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The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langhoff's Deutsches Theater and in 1954 moved to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, built in 1892, that was open for the 1928 premiere of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper). The Berliner Ensemble achieved successful theatre through long and meticulous rehearsals, often spanning several months. Each production was documented with a preview album containing 600 to 800 action photographs.
Under the management of Helene Weigel's successor Ruth Berghaus the company expanded its selection to that of other European playwrights in the 1970s. Major German actors, including Therese Giehse, Lionel Steckel and Ernst Busch appeared in Berliner productions.
After German reunification significant changes took place at the theatre: in 1992 the Berlin Senate appointed a "collective" of five stage directors to serve as General Administrators: Peter Zadek, Peter Palitzsch, Heiner Müller, Fritz Marquardt and Matthias Langhoff. In that same year, the internationally renowned conductor Alexander Frey was appointed Music Director of the Berliner Ensemble. Frey was the first American to hold a position at the Berliner Ensemble, as well as being the theatre’s first non-German Music Director; his historic predecessors in that position include the composers Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, and Paul Dessau.
Under the new artistic management, the Berliner Ensemble changed from a state-owned theatre into limited liability company subsidised by the city government. In 1993, the theatre company was privatised but continued to receive $16 million in subsidy. Nevertheless, the idea of a joint administration proved a failure and the board of managers finally broke up in 1995, leaving only Heiner Müller. The quarrels, however, did not affect the artistic development of the Ensemble: Young directors including B.K. Tragelehn and Einar Schleef and the stage designer Andreas Reinhardt questioned the traditions of Brechtian theatre and introduced more contemporary theatre styles. Müller's production of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, with Martin Wuttke playing the title role, became one of the most successful in the history of the Berliner Ensemble. His program Brecht - Müller - Shakespeare remains the guiding legacy of the Berliner Ensemble.
The American director Robert Wilson premiered Brecht's The Flight across the Ocean in 1998 to honour the hundredth anniversary of Brecht's birth. On April 30, 1999, the curtain came down on the final production of Heiner Müller's Die Bauern, an early end to the theatre's season that also marked the preliminary end of the Ensemble.
After Müller had died in December 1995, the difficult decision about who would manage this highly symbolic cultural institution was now exacerbated by another problem: the theatre building itself was in the process of being bought by a nonprofit foundation in the hands of dramatist Rolf Hochhuth, who seemed to have his plans for the theatre. After the City of Berlin negotiated settlement to everyone's satisfaction, the search for a new administration began. Claus Peymann, the provocative and successful manager of the Burgtheater in Vienna, was finally appointed to the position and reopened the theatre in January 2000, after extensive renovations were completed. Peymann's efforts have stabilised the theatre's operations. He assumed his role with a commitment - like Brecht's - to producing political theatre for the public, but more broadly interpreted.
A fresh start BERLINER ENSEMBLE - Claus Peymann director. Reconstruction of the house: A large, new rehearsal stage is built, the "old rehearsal stage", the "Pavilion" and the "Garden House" are additional venues, management, dramaturgy, and press and drag the management developed into the attic of the theatre. 8th January 2000: The reopening of the house writes the playwright Thomas Brasch a prologue.
The first premiere of the Directorate is the world premiere of George Tabori BRECHT THE FOLDER. The author himself staged the Schedule of BE is the German Enlightenment and is based on the requirement of the German classics, the theatre was a "moral institution". This means that theatre - and the arts in general - are to empathy with the weak and the powerful unmasking.
In this sense, the BE is understood as political theatre, and the theatre work does not follow fashion trends but is tied to the seal. The drama will be shown in all its diversity, the great stories and the actors are the landmarks. Besides Peymann and Tabori staged by Luc Bondy, Andrea Breth, Achim Freyer, Leander Haussmann, Manfred Karge, Günter Krämer, Thomas Langhoff, Peter Stein, Philip Tiedemann ., Peter Zadek - and again Robert Wilson One focus of the new directorate is the contemporary German literature: Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Christoph Hein, Hochhuth, Elfriede Jelinek, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Heiner Müller, Tom Peuckert, Christoph Ransmayr Einar Schleef, Botho Strauss, Peter Turrini, Christa Wolf to George Tabori with his plays and productions.
Brecht, The festival's 50th Death of Bertolt Brecht in 2006, proved with his overwhelming success with the public, that Brecht's work - lives - despite all the insults. Heiner Müller's legendary production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo UI is still performed today on BE. With Robert Wilson's production of Threepenny Opera, with DRUMS IN THE NIGHT and THE SMALL CIVIL WEDDING (Director: Philip Tiedemann), with Schweik in the Second bored WAR, FEAR AND MISERY OF THE THIRD REICH and THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE (directed by Manfred Karge), THE Antigone of Sophocles ( Directed by George Tabori) and (Jungle of Cities Director: Katharina Thalbach) were other pieces Brecht performed.
Claus Peymann deals strengthened in recent years with the political work of Brecht. MOTHER, THE HOLY JOAN OF SLAUGHTERHOUSES, MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN BE's repertoire is broad and full of contrasts. Up to 15 different productions each month alone offered in the main building of the BE. Also various productions, readings and recitals come in three other venues. Classic German repertoire ranges from pieces of Goethe, Kleist and Schiller - a highlight was undoubtedly the 10-hour WALLENSTEIN-directed by Peter Stein, the former in the summer of 2007 in the Kindl brewery was played in Neukölln -. up to pieces of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (NATHAN THE WISE, THE JEWS, Philotas and MISS SARA SAMPSON) and Büchner (LEONCE AND LENA and DANTON'S DEATH) In addition to the German classical and classical modernism with ( performances of Ibsen, Wedekind, Hofmannsthal, Strindberg, Beckett, Lorca, fresh, Chekhov, Gorky and Williams), the cosmos of the dramatic world of William Shakespeare is another center of theater work.
An indication of the success of the current BE's not just the guest performances around the world, but also the unique for German-speaking theater performance numbers for many of productions are being cared for with great care and dedication over the years and kept alive: Brecht AUFHALTSAMER RISE OF ARTURO UI (so far nearly 400 performances), BIEDERMANN AND BRANDSTIFTER ( so far almost 250 performances), NATHAN THE WISE (now nearly 200 performances), THE Threepenny Opera (so far) about 180 ideas, LEONCE AND LENA (so far over 150 performances), RICHARD II (previously approximately 150 performances), The Broken Jug (previously approximately 140 performances), MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN (previously approximately 130 performances) and THE SMALL CIVIL WEDDING (previously approximately 125 performances). An integral part of the theatre production of the BE is also the constant discussion and interaction with the audience, often after the show in the foyer.
Theater am Schiffbauerdamm
Bertolt Brecht-Platz 1
10117 Berlin
Phone: (030) 284-08-155
Fax: (030) 284-08-115
theaterkasse@berliner-ensemble.de
http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/
Here are few videos reflect some of their work.
“ We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself “