In 1945, as bombs were falling on Berlin, the Berlin Philharmonic’s orchestra attendant Friedrich Mohr had a dream of one last performance. He assembled the musicians in bunkers to play Richard Wagner’s Götterdämmerung for radio broadcast throughout Berlin. However, the transmission was interrupted. Inspired by Mohr’s story, Belgian theatre group BERLIN together with radio station Klara, the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen orchestra and actor Martin Wuttke attempted to realise the failed endeavour in the here and now. Their research for the project – which is documented by filmmaker Fien Leysen – has, however, uncovered more and more incongruities in Mohr’s tale. Inthe combination with live music, the boundaries between fiction and documentary, video and liveperformance are blurred. It is a stirring play full of surprising twist and turns.
3 / 4 / 5 June, 8 pm
Theater Akzent
English, German, Dutch and Russian
German and English surtitles
1 hr, 50 min
Please note
Age recommendation 14+
Q&A
4 June, following the performance
Direction Yves Degryse With Yves Degryse, Koen Goossens, Jonathan van der Beek (Horn) and on film Friedrich Mohr, Martin Wuttke, Stefan Lennert, Werner Buchholz, Alisa Tomina, Krijn Thijs, Chantal Pattyn, Symphonic Orchestra Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Alejo Pérez, Caroline Große, Michael Becker, Claire Hoofwijk, Alejandro Urrutia, Marek Burák, Marvyn Pettina, Farnaz Emamverdi Video, Editing Geert De Vleesschauwer, Fien Leysen, Yves Degryse Scenography Manu Siebens Musical Composition, Mixing Peter Van Laerhoven Music film Peter Van Laerhoven, Tim Coenen, Symphonic Orchestra Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Musical direction Alejo Pérez Sound Hans De Prins Touring technicians Jurgen Fonteijn, Luk Sponselee Translation Surtitles Nadine Malfait, Fien Leysen (English), Gegensatz Translation Collective (German)
Production BERLIN Coproduction DE SINGEL (Antwerp), le CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp), VIERNULVIER (Ghent), C-TAKT (Limburg), Theaterfestival Boulevard (Den Bosch), Berliner Festspiele Supported by the Flemish Government, Sabam for Culture, Tax Shelter of the Belgian federal government via Flanders Tax Shelter
executed by the team of the Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien
Premiere May 2022, DE SINGEL (Antwerpen)
Ciska Hoet, De Morgen (Belgium)MILO RAU IN CONVERSATION WITH YVES DEGRYSE
Milo Rau. Yves, the play The making of Berlin is based on the story of a certain Friedrich Mohr. He is present in the film, that runs through theshow. So what is this play about? And how did you meet Mohr, or how did you first hear abouthis crazy story?
Yves Degryse. I believe it was in 2016. Yes, we performed Zvizdal,aprojectforwhichwefilmedinChernobyl, where an old couple continued to live in the death zone, over the course of fiveyears. We showed this piece at the Berliner Festspiele in 2016. After the show, a man approached us to tell us that he was very touched by the story. We got into a conversation about his own life. And apparently, he was the orchestra attendant of the Berlin Philharmonic during the last weeks of the Second World War. He told us this story about the attempt to play with the orchestra one more time, because they knew this could be the last time that they would play together, that even after the war, there was a chance that it would be over with the orchestra. But it was too dangerous to rehearse. So, they came up with this fantastic solution to divide the
orchestra into six groups and put each group in one bunker and connect each bunker with radio lines, which all came together in the cellar of a restaurant where the conductor was. It never happened, for obvious reasons. Anyway, we stayed in touch with Mohr and there came a moment when he asked us how to deal with this time of his life (the Second World War). It was a period of his life that was stuck in his mind, that was haunting him, that shaped the spirit of his further life. He had had Jewish friends in the orchestra. For the rest of his life, he was thinking: When was the moment I should have stood up? Why did nobody tell me: You’re more than just a member of the orchestra. He asked us to do a kind of re-enactment, a kind of ritual for the end of his life. A ritual about this period of his own life. We thought about it. And that’s what the piece is about.
M.R. So, do I understand it correctly that Mohr is haunted by the fact that he did not stand up for his Jewish friends in the orchestra, who were victims of the NS-Regime? Is this play, this ritual, a form of redemption for Mohr?
Y.D. All his life Mohr was haunted by this question: why did I assume I was just a part of the orchestra? Twice, he hesitated to stand up straight, to respond. Twice, he sat back down. The third time, it was already too late in time: it would have meant his death. The making of Berlin is his attempt to give a place to that question at the end of his life, an attempt to make realitybearablethroughritualandfiction.
M.R. As you just mention it: The play is also abouttherelationshipbetweentruthandfiction.As are many of your plays, by the way. What significancedoestruthhaveinyourart?
Y.D. The playing elements of truth and fictioncontained in The making of Berlin are a vehicle to tell a larger story. It includes the question of how far we can go in fiction in order to recountreality, how much fiction do we need to orderreality. We like to try to make that distinction between fiction and reality measurable, but thatseems to me to be of secondary importance in theatre. The stage is preeminently the place where there should be absolute freedom for both.
M.R. There are two narrative lines in this reenactment. The first one is the story of Mohr.The second line is the story that Fien Leysen is telling. She documented the whole process of the project with the camera, it’s the making of. However, it’s not only a making of of the project but also of your company, which is called BERLIN. It shows how you work. What is your connection to the city of Berlin? Why did you choose the story of Mohr to also at the same time talk about BERLIN’s way of working?
Y.D. The founding of the Berlin company was also the immediate start of a city cycle. Like
another director chooses a text, we choose a city and stay there for a long time. We film, weinterview, we lose time to gain theatre. The inhabitants are the protagonists. The story is more universal than the story of the city itself. It has taken us to Jerusalem, the North Pole, Moscow, Bonanza, Chernobyl, etc. At the start of this cycle, we also agreed that Berlin would be the last city in the series. If we ended up in Berlin, it would be the end of this cycle. That has now happened.
M.R. So no more piece about Vienna? Do you actually have a connection with Vienna?
Y.D. We finished the city cycle but that doesn’tmean we cannot happen upon a story or person in Vienna. In the longer term, we are discussing projects with Wiener Festwochen. In the past, there were very attractive requests to create new projects in certain cities. But unfortunately, we are not landscape painters who work on demand. Every work in one city creates a next step towards another city. Each new beginning is nothing more than a sequel.
The making of Berlin has a very special connection to Vienna. Unfortunately, I cannot talk about that until after a performance – never before.
BERLIN was founded in Antwerp, Belgium, in 2003 by artistic director Yves Degryse, together with Bart Baele and Caroline Rochlitz. They decided not to pin themselves down on one particular genre, but to venture into the documentary realm and let the site where each foray took them guide their inspiration.BERLIN’sperformancesarewarmlyreceivedbyboththeatreandfilmenthusiasts,andplay in that space where theatre and film, fiction and fact meet. The starting point of each performance by BERLIN is located in a city or a region somewhere on the planet. A characteristic feature of its approach is its documentary and interdisciplinary work methods. Focusing on a specific research question, it engages different media depending on the content of the project. In 2004, BERLIN started the series Holocene with the performances Jerusalem, Iqaluit, Bonanza, Moscow and Zvizdal The making of Berlin (2022) was the final instalment in the series. Besides, BERLINstarted a new cycle Horror Vacui of which Tagfish, Land’s End, Perhaps All The Dragons, Remember The Dragons and True Copyarethefirstfiveepisodes.TouringallacrossEuropeandNorthAmerica,BERLIN’s performances are featured at numerous international festivals and have been awarded prizes such as the Total Theatre Award in Edinburgh for Bonanza in 2013. In 2015, BERLIN received the Flemish Culture Prize for the Performing Arts, annually awarded by the Flemish Government to an organisation that makes a difference within the performing arts field. In thecoming years, BERLIN will build on its current momentum and further make room for innovation by creating a space to support young makers and have associate artists realising projects within the company. In 2024, Fien Leysen will kick off with ALABAMA, in 2026 it will be the turn of Emma Lesuis. PUBLICATION DETAILS Owner, Editor and Publisher Wiener Festwochen GesmbH, Lehárgasse 11/1/6, 1060 Wien P + 43 1 589 22 0, festwochen@festwochen.at | www.festwochen.at General Management Milo Rau, Artemis Vakianis Artistic Direction (responsible for content) Milo Rau (Artistic Director) Text credits The interview was conducted in English on 28 March 2024. Picture credit Cover © Koen Broos Produced by Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH (Bad Vöslau)
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