Maxim Gorki Theater previews the first half of the 2023/2024 season

The Maxim Gorki Theater starts the new season 2023/24 on 29 August. A highlight is the 6th Berlin Autumn Salon “LOST – YOU GO SLAVIA” with works by Danica Dakić, Mladen Stilinović, Milica Tomić and many others. In addition, the piece MOTHERS – A SONG FOR THE WARTIME by Marta Górnicka & The Chorus of Women will be premiered. The choir consists of Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian women aged between 9 and 72. The season promises a mix of challenging productions, artistic performances, socio-critical projects and discourse.

Image above: Title image for LOST YOU GO SLAVIA © Mladen Stilinović: Pjevaj! (Sing!), 1980. By courtesy of Branka Stipančić

The new season opens on 29 August with a performance of Fatma Aydemir’s DSCHINNS and subsequently many more revivals of ” Gorki classics” in the repertoire.

From 28 September to 10 December, everything at the Gorki will then be dedicated to the 6. Berliner Herbstsalon LOST – YOU GO SLAVIA with exhibitions, cinema, discourse and theatre. On the opening weekend of the Herbstsalon, the GORKI will kick off with the first three premieres of the season from 28 September:

The artistic co-leader, director Oliver Frljić, directs FRANKENSTEIN ODER DAS VERLORENE PARADIES (premiere on 28 September). Based on Mary Shelley’s novel first published in 1818, Frljić and the ensemble Doğa Gürer, Vidina Popov, Alexandra Sinelnikova and Mehmet Yılmaz address the hubris of man, who is apparently incurably convinced that he is capable of improving the world and himself.

Also on 28 September, Marina Frenk – player of the Gorki since 2013, musician, director of Valeska Gert – The Animal Show, author of Ewig her und gar nicht wahr u.v.m. – will premiere her musical collage in Studio Я. – her musical collage EINE NIERE HAT NICHTS MIT POLITIK ZU TUN. The subtitle is: “ghosts of totaliautaripostkommupseudoeurasiism”. As you can see, it’s all about the whole thing. So it’s also about its unintentionally funny side. The Dissapointalists will be there.

On 29 September, the GORKI in Warsaw will celebrate the premiere of MOTHERS – A SONG FOR THE WARTIME by Marta Górnicka & The Chorus of Women. The choir with which Górnicka is working on the piece consists of 21 Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian women. They are between 9 and 72 years old. Among them are refugees from Mariupol, Kyiv, Irpin and Kharkiv. On 3 and 4 November, the co-production with the Maxim Gorki Theatre will be shown in Berlin.

After the opening of the autumn salon with these three productions and the exhibitions of the visual artists Danica Dakić with ZENICA TRILOGIE and Milica Tomić with FOUR FACES OF OMARSKA as well as a film series with films by Jelena Jureša, Jasmila Žbanić, Želimir Žilnik and others, the Autumn Salon will also feature four guest performances from the post-Yugoslavian region.

With the project ZENICA TRILOGIE Danica Dakić explores the utopias of the city of Zenica, which grew and decayed around an ironworks. The inhabitants of the city called it “mother”. Because it nourished them and because they could not get away from it. Today, 30 years after the Bosnian war, Zenica stands for extreme environmental pollution, unemployment and collective resignation. Modernity shows its downside. Together with protagonists from Zenica, the artist asks about the dreams and spaces for action of the individuals.

The exhibition is flanked by the play MOJA FABRIKA (MY FACTORY) (3/4 October). The production by Selma Spahić of the Bosnian National Theatre Zenica also tells the story of the city and the ironworks. An impressive pictorial arc of the rise and fall of industrialisation.

As part of the 6th Berlin Autumn Salon, two fabrics by Sasha Marianna Salzmann will also be performed. On 27 October is the premiere of IM MENSCHEN MUSS ALLES HERRLICH SEIN. The house director Sebastian Nübling will bring the novel to the stage with Lea Draeger, Anastasia Gubareva, Yanina Cerón and Çiğdem Teke from the ensemble. Two mothers, two daughters: Sasha Marianna Salzmann tells how, from perestroika to present-day Germany, systems crumble and dreams burst.

MUTTERSPRACHE MAMELOSCHN will be staged by Hakan Savaş Mican at Studio Я on 7 December. A flat in Berlin. The present. A family. Grandmother, mother, granddaughter live here, with each other, against each other. They tell and remember, search and miss each other, find and hurt each other. Three generations, three Jewish women in Germany rummage through mountains of stories and history. For this production, in addition to Anastasia Gubareva and Alexandra Sinelnikova, Ursula Werner is again performing at the Gorki, Daniel Kahn is providing the music.

On 17. December DER UNTERTAN will be the last premiere of the first half of this season. Christian Weise has chosen Heinrich Mann’s novel and also Wolfgang Staudte’s DEFA film adaptation. But there is much more: it will also be an amusing look at the futile effort to turn us all into obedient pupils of the media’s head teachers.

New in the ensemble

Alexandra Sinelnikova was born in Saint Petersburg in 1994. She studied acting at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. She has worked in Dresden and Dortmund, among other places. Alexandra Sinelnikova is part of the Jewish artists’ network Dagesh. At the Gorki she can already be seen in PLANET B, which recently celebrated its premiere, and will be performing in Frankenstein oder das verlorene Paradies as well as in Muttersprache Mameloschn.

Via Jikeli was born in Aachen in 1997, first lived in Cologne and grew up in Berlin. She has been studying acting at the HfS Ernst Busch in Berlin since 2019. Via has been a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation since 2020. From January 2023 she has already appeared in Aram Tafreshian’s studio production AMORE at the Gorki and will play in Der Untertan after graduation.

STUDIO Я

Murat Dikenci will direct STUDIO Я. He has already worked at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and Gorki. Most recently, he directed the Universes at the Staatstheater Hannover. He will continue the successful work of the STUDIO Я and develop it consistently, as with the FЯEMDE POESIE series just funded by the Capital Cultural Fund.

Schreibwerkstatt – WHILE HISTORY WRITES ITSELF

On 27/28 October and 3-4 November, scenes from plays developed in the Maxim Gorki Theatre’s writing workshop under the direction of Anastasiia Kosodii, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, will be shown in Studio Я. There will be a wealth of very different scenes and play styles on show. The writing workshop has participants from six countries: Julia Cimafiejeva, Davit Gabunia, Natalia Graur, Kateryna Penkova, Ivana Sajko and Tanja Šljivar.

WHERE?

Maxim Gorki Theater
Am Festungsgraben 2
10117 Berlin-Mitte

WHEN?

from 29 August 2023, dates see above or on www.gorki.de