Yael Ronen & ENSEMBLE
THE SITUATION
Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin
SUN 14 May — 7 pm Moravian theatre
after the show discussion with Maxim Gorki Theater
Their beliefs and cultures are different and as kids they were told they were enemies. War separated their lives and paradoxically they all met in the middle of another country. Lessons of German language, Neukölln, Berlin. Participants of this course have one thing in common which is the fact that in past years they have all fled to Berlin – whether from Syria where in 2011 the war started or from Israel and Palestine where the political and social climate becomes more and more militant. No wonder that German grammar is the smallest problem in the courses of Prof. Stefan…
If someone wants to describe the political situation in the Middle East in Hebrew or Arabic, he or she speaks about “The Situation”. Yael Ronen and members of the MGT, ensemble who due to “this situation” emigrated from Syria, Israel and Palestine are exploring the re-encounters with their “neighbours” as well as with their past. Fiction mingles with reality and biographies of actors get intertwined into their roles.
The Situation was invited to the prestigious festival Berliner Theatertreffen 2016.
In Theater heute magazine The Situation was awarded the Production of the Year 2016 in the German language speaking world.
directed by Yael Ronen
stage design Tal Shacham
costumes Amit Epstein
music Yaniv Fridel, Ofer Shabi
stage lighting Jens Krüger
premiere 4 September 2015
cast
Ayham Majid Agha, Karim Daoud, Maryam Abu Khaled, Orit Nahmias, Dimitrij Schaad, Yousef Sweid
The Situation has been chosen among 10 unique productions of the German-Speaking countries for the Berliner Theatertreffen 2016.
It is a daring merciless theatre evening – full of self-irony, refined verbal humour and free of any hackneyed phrases of consternation. (…) With a completely light hand, Yael Ronen spins the huge wheel of world politics. She shows what war means for an individual, what expulsion and loss of homeland mean. She focuses on themes of identity, trauma, islamophobia and xenophobia, overcoming of the German past and refugees' hope for freedom.
Elke Vogel, Frankfurter Neue Presse 5th September 2015
During the thunderous applause for actors standing on the stage hand in hand with the director having overcome all their moral inhibitions, a certain act of understanding of nations was completed.
Barbara Burckhardt, Theater heute
It is a pressing production. It touches each and everyone one of us.
3sat
Yael Ronen (1976) was born in Jerusalem to a theatre family. As an author and director she is considered one of the most remarkable personalities of her generation. In her productions she approaches the historic conflicts in a provocative way with black humour which breaks the taboos as well as deep-rooted clichés. She moves back and forth between Tel Aviv and Berlin.
Her production Dritte Generation (Third Generation, 2008: Berlin Schaubühne Theater) with Israeli, Palestinian, and German actors became a sensation that was invited to many international festivals. In Schauspielhaus Graz she reflected her own family history in a production called Hakoah Wien which was awarded the Austrian Nestroy theatre prize in 2013.
She is the in-house director at Maxim Gorki Theatre, Berlin and represents the strong voice of so-called “post-migrant theatre”. She made her debut with dramatization of Olga Grjasnowa's novel All Russians Love Birch Trees, 2013. In 2014 she created 4 exceptional productions in MGT: in Erotic Crisis and Das Kohlhaas-Prinzip she studied the conflict zone of sexuality and partnership. Her study of life of second generation Yugoslavian refugees Common Ground was invited to the prestigious festival Berliner Theatertreffen 2015 and to Mülheimer Theatertage where it was awarded the audience award. And finally, The Situation, which she created together with six actors with emigrant experience and which was also invited to the Theatertreffen and won the Production of the Year 2016.
Her new project is called Denial and focuses on personal as well as political changes and it opened the 2016/2017 season in Maxim Gorki Theater.
Maxim Gorki Theater (MGT) is the smallest of the municipal theatres in Berlin. The building was finished in 1827, but was greatly renovated after the bombing during World War II. Under its current name it was reopened in 1952 and at that period (associated with playwright Heiner Müller) it has become the most important place of contemporary theatre of the German Eastern Bloc.
Since 2013 Shermin Langhoff and Jens Hillje have been the artistic directors of the theatre. Their daring concept of so-called “post-migrant theatre” reflects the diversified society in the present times of continuous economic and political crisis and growth of social conflicts. Not only for the choice of topics and the style of staging, but also the multicultural composition of the young ensemble formed by artists with migrant experience. The Theater heute magazine awarded the direction of the scene with the title Theatre of the Year already in their pilot season including awards for The Situation by Yael Ronen (Director of the Year and Production of the Year 2016).
Alongside productions of classics where the artistic formats reflect the aesthetic diversity of contemporary theatre, MGT also produces new plays staged by renowned directors such as Nurkan Erpulat, Sebastian Nübling or Yael Ronen. The new identity of the scene and focus on own reflection is visible also in their logo: the letter Я [ja] in the title of GOЯKI means “I” in Russian and in German sounds like “yes” – it is also the encounter of the old with the new. Studio Я under the direction of playwright and resident author Sasha Marianna Salzmann, is another smaller platform of the theatre.