Themen-Talks
Once again this season, selected performances will be accompanied by in-depth discussions with experts and participating artists. This time, the focus is on a motif as old as theater itself: the end. Or more precisely: the play in the face of the end. Endings mark transitions, breaks, and states of being. They point to transience—and to what remains. Samuel Beckett’s «Endgame» depicts an end that is not a conclusion, but a state of being, a lingering, a repetition, a play with no way out. Other productions also explore endings and transitions: history continues to resonate in «WAX TRADERS»; one’s own artistic identity is questioned in the retrospective «HAS BEEN»; and in «Engel der Vernichtung,» the question arises: Is the play over when machines play us? In the staged concert «INSGEHEIM,» perception dissolves, and in «À fleur de peau,» «Endgame» becomes physical—a state between balance and loss of control. «The end, it’s the end, it’s coming to an end. It may be coming to an end,» read the opening lines of Beckett’s «Endgame.»
