Text Work

The Sophiensaele in Berlin combined two very different theatre projects that examined the development of contemporary theatre texts and their forms of presentation on stage.
One project concretely demonstrated how narrative literature can be adapted to the theatre. In a co-production with the Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf, the director Jacob Wren staged a theatrical adaptation of Wolfgang Koeppen's novel "Death in Rome" [Der Tod in Rom] from 1953 - a classic of German post-war literature.
The second project "Verschwinden" [Disappearance] was based on a new text of the same name by the German playwright John Birke. Birke tells the story of Philip Staufen, a Romanian, who appeared in Toronto one day and fooled everyone by pretending he had lost his memory. The real story was fictionalized to some extent and mixed elements of a theatre performance and a live radio play. The piece both narratively and musically examined the topic of "disappearing" - the conscious and unconscious disappearance of people, things, words, the past, certainties, the disappearance into parallel realities. The Electronic Music Theater - a collective of directors, composers and performers - produced "Verschwinden" for the stage.

Artistic directors: Amelie Deuflhard, Thomas Frank, Kathrin Tiedemann

Performances of "Death in Rome": 9 - 17 June 2006, Festsaal, Sophiensaele Berlin
Other venues: Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf

Performances of "Verschwinden": 29 November - 2 December 2007, Festsaal, Sophiensaele Berlin
Other venues: Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf
In cooperation with: brut Wien, TextXTND Frankfurt