The Deutsches Theater invites you to a matinée on Saturday, 28 September 2024 at 11 a.m. in memory of the actor Alexander Lang, who died in May 2024. Admission is free.
Image above: Alexander Lang | © Gisela Brandt
In memory of Alexander Lang
The actor and director Alexander Lang (born 1941) died on 31 May 2024. His role designs and productions were among the most sensational, style-defining works at the Deutsches Theater, especially in the seventies and eighties of the last century. A matinee recalls the unmistakable artist in words, images and music, who as an actor also gave memorable contours to several DEFA films (Solo Sunny) and films on GDR television. Colleagues, comrades-in-arms and witnesses of his work invite you to commemorate an unforgettable theatre person.
He amazed, he exploded, he polarised. For many years, actor and director Alexander Lang was one of the most fascinating artists in German theatre. It was not only Büchner’s Danton’s Death that wrote theatre history over decades ago. He brought Grabbe back to the German theatre stage and elevated Shakespeare, Müller and Brecht to rapidly contemporary existential dramas. Theatre magic at the abyss. Alexander Lang died on 31 May this year. Actors and actresses, friends and companions will once again revive what drove this artist and made his art so enduring – next Saturday at the Deutsches Theater.
Hans-Dieter Schütt
Farewell
We mourn the loss of Alexander Lang
Since the end of the 1970s, German theatre has owed a great deal to the actor and, above all, the director Alexander Lang. His interpretations of classics, in particular, aimed straight at the heart of contemporary theatre and became trend-setting performances. I myself, barely 20 years old, saw his productions of Grabbe’s Duke Theodor of Gothland (with Christian Grashof!) and Goethe’s Iphigenia (with Katja Paryla!) during visits to my relatives in East Berlin. These visits to performances were completely new territory for me, having been socialised in theatre by Jürgen Flimm in Cologne. There are treasures of memory hidden in this building, which has now temporarily become ‘our’ Deutsches Theater, and so a small part of it, which is connected with Alexander Lang, is also in my memory. It is important to me to preserve these treasures. Just like Esther Slevogt’s recently published book Auf den Brettern der Welt. Fortunately, the Deutsches Theater Berlin has carefully archived a number of things. Without the past, we have no future. With this in mind, we mourn the loss of the great artist Alexander Lang, who died on Friday 31 May 2024 at the age of 82.
Iris Laufenberg
WHEN?
Event dates: Saturday, 28. September 2024 at 11 am
WHERE?
Deutsches Theater Berlin
Schumannstraße 13a
10117 Berlin
