About Theatertreffen in China • 2020 Special Edition

This year, the performing arts are facing an unprecedented crisis due to the sudden outbreak of
coronavirus. “Theatertreffen in China”, which has been running successfully in the past four years, has also been forced to change its format this year due to the epidemic. With the pulse of the post-epidemic era and the vision of presenting the best of German language theatres, Wu Promotion, in cooperation with the Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center and Goethe-Institut China, with the support of “Volkswagen Group China” presents the "Theatertreffen in China: 2020 Special Edition".

 In the framework of this series of events, five of the previous year's "10 selected productions" will be screened offline and online from September to November, 2020. On September 26th, “Tartuffe oder das Schwein der Weisen", "Persona" and "Erniedrigte und Beleidigte" were screened at Goethe-Institut China in Beijing. "Five Easy Pieces" and "Tyrannis" will be presented at Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center from October 30 to November 1 and will be presented at Hangzhou XIXI on November 7.

Tyrannis

Staatstheater Kassel
Director: Ersan Mondtag

 In "Tyrannis" from Staatstheater Kassel by Ersan Mondtag there is always a fairy-tale atmosphere, but of an eerie kind. The red-haired family with their avatar movements, which are observed by surveillance cameras in their rooms and live in a strange kitchen living room like in a human zoo, do not speak, live according to fixed rituals and hide secrets. Have terrible things happened in the past or are the zombielike single-family house souls waiting for them? Associations with horror films and computer games, David Lynch and the Brothers Grimm, but also with petty bourgeois narrow-mindedness à la Fassbinder and the bashful staff of Christoph Marthaler come to mind when patiently contemplating Mondtag's roomworld dreams.

Five Easy Pieces

CAMPO/IIPM
Director: Milo Rau

In “Five Easy Pieces”, Rau duplicates the theatre situation by showing seven children and a director (Peter Seynaeve) at rehearsals. Scenes based on documentary material from the Dutroux case are increasingly superimposed by the question of how and whether children can play characters in this case at all. In his highly ambivalent production, which rigorously reflects on its own ethics, Milo Rau manages to set the self confident individualities of the children from Ghent against evil, including the evil in art.

Tartuffe oder das Schwein der Weisen
(Tartuffe)

Comedy by PeterLicht based on Molière
Directed by Claudia Bauer
Performed by Theater Basel
Premiere: September 14, 2018
Duration: 2 h 45 min, one interval

Erniedrigte und Beleidigte
(The Insulted and Humiliated)

Directed by / Stage Design by Sebastian Hartmann
Based on the novel by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky
Using the Hamburg Poetics Lecture by Wolfram Lotz
Performed by Staatsschauspiel Dresden
Premiere: March 29, 2018
Duration: 2 h 45 min, without interval

Persona
By Ingmar Bergman
Directed by Anna Bergmann
Performed by Deutsches Theater, Berlin /
Malmö Stadsteater
Premiere Malmö: 15 September 2018
Premiere Berlin: 30 November 2018
Duration: 1 h 30 min, without interval