned: a piece that begins in apparent chaos but unfolds into something profoundly human, filled with insight, grief, and ultimately, deep connection.
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Wednesday May 7th
Haus der Berliner Festspiel.
Last night’s offering was Die Maschine order: Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh (The machine or Peace and quiet is above all the mountain peaks).
The interesting, simple premise for this show from Hamburg’s Schauspielhaus is taking one simple, beautiful, short poem from Wolfgang Goethe and processes it repeatedly by several men under the direction of their female controller. The process is to rewrite, rephrase, and re-consider each and every word. A sort of chat GPT on steroids that spits out new words and even nonsense syllables in the frustrating pursuit of rethinking what is simply a great little verse.
Using the script by Georges Perec, Anita Vulesica makes her directorial debut at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg. Perec, a member of the group Oulipo till his death in the 80’s at 45 dealt with themes of absence and loss through word play. He knew a thing or two about loss as his father died as a soldier in WW2 when Georges wasn’t yet 10, and his mother died in the holocaust leaving him with a lifetime of absence.
A friend of mine calls his work “tone poems” and he isn’t the only artist working in this sandbox. You have to let yourself go and simply hear words till they become senseless – semantic satiation – but this piece mines much more than that simple phenomenon.
Goethe’s poem is a classic that many school children commit to memory. It’s about finding rest high in the mountain peaks. Maybe in death or just on a hike or mountain get-a-way. Like Thoreau and others, this simple poem is a nature’s child beauty. It calls us to relax and find peace. But the automatons in the Hamburg staging of this piece increasingly frustrate themselves repeatedly trying to re-phrase each word and sentence. Peace, peach, perch, pith, poth, piss, pot, pisspot, etc. It goes on and on in a repetitive process that finally turns a beautiful poem into a meaningless word salad. Yes, at times, the odd new pairings are humorous or even thoughtful, but ultimately the team ends where they began, with the original text which, after the 90-minute process, makes us feel like we truly have arrived above the mountain tree line to find peace and rest.
I’m not sure that this text justifies an entire evening of theater but maybe that’s just me. I know others who would be thrilled at something different than the traditional linear story set in a familiar place and acted out by characters we can identify with. This is a different sort of evening.
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Thursday, May 8th
Sancta by Florentina Holzinger Spirit Neon Lobster, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, and Stuttgart Opera
At one point during this massive spectacle, an actor declares something like, “We have rewritten the creation myth to include women!” That’s not entirely true — though I suspect many in the packed audience felt they were witnessing something historic and profound. But in reality, it’s a bit of a cheat.
Nothing particularly profound happened, except that a profound amount of money was spent to stage an evening closer in spirit to a feathered, glittering pageant at the Friedrichstraße Palast. Sancta was an overly long mashup of the sacred and profane in a punk style — the kind of show that would predictably shock unschooled tourists who came to the Palast expecting nothing more than a titillating extravaganza. But ultimately, the two are more alike than different.
Spectacle, as Aristotle warned, is the least important element of theater. Yet increasingly — over the past few decades — spectacle is used to mask a show’s lack of substance or skill. In the case of Sancta, I’ll concede that there is something to say, and these remarkable women (around 80 on stage) have the passion and conviction to say it.
The show begins with promise: a thirty-foot neon cross stands center stage as two nuns enter with an orchestra playing. They sing operatically about their love of their savior. Then a few women, naked except for rock-climbing harnesses and helmets, enter and begin rigging equipment. As the music builds, so does the tension between the two nuns, until one strips completely while continuing to sing. Meanwhile, the nude climbers scale the back wall, and two ascend the cross itself, ultimately performing cunnilingus 25 feet high on the Christian symbol.
Yes, the church is being invaded by women and even the nuns are succumbing to the feminine (and feminist) allure.
Over the next nearly three hours, we’re presented with far too many spectacular acts including:
● 40 nude women and 40 clothed or semi-clothed nuns
● 10 naked roller skaters on a 50-foot halfpipe
● A fully operational 15-foot robotic arm
● The Holy Spirit portrayed as a magician, conjuring wine from air
● An aerialist transforming herself into an upside-down human bell knocker
● A naked female punk band
● And a little person, gloriously costumed as the “first lesbian pope,” eventually spun around on the robotic arm, evoking micro-tossing antics from Bavarian bars or American office parties
On the very day a new Pope Leo was announced, the little pope’s entrance drew big cheers and laughs — perfect timing.
Two other elements stand out: the entrance of a drag Jesus off the streets of Berlin, echoing the late Christoph Schlingensief, as well as (spoiler alert) the consumption of human flesh — not Jesus’ body as one might expect, but that of a random performer. A surgical incision, filmed live and projected on either side of the proscenium, recreates the sword wound of Golgotha. A small piece of flesh is removed and, in a naked, feminist Last Supper tableau, is consumed by another performer.
You get the idea: everything and the kitchen sink were thrown into this glorious feminist pageant, as women claimed the rituals and iconography of the church, skate parks, climbing walls, the Volksbühne itself — and, of course, the 60th annual Theatertreffen.
What struck me most about these women wasn’t their unabashed nudity or acting skills (most were not trained performers), but their sheer commitment. They believed in what they were creating together. Which makes it all the more disappointing that director/creator Florentina Holzinger (Ophelia’s Got Talent) didn’t bring more discipline and craft to the work. And it’s especially damning for the Theatertreffen judges, who surely saw this show as headline-worthy, controversy-sparking, and a way to lure younger, non-theatergoers. Fine — but please: you have a responsibility. Quality and rigor don’t have to be boring. Make this kind of show — but make it well. Do the difficult creative work required of making fine art.
At the end of this long, repetitive evening, an American trans woman and their tattooed companion, both nude, approached the audience to ask us to stand and each confess a sin, since the female Jesus was present and ready to forgive. This was the third time the cast broke the “show” frame, presenting themselves simply as human beings with troubled pasts, hopes, and dreams, including the dream of performing on the Volksbühne stage. Only two audience members volunteered. Apparently, public intimate confession was too big of ask for a typically reserved German audience.
The confessional moment, meant to affirm freakiness, diversity, and acceptance — all wonderful aims — fell flat on opening night. But it achieved one thing: it allowed the trans woman to tell us to stand up for the music. And, of course, we all did, as the performers had spent hours on stage, naked and exposed. Naturally, this led right into the curtain call — a clever trick that counted as a standing ovation, giving the impression of overwhelming approval. But yes — it was just a trick.
Postscript: By complete accident after the show, I came across a televised dance performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, choreographed by Sasha Waltz. It was an absolute artistic triumph — with glorious nudity and sacred ritual, all grounded in magnificent music.
For anyone curious what Sancta might look like in the hands of an artist: it’s on the Arte network, and it’s not to be missed.
For a sample of the show.
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Sunday May 11th
"Unser Deutschlandmärchen" (our German fairy tale) by The Gorki Theater - Hakan Savaş Mican's production of Dinçer Güçyeter's novel is a pretty cool musical with two very good entertainers and a lively band.
While not so much in my field of expertise, this show was so well performed by the two famous Turkish actors Sesede Terziyan and Taner Şahintürk, that I really had to respect the work.
Gorki Theater, one of Berlin’s “big five,” has in recent years become known for its commitment to diversity and for broadening the scope of what German theater can be. I love and applaud this direction.
The show leans heavily on emotional engagement—it’s constructed to move the audience, much in the style that Brecht famously resisted throughout his career. (Ironically, the recent Threepenny Opera at the Berliner Ensemble didn’t stick very closely to Brechtian principles either.) Unser Deutschlandmärchen opts instead for accessible storytelling and emotional appeal—an approach that, while not intellectually demanding, is undeniably effective and audience-friendly.
That leads to a broader question I’ve been thinking about, especially in light of this year’s Theatertreffen selections: How far should theater go to meet its audience halfway? In the U.S., we’ve bent so far toward accessibility and entertainment that much of our theater today is reduced to Broadway-style crowd-pleasers. What’s left of serious theatrical art, or the rich historical repertoire that could offer depth and continuity?
Yes, figures like Heiner Müller, Andrea Breth, Katharina Thalbach, and Matthias Langhoff once advanced German theater artistically—but often without expanding its audience or addressing the realities of a changing population. Directors like Peter Stein asked much of their audiences; Thomas Ostermeier still does, though sometimes with a populist slant. Twenty years ago, we had a wave of bold, conceptual innovators—Castorf, Schlingensief, Thalheimer, Marthaler—who thrilled me but also raised the question: Could theater survive if it spoke only to a narrow, intellectual elite?
That’s why what the Gorki is doing feels necessary, even if it comes at the cost of complexity. Unser Deutschlandmärchen doesn’t challenge its audience; it guides them gently, using emotional cues like a Hollywood film score. Yet it also builds bridges. It invites more traditional audiences to relate to the experiences of guest workers, and it offers representation to new audiences that are vital for the future of Berlin theater.
It’s worth noting that many groups in the Freies Theater scene—like Das Helmi, Total Brutal, She She Pop, and Gob Squad—manage to both include and provoke. They
rarely get the recognition they deserve from platforms like Theatertreffen, but they’re essential examples of how to strike a meaningful balance.
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Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar / Würgendes Blei Señora Carrar's Rifles and Choking Lead
A short play by Bertolt Brecht with an update by Björn SC Deigner – a production from the Residenztheater / Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel in Munich.
At last year’s Theatertreffen, I was privileged to take in a production of Chekhov’s unfinished early work, Platinov, staged by the Residenztheater as Der Vaterlosen (The fatherless). It was an outstanding production that, for me and many others, will go down as one of the great productions of Chekhov in my lifetime.
This year’s submission from The Resi is also an amazing night of theater. Señora Carrar's Rifles is a classic war play – or possibly an anti-war play. Easy to find on the internet and at libraries, and short to read, this play is a classic in the vein of JM Sing’s Riders to the Sea.
Señora Carrar begins as a proponent of minding her business and staying out of war. She uses all human arguments for why war is evil and brings nothing but death and destruction. But set in the time of totalitarian dictator, Generalissimo Fransisco Franco’s WW2 Spain, it becomes as timely as we hear Frau Carrar’s arguments echoing those who chose to stay with America’s isolationist stances – stay out of Ukraine, out of Taiwan, out of Gaza.
This is not really agitprop theater so much as a discussion of the merits of getting involved or staying out of these world conflicts. “If a shark attacks you, are you using violence?
While some may wish this simple realism by Brecht to be more didactic and tell us that is right and wrong, I personally loved that the evening was doing what Lessing and others taught us that the theater can do – it can trot out these character through different generations and cause us to ask, “what do they represent to us today?”
In Brecht’s play we hear from a worker, a soldier-aged son, a pacifist priest, an old experienced woman, and others. Voices we hear today echo in these characters and give us a chance to reflect on our own stances.
The second part of the night is a short piece by Björn SC Deigner, a German writer and theatermaker. In this after-piece, we have a sort of theater talk-back that includes the voices of among other things, a gun. In this staging, the house of Señora Carrar, the interior of the house, which is the setting of Brecht’s play, has fallen apart and the characters all come back walking over boards and debris. Some dressed first as birds but all feeling a bit like the voices of those who died in this war that Señora Carrar hoped to be free of, and who others said would have to be resisted unless it caused many deaths Historically, this actuality did happen in the hundreds of thousands under Franco.
A bit reminiscent of the American play, Spoon River Anthology, we hear the voices of the dead speaking to us today – for us to reflect on their lives and what advice they may have for us today with our current challenges. These dead voices speak to us embodied as the linden leaf and machine gun but we see that these were the people who once lived at another time in history.
While Deigner’s piece is not on Brecht’s genius level, it does something really cool. It holds space for more conversation. This is a potential for theater and today, with our habits of streaming programming on television without any discussion, Deigner’s afterpiece pushes us to reflect, think, and possibly even act. It gives us more context and discourse but ultimately leaves the answers up to us. Brecht’s play holds up today as a lesson in how great art often shows itself in pure simplicity. It’s hard to imagine this play as anything but a short work and, in that it is, it doesn’t waste a minute getting to the heart of one of today’s most urgent global questions: war or isolationism?
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Kontakthof – Echoes of ’78
by Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Pina Bausch first appeared at Theatertreffen in 1981. A couple of years later, I encountered her work for the first time when she presented Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört (On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I was unprepared for the emotional depth—it stunned me, moved me to tears, and stirred feelings I could not quite put into words.
A few nights ago I watched George Balanchine’s choreographed dance, La Valse, set to the music of Ravel. I commented, at this television showing, that these filmed dance concerts were so great as many of the dancers careers are so short. This gave more longevity.
Last night, I saw Kontakthof, one of Bausch’s earlier pieces, originally created in 1978. This remount, titled Echoes of ’78, uses archival film from the original production and features many of the original cast members, now in their 60s and 70s. The experience was not only captivating—it was transformative. The work’s meaning has deepened over time, offering insights that feel especially urgent today. And to see dancers, late in life, able to create such stunning work, was even more gratifying.
The setting is simple: a dance hall that resembles a modest high school auditorium, complete with a curtained stage and chairs lining the perimeter. The dancers, awkward and hesitant, sit on the sidelines before rising to perform. Throughout the show, the current remaining cast members dance beside their filmed 23-year-old selves, both groups moving in Bausch’s unmistakable choreography. Each is beautiful in their own way, but as the evening unfolds, we witness what time has etched into their bodies—and into the meaning of the piece itself.
Bausch was a pioneering feminist voice in the 1970s, and Kontakthof examines gender dynamics with a clarity that feels even more poignant today. The behaviors such as mansplaining, dance hall groping, performative flirtation—play out exactly as they did in the original staging. But now, enacted by older bodies, these gestures carry added weight. They force us to question how much has changed. Watching women who have lived full, complex lives still subjected to the same rituals of gender performance is quietly devastating—and illuminating.
The piece asks: What does flirtation feel like in your twenties? And what does it mean decades later, as a grandparent? Kontakthof doesn’t preach. Instead, it stands as a monument—a subtle, often humorous reflection on intimacy, aging, and human connection.
As someone who was a sexually active young man, I often cringe at the unsubtle ways I once navigated these social rituals. Thankfully, I’ve been allowed the grace to grow, thanks in large part to patient women who have also evolved from their own youthful versions.
Young people in the audience last night were clearly absorbed. They rose in a standing ovation. But I couldn't help but wonder what they made of it—watching artists their grandparents’ age reenact social and sexual rituals. Did it feel outdated? Or confronting? Were they aware that, in 47 years, they too might reflect on their younger selves with this kind of clarity and compassion?
Kontakthof is a quiet triumph. A poem in motion about the changes that reproductive, emotional humans undergo across a lifetime. And, ultimately, it is a glimmer of hope—for the wisdom that comes with age, and the healing that art can offer across generations.
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Review: “Something Is Approaching” – Theatertreffen 2025, Berliner Festspiele
Presented in the lobby of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele as part of Theatertreffen 2025, Something Is Approaching is a dance/theater piece exploring choreography and bodily practices as a form of feminist self-defense. Directed by Carolina Mendonça, in collaboration with Lara Ferrari and Carolina Bianchi, the work aspires to translate personal experience into performance art.
The premise is simple: a woman sits and recounts—plainly—how she awoke one morning filled with rage and decided to buy a gun. Despite no prior experience, she takes a shooting class and discovers she’s a natural. As she speaks, another woman undresses her, then removes her own shirt. They continue crawling across the floor. And then—it ends.
Unfortunately, most of the audience missed this entirely. With no raised stage or tiered seating, only the first few rows could see anything. But even those who could see weren’t given much. The performance drew a lukewarm response, with a single curtain call and a quiet, quick exit by the audience.
But my issue isn’t just with this piece—it’s part of a broader question I’ve been struggling with throughout this trip: What do we expect from theater today?
More and more, I see performances like this, both in Berlin and the U.S., that seem to believe seeming to be artistic – or being precious about our own voice is enough—where personal recollection, presented slowly and with affect, is assumed to be art. But is it? Or is it just the desire to be art?
This reminds me of a mentor I once had, who dismissed the canon—Sophocles, Shakespeare, Hansberry, Miller—as irrelevant relics. Many artists I meet in Berlin feel the same. But ironically, after working with Joe Chaikin on an Arthur Miller play, that same mentor began to admit the value of the classics. Joe had done the work.
It taught me that engaging with the broader theatrical tradition isn’t elitist—it’s essential. Yes, the canon is flawed, dominated by white men, and it must be expanded to include more women and artists of color. But abandoning the foundations altogether is not the answer.
In Black theater alone, there's far more to explore than Raisin in the Sun or Topdog/Underdog. There’s a wealth of underproduced, underdeveloped, and innovative work waiting to be staged. But it takes time, skill, mentorship, and long-term investment to build a strong artistic foundation. Two years out of college and a self-founded company won’t get you far without that deeper work.
This lack of rigor is part of why American theater is losing audiences. Why spend $100 on a night out when streaming platforms offer more craft, more storytelling, more depth—with a click?
We’ve sacrificed quality in the name of “accessibility.” In trying to include everyone, we’ve lowered the bar so far that audiences are leaving—and taking our credibility with them. We’re left with big musicals and social-club theater for friends and family, or for spectacle’s sake. And it’s killing us.
This dance piece should have been encouraged to keep working, seek outside feedback, and return when it had something more fully realized. Instead, it was elevated to a platform that should demand more of its artists. As a result, Something Is Approaching felt like a missed opportunity—both for the performers and the audience.
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Final Thoughts
This year’s Theatertreffen was, admittedly, my least rewarding. But even at its weakest, it still offers more theater in two weeks than most cities get all year. America can only dream of such a vibrant and well-supported scene. Will I be back? Absolutely. And I hope you'll consider joining me—next May, in the bloom of Berlin spring and Spargelzeit.
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