n REVIEWS

Castorf's Der Spieler has the playfulness, intelligence and effortlessness of someone who doesn’t have anything to prove, and the great actors juggle most beautifully with all the popular clichés, simultaneously driving them to extremes, making casual fun of them, and then savoring their grandeur.

— Peter Laudenbach, Tip Berlin

Cartof’s production sprawls, booms, gags, but the heart of it is in the utterly polished, impressively soul-touched performances. These actually contain a very, very deep seriousness.

— Neues Deutschland

A new quality from Frank Cartorf’s Dostoyevsky production. Breathtakingly powerful and wonderful performance from Alexander Scheer!! We see, hear and feel the most beautiful kind of love. We are jealous that we are not wherever it is happening.

— Kultur-Extra online Magazine

Between instability and abysmal wickedness, licentiousness and restlessness, everything is possible. Or nothing. “Sit! Sit! Sit! I want, I want, want!” As these people live, so they love. For a long time, Castorf’s productions have been the brightest, most joyful and loosest. One can lose sight of the big picture in thieDostoyevski-roulette, but win a world.

— Christine Doessel, Süddeutschen Zeitung

n About DER SPIELER

Dostoyevsky was a restlessly driven man. After years of exile in a labour camp in Siberia, he returned home to find his wife dying. Soon after that, both his brother and his best friend died early deaths. Devastated and uprooted, he travels to Germany in an attempt to escape his creditors. In no time, he had gambled away the last of his money and the copyrights to all of his books. In urgent need of a cash advance, he jotted down The Gamblerin only 26 days. It is the literary manifesto of an addiction.

Frank Castorf’s new production takes up his series of stage versions of Dostoyevsky’s novels that began back in 1999.

It tells the story of the penniless tutor, Alexei Ivanovich, member of the travelling party of a bankrupt Russian General, who wins a fortune at the casino in the German town of “Roulettenburg.” He is hopelessly in love with the step-daughter of The General, Polina, who treats him with indifference, if not downright maliciousness. The financially ruined General eagerly awaits the demise of a wealthy aunt, who surprises the whole party by showing up alive and kicking. She immediately gets hooked on roulette herself, and the expected inheritance is lost—gambled away at the casino tables.

n About the Director

FRANK CASTORF

Born in East Berlin in 1951, Frank Castorf graduated in Theatre Arts from Humboldt University in the mid-seventies and became dramaturgy at the theatre in Senftenberg. In the following years, he worked as a director at various theatres in the GDR, and, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he was soon invited to work as a freelance director for renowned West German theatres. Among his famous adaptations are works by Goethe, Shakespeare, Lessing, Ibsen, Bulgakov, and, time and again, Heiner Mueller.

At the beginning of the repertory season 1992/93, Frank Castorf was appointed artistic director of the Volksbuhne am Rosa-Luxemburg Platz. He has also staged many guest productions in Munich, Zurich, Stockholm, Vienna, Copenhagen, Sao Paulo, Paris and Hamburg.

Frank Castorf’s productions have been regularly invited to the prestigious Berliner Theatertreffen festival (for instance 2014, Journey to the end of the night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine). He has received numerous prizes: the Kortner prize from the leading theatre magazine Theaterheute, the Theatre Prize Berlin by the foundation PreusischeSeehandlung (shared with actor Henry Hubchen), and the Nestroy Prize for best directing (www.nestroy.at). In 2003, he received the Friedrich-Luft Prize from the newspaper “Berliner Morgenpost” for adapting and directing Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. In 1993, the magazine Theaterheute named Volksbuhneam Rosa-Luxemburg Platz Theatre of the Year, and in 2002 and 2003 Frank Castorf was voted Director of the Year.  2016 he received the Art Prize of the City of Berlin, one of the most prestigious awards in the country.

nCREDITS

Director: Frank Castorf

Stage Designer: Bert Neumann

Costumes: Bert Neumann

Light Design: Lothar Baumgarte

Music: Sir Henry

Dramaturgy: Sebastian Kaiser

Performers: Kathrin Angerer, Hendrik Arnst, Frank Büttner, Georg Friedrich, Sophie Rois, Alexander Scheer, Mex Schlüpfer, Lilith Stangenberg, Sir Henry

       Assistant Director: Sebastian Klink

Stage Manager: Alexandra Bentele

Head of Technicians: Frank Meißner

Machine Operator: Marco Vallentin

Technicians: Florian Klingner, André Grünschloß

Head of Lighting: Hans-Hermann Schulze

Light Operator: SaschaGrohmann

Light Technician: André Hoclas

Head of Sound/Video: Klaus Dobbrick

Sound Technician: Michele Gambarara

Video Technician: Dirk Passebosc

Camera1: Andreas Deinert

Camera2: Mathias Klütz

Live Video Cutter: Jens Crull

Video Assistant: CemileSahin

Make-up: Britta Rehm, Sabrina Zorn

Props: Franziska Rommel, Yvonne Schulz

Dressers: Christin Bahro, FranziskaLubnau, Marion Schirra

Translator: Stefan Christ

Technical Production Manager: Jan-Peter Zanetti

Artistic Production Manager: Celina Nicolay

Communication & Tour Coordinator: Rolf Krieg

n About VOLKSBÜHNE AM ROSA-LUXEMBURG-PLATZ

The Volksbühne was built during the years 1913 to 1914 in Berlin’s city centre. The slogan “Art to the people” was engraved on the front of the edifice. “Volksbühne” literally meant that the working classes founded a cultural society and donated their membership subscriptions for theatre productions which, in turn, could be attended by the members of the club at a reduced rate. The idea was that workers - organised and led by the social democrats - should have access to, and participate in, Berlin’s cultural life. As early as 1890, workers could thus afford to visit a theatre offering a contemporary, politically oriented programme, and their membership fees helped to finance their own playhouse.

It was (and still is) here at Volksbühne where the boundaries of the theatre genre were expanded and redefined: the first multi-media theatre production was realised at Berlin’s Volksbühne employing slides and film projections on stage, and Piscator’s idea of a “totalizing theatre” also evolved here, still serving as the quintessential motto for most projects.

Since 1992, Frank Castorf has been the Volksbühne’s Artistic Director.

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