From BZ/dpa
A great honor for one of Berlin’s best-known theaters: the Deutsches Theater was voted Theater of the Year. For director Ulrich Khuon, the award comes in the last year of his tenure. Several awards went to Berlin.
For the last year of Ulrich Khuon’s artistic directorship, the Deutsches Theater Berlin has been voted Theater of the Year.
The magazine “Theater heute” came to this conclusion in its yearbook published on Thursday. For its annual survey, the magazine was able to draw on the judgment of 46 critics. After 384 premieres in the 14 seasons under Khuon, “Theater heute” sees the house as “a haven of unexcited continuity”.
Khuon, who is now 72, took over the post at DT in 2009 after positions in Hanover and Hamburg. In the future he will work as interim director 2024/2025 at the Zurich Schauspielhaus. Iris Laufenberg will succeed her at the Deutsches Theater. From 2017 to 2020, Khuon was also President of the German Theater Association.
A woman sits in a water tank in the production of “Ophelia’s Got Talent.” Photo: DPA
Florentina Holzinger’s “Ophelia’s Got Talent” is seen as the production of the year. The Austrian choreographer and performance artist realized the piece for the Volksbühne Berlin as a visually stunning spectacle about rape, anorexia, self-love and the longing for self-destruction.
The stage design by Nicola Knezevic with a water basin and helicopter was just as convincing as stage design of the year, as was Mirjam Stängl’s stage work for Peter Handke’s “Zwietalk” as the world premiere at the Vienna Academy Theater under the young director of the year Rieke Süsskow.
Wiebke Mollenhauer won the actress of the year without a word. In Sarah Kane’s “Gier” at the Zurich Schauspielhaus, her face reflects the texts of four voices on a large screen, showing the effects of violence, memories and feelings without a sentence. As a male part, Joachim Meyerhoff was convincing as Actor of the Year. He is being honored for his role as the writer Trigorin in Thomas Ostermeier’s production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” at the Berlin Schaubühne.
With a thematic reversal of Handke’s 1966 published “Auditory Insult”, Sivan Ben Yishai wrote the play of the year with “Stage Insult” according to “Theater heute”.
As a world premiere, Sebastian Nübling realized the subject of institutional criticism at the Gorki Theater in Berlin.