etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

by Tennessee Williams

Two River County, a small town in the deep south of the USA, where death, sex and disaster are the topics of everyday gossip, where bigotry and racism are boiling very close to the surface. Here they all sit: Jabe, the dying patriarch and his frustrated wife, Lady; Beulah and Dolly, the town gossips; Carol, the black sheep of the town’s richest family.

And then, in walks Snakeskin Val Xavier, a travelling musician from New Orleans, bringing life into a house where death seems to be the master and everyone seems to have lost hope and resigned themselves to their fate.

Orpheus Descending  could be Val´s story – the story of an outsider, a sensitive artist, a rebel without a cause, who stirs up volatile hostilities because of the passionate responses he inadvertently calls up in the more courageous and thirsty female citizens of a dried up town. But it is actually the story of Lady, a woman who finds hope and starts believing in herself again, who finally comes to full bloom, a wild orchid without a chance in a rotting society.

Lady Torrance is another one of Tennessee Williams´ arsenal of impressive female characters such as Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire, or Maggie from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or Serafina delle Rose from The Rose Tatoo – women who heroically attempt to make a change in a male-dominated society and inevitably fail because the time is not ripe for them, yet.

Throughout his life Tennessee Williams was fascinated by the outsider, the free individual, namely the artist that was able to avoid what he called `the corrupted society´. In Orpheus Descending he connected the character of the American outsider with the mythological figure of Orpheus, singer and musician who descends into the underworld in an attempt to rescue his wife Eurydice after she has been bitten by a snake and abducted by Pluto, god of the underworld. His music so charms the guardians of Hades that Eurydice’s return is promised him on the condition that he not look back at her as she follows him out of the underworld. But Orpheus disobeys and by looking back loses Eurydice to the underworld.

Orpheus Descending was a project that Tennessee Williams worked on for over half his life and presented it in several different versions over a span of 20 years. As early as 1937 when he was 26 years old he wrote a version called Fugitive Kind for an amateur theatre company in St. Louis. Three years later the second try, entitled Battle of Angels, became Williams´ first professionally produced play, starring Hollywood legend Miriam Hopkins as Lady Torrance (who in this version was called Myra). All the characters and conflicts were already there although Battle of Angels didn’t have the sharpness, the elegance and the mythological references that 17 years later made Orpheus Descending a Broadway hit starring Cliff Robertson and Maureen Stapleton. Another three years later Williams´ again rewrote the project for the film version, The Fugitive Kind, with Anna Magnani and Marlon Brando, directed by Sidney Lumet.

“Man lässt sich gebannt von der düster-knisternden Atmosphäre einfangen…. und kann sich nicht satt sehen an den eindrucksvoll gezeichneten Charakteren.” (BERLINER MORGENPOST / January 14th, 2009)

He thinks she’s cute. She acts like a prissy virgin. Turns out she has a major secret …

If you saw the two at the cookie counter of a supermarket, you’d probably think: Those two? This delicate hypersensitive-looking young woman obviously dreaming of true love and that swearing wisecracking son of a truckdriver who surely is only looking for some
wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinda action? Never! – Rose and Cliff are both runaways from love.

They spend the night together in Rose´s apartment. He wants to touch, she wants his sweater.
But then again, if they start at the same point in opposite directions and the earth is a ball? Chances are, they might meet on the other side…
Who do you fall in love with?

Photo: Anja Renoth

by Harold Pinter

English Theatre Berlin premiered its production of Harold Pinter´s masterpiece in May 2005 in its old space. Five months later Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006 and English Theater Berlin was about to move into new quarters –

– reasons enough for us to bring back the prodcution in the new space (not quite finished, to be honest, more of a transitional solution but all the more perfect for The Caretaker).

This is about political manoeuvering, fraternal love and language as negotiating weapon or a form of cover-up – a typically nasty “pinteresque” comedy with a seemingly simple arrangement: two brothers and a mysterious stranger meet up in a room. Their tactics of survival: 1. Find the right partner; 2. Talk talk talk; 3. Emotional intelligence might be helpful but sometimes a knife comes in handy. And never underestimate family ties….

by DAVID MAMET

 a funky play for the singles generation

Two men and two women inthe dating pool, or the rise and fall of Danny and Deborah – a play about people around 30 trying to make sense of their lives.

“Language was invented to hide our feelings.” Voltaire

The first perversity is the fact that we never stop talking. Followed by the second one – that we are not really talking to each other but to ourselves. The third perversity is an obvious one – the never-ending search for the other half, the lonelines that comes with it, and that at some point we become addicted to the search. That´s why there are bars, make up and pornography. The fourth and final perversity is the strong belief that eventually we will succeed and be able to leave it all behind.

The proof that all this is true lies in the fact that things are still the same as they were when Mamet´s Sexual Perversity in Chicago first came out in 1974, a time when we thought we would be able to turn the world upside down – and we did.

a Road Play by Günther Grosser & Priscilla Be

Fred is dead but he´s not done talking. Anna is fed up with her stinky life in the East. Jens and Andreas are on the look-out for unsuspecting capitalist slobs. Edna is in the bathroom without a clue. The Royal Insults are on their way to fame without a map.

Dead Fred tells the story of a day in the lives of nine people on the `Transitstrecke´ – the transit road – through East Germany – a day they will never forget.

A grotesque comedy for those who´ve been there – and for those who´ve only heard about it. LA Crash meets Thelma without Louise in Michendorf. Fear and Loathing on the Transitstrecke – and the puzzling place afterwards.