This fall, a heady mix of tragedy and comedy grace stages across the country.

In Berlin, Noël Coward's riotous play about two married women lusting after the same man, Fallen Angels, opens at the English Theatre Berlin (ETB).

In Frankfurt, a cast of lovable steelworkers/strip dancers strut their stuff in The English Theatre Frankfurt’s production of The Full Monty.

Meanwhile, two eccentric old men go head-to-head in the Internationales Theatre Frankfurt’s staging of the Neil Simon masterpiece The Odd Couple.

On the more serious side, the ETB’s highly enjoyable production of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads is back for one more encore in November; famed director Thomas Ostemeier digs back into Ibsen with his staging of John Gabriel Borkmann at Berlin’s Schaubuehne; and Stanley Kowalski begins his hollering in The English Theatre Frankfurt’s A Streetcar Named Desire.


BERLIN

NO LIMITS International Theatre Festival

October 15 – 25, 2009
At the Kulturbrauerei, Ballhaus Ost, Segenskirche and Lychener Str. 20
www.no-limits-festival.de
   
For the fourth time now, Andreas Meder has organized the NO LIMITS theatre festival, a 10 day event that features companies in which mentally challenged artists play an important role and where disabled and non-disabled actors work together at a highly professional level. This year’s festival will present 18 groups from all over the world.  The festival opens with a performance by the Korean dancer and choreographer Namjin Kim that was choreographed with his handicapped brother. Later, artist and political activist Mat Fraser from the UK will deconstruct and inevitably reinterpret traditional definitions of beauty. And the UK Punk band Heavy Load unwittingly rediscover the true meaning of punk; with their film, concert and a political campaign, they declare that people with a learning disability have the right to stay up late and have some fun!

English Theatre Berlin    

http://www.etberlin.de/

Fallen Angels, or Waiting for Maurice by Noël Coward

Noël Coward's brilliant comedy about desperate housewives in London. Julia and Jane are old friends.

Both are comfortably married, both are embarking upon middle age with a little regret and both have a secret past: both have had an affair with a dashing Frenchman named Maurice. Now, Maurice is back in town – and with their husbands safely dispatched to the golf course, Julia and Jane embark upon an evening of alcohol-infused anticipation as they are torn between the realities of comfortable domesticity and their passionate memories of Maurice.

When it first opened in 1925, Coward’s play shocked the press, as two female characters were openly admitting to having a pre-marital affair with the same man.

Fri 25 September (Premiere) / Sat 26 / Wed 30 at 8 pm
Thur 1 October - Sun 4 / Tue 6 - Sun 10 at 8 pm   

The Stanzas Poetry Series with John Hartley Williams and Catherine Hales

In October, Stanzas welcomes two long-time Berlin residents: John Hartley Williams and Catherine Hales.  Both are established members of the Berlin poetry community as poets, educators, and translators.  Alistair Noon will guest host.

Wednesday October 14 at 8pm    

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee
 
The controversial Tony Award winning play from one of America's greatest living playwrights. The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? is a rich, intelligent, radical and well-crafted play that questions and explores the limits of tolerance. In the play, a man is having an affair with a goat. Perceived values are transgressed and love and relationships become the casualties.

Oct 28 / 29 / 30 / 31 / Nov 1 / 12 / 13 / 14 at 8 pm

Talking Heads by Alan Bennett

In an article to celebrate his 75th birthday on May 9th, The Guardian called Alan Bennett "a national treasure." But Bennett, who just recently had a huge bestseller in Germany with his novella, The Uncommon Reader (Die souveräne Leserin), is more than that – he is one of Britain’s greatest writers. Period.
 
Talking Heads is a series of monologues, poignant yet hilarious pieces peeling back the veneer of respectability to revel in – and of course laugh at – the private foibles of everyday life. These tales of loneliness and eccentricity range from hilariously funny to bitingly satirical to poignantly reflective, sometimes all in the same monologue. Alan Bennett wrote the first six pieces in the mid 1980s for BBC-TV, where they became a huge success and received several prestigious awards. More than ten years later, another six monologues followed, and this time Alan Bennett confronted his protagonists with severer problems like murder, child molestation, or a husband who is into S/M. English Theatre Berlin presents three of the later pieces: The Outside Dog, Playing Sandwiches and Nights in the Gardens of Spain.

Check out Expatica's review of the play: Tales from the side of the stage: Alan Bennett’s ‘Talking Heads’

November 4 + 5 + 7 at 8pm / December 11 + 12 at 8pm

David Peace reads from his new novel Tokyo Year Zero

With Tokyo Year Zero, David Peace has turned his gaze towards Japan, his adopted home, and the crimes of a real-life serial killer whose murder of several young geishas terrorised bombed-out Tokyo in 1946. In some ways, the whisky-drinking, pill-popping Detective Minami is a crime-novel staple. It's Tokyo itself, a city caught between rebuilding and a shattered, medieval present, that brings this visceral, hard-boiled story to life. Amid the stagnant canals, gang bosses and smoky brothels, Peace has found an inspired setting for a dank, dark, startling book.

Ekkehard Knörer will host the reading.

Friday November 6 at 8pm     

Äffchen Orange by Anja Scollin

A colourful bi-lingual play for young children (3+) with acrobatics, magic and songs. There’s an orange coloured monkey, an orange coloured apartment and a magician whose favourite colour is orange. Celina, the magician, is desperate because she never knows where Tilly the monkey is. Also, Tilly only reacts when Celina speaks to her in English. Celina magically turns Tilly’s fur green. Now there’s a green monkey playing in a green garden.
 
November 8 at 4 pm / November 20 at 10:30 am / November 22 at 4 pm / December 20 at 4 pm

Thread-Bear featuring Kayla Lorette and Kevin Gillese

The improv wizards from Canada are back for yet another great show! Thread-Bear focuses on the relationship between two characters and their personal stories. Developed over two seasons in Edmonton, it finds the comedy in our most human, dramatic moments. The show originally toured with Kurt Smeaton in Europe last season and was an absolute hit. Per Gottfredsson, artistic director of Stockholm’s Improvisationsteater said: "it takes improvised theatre to another level."

November 19 + 20 + 21 at 8pm     
 
Moonshot Tape by Lanford Wilson

Having come home to visit her mother who has been placed in a nursing home, Diane, now a well-known writer, is being interviewed for the local newspaper. Her remarks are an answer to such questions as where she gets the ideas for her stories; whether her youth in Mountain Grove influenced her work; and why she decided to leave home. At first obliging and matter-of-fact, Diane gradually begins to reveal more than her questioner might have bargained for: a childhood marred by the loss of her father and her mother’s coldness; the promiscuity which she was driven to in search of the love and concern which were denied her at home; and, most devastating of all, the molestation by her stepfather which shaped her character indelibly - and led to the harrowing event which she describes at the end. To the world at large Diane is someone who has shaken off the dust of Mountain Grove and has gone on to bigger and better things. To herself, however, it is painfully clear that what she is what her earlier life ordained - because no one ever really leaves the place from which they came.

December 3 + 4 + 7 at 8pm

Land Without Words by Dea Loher

War meets art in this intimate parable. A painter immerses herself in the creation of a real experience with the perfect image. But in K., a Middle Eastern city, the real images outshine and overshadow everything. She is shaken by the experiences of the effects of war, violence and poverty, impossible to depict. Now, forced to confront her lifelong beliefs in the value of art, she also questions how to deal with her position in the world today.

Written with an astonishing sense of immediacy and the dry wit of someone being thrown into an unknown world, this is a powerful piece of poetic realism from one of Europe’s most original, prolific and challenging voices

December 3 + 4 + 6 at 8pm

F40 -  Theater Thikwa

http://www.thikwa.de/home/index.html

Brennendes Pferd / Burning Horse - Waslaw Nijinski, fragments of his life by Elfi Mikesch

Inspired by the life of the extraordinary dancer and choreographer Waslaw Nijinski, award-winning filmmaker and director of photography Elfi Mikesch created a kaleidoscopic play about love and pain, jealousy, lunacy and death. Figures from ballets like Petrushka and The Nutcracker interact with figures from his life. Out comes an overwhelming balancing act between human tragedy and humour.

See the rehearsals as a part of the 24 hours documentary 24h Berlin, broadcasted by Arte and RBB on September 5th, showing one day of Berlin life one year before.

Sun 6 / Mon 7 / Thu 10 - Sun 13 / Wed 16 - Sun 20 September at 8pm

Schaubuehne

www.schaubuehne.de

Once a month, the well-known German director Thomas Ostemeier presents one of his notable productions with English surtitles. While some might think it is distracting, they actually take very little away from the power of the plays. Other productions are also shown in English or with surtitles.

John Gabriel Borkmann by Henrik Ibsen

The banker John Gabriel Borkman has not left his first-floor apartment since he was released from prison. During the night he will sometimes slip quietly down the stairs, but he never ventures past the main door, where he stops, reflects, and eventually returns to his self-imposed imprisonment.

Ibsen’s 1896 work is the portrait of a man obsessed with power and fascinated by the ability of money to shape the world. His own personal gains are actually secondary to him, though; rather, he thinks in broad strokes about human progress. He is willing to walk over corpses, if need be , and to sacrifice his own love. He honours money as if it were a force of nature, which exists above human law and order. Ibsen describes the comet-like rise and fall of a man, as well as the crater left behind after impact: that of torn-up lives and human devastation. There is, however, a desperate hope remaining: that the next generation can set everything right.

September 19 – 21 at 8 pm

Dritte Generation

A work in progress
In German, Arabic, Hebrew and English, with German surtitles
Direction: Yael Ronen | Dramaturgy: Amit Epstein, Irina Szodruch
With: Knut Berger, Niels Bormann, Karsten Dahlem, Ishay Golan, George Iskandar, Orit Nahmias, Rawda, Ayelet Robinson, Judith Strößenreuter, Yousef Sweid

In Dritte Generation, Israeli playwright and director Yael Ronen, together with her team and a company of Israeli, German and Palestinian actors analyses the Gordian Knot that characterizes these three nations. The participants come from very different family backgrounds. Some come from families where relatives were born on opposite sides of the divided Germany, or are either Muslim or Christian Palestinians who have Israeli passports and live in Haifa or Tel Aviv, or come from Jewish families with different origins – from Europe, the Middle East or North Africa.

As well as discussing the Here and Now, there will be a focus on those years that lay down the roots of our ideas about ourselves today. Concepts like memory, guilt, what makes a victimizer and what makes a victim, and what those concepts mean to us now, both in their public and private use, will be scrutinized. This will not be about competing national founding myths, but an attempt to comprehend the foundations upon which our personal identity is based within a particular national context.

September 28 – 30 / October 1 – 4 at 9 pm

State of Emergency by Falk Richter

A woman and her husband: they have finally made it. They live in a secure neighbourhood. But the threat of the unsafe outside world, and the fear of socio-economic collapse have penetrated the marriage and the family. If either partner lost their job, the family would be booted from their gated community. Living in fear. Even the son or the suspicious husband might be an enemy, an agent who might betray the secure home. One night a conversation on the relationship with the weak paterfamilias turns into an interrogation and evolves into a duel. In State of Emergency, Falk Richter condenses the insecurities of a threatened family into a dystopian criminal thriller. In a claustrophobic chamber piece the feelings, observations and suspicions of the married couple escalate into an entangled mess. Facts and fantasies about one another oscillate wildly and lead to a new reality: fear. A nightmare from which there is no awakening. The gated community’s protective fence has become an interior prison, from which there seems to be no escape: a metaphor on western society’s affluence and fear of loss.

October 7 at 8:30 pm



FRANKFURT

The English Theatre Frankfurt

http://english-theatre.org/

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play explores the extremes of fantasy versus reality, the Old South versus the New South, and primitive desire versus civilized restraint. The play begins when faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans to stay with her sister, Stella, and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley. She is immediately drawn into a battle of wills with Stanley for the heart and mind of Stella, and her self-deceptive illusions turn to madness when confronted with his savagery and the realities of life.    

Playing from 5th September 2009

The Full Monty a musical with a book by Terrence McNally and score by David Yazbek

Desperate for money, six unemployed steelworkers go to great lengths to make some cash and help out a friend in trouble. When the Chippendale revue at the local pub – whose dancers venture down to their G-strings – is a hit with the local women, the group decides to do their own strip-tease act. But in order to beat the professionals they will have to go one further – by baring it all and showing the “full monty.” Will they? Won’t they? Can they keep their antics from their families? Can they draw a crowd? All will be revealed – or will it?

Playing from 6th November 2009

Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre - English theatre in the Rhine-Main region

http://www.festfrankfurt.org/

Cinderella the Panto directed by Kevin Oakes

Everybody knows the story of Cinderella and her Prince, the evil Stepmother and her - uhm... 'daughters'.... but is this what really happened? Or did the Brothers Grimm get it all wrong? Did they consciously decide to hush up the singing & the dancing & the soccer.... And was the Glass Slipper really... well, a slipper? Find out the true story only a Panto can tell...

November 27 + 28 + 29 / December 4 + 5 + 6 + 11 + 12

Internationales Theatre Frankfurt

www.itf-frankfurt.de/th_engl.htm

Ghumayee by Balwant Thakur

Ghumayee is a play based on Dogri folktale about a struggle for water. Full of music, rhythm and interesting visuals, the play speaks across language barriers.

September 30 at 8 pm

Tales and Music with Richard Martin

An evening like no other. At last, storytelling for adults! I’ll tell you a tale  – and the magical journey begins. Richard Martin needs nothing but his voice to fascinate and enthral the listeners with his tales. The stories he tells are trickster tales, fairy tales, wonder tales and jokes. They are comic, they are witty, and they are profound. They are stories to make you laugh, stories to move you with beauty and truth. They are centuries old and from around the world. Richard’s performance recalls the ancient culture of the storyteller, the weaver of fantasy, and the spellbinder. Most of the audience are not native speakers. Within minutes the age-old power of the storyteller takes them into a world of imagination in which they understand far more than they thought possible.  And between the tales Vera plays her wonderful music: a perfect combination. After telling throughout Europe, Asia and America, a “must” for all who love English!  Visit www.tellatale.eu to read more, and already listen to some tales (try Parrot’s Prayer, one of his funniest)

October 9 at 8 pm

The Odd Couple by Neil Simon

This Classic comedy opens with a group of guys assembling for cards in the apartment of divorced Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it’s no wonder that his wife left him. Late to arrive is Felix Ungar who has just been separated from his wife.  Since he is very fastidious and none too tense, they fear he might commit suicide and go about locking all the windows.  When Felix arrives, he is scarcely allowed to go to the bathroom alone. As the action unfolds, the clean freak and the slob ultimately decide to room together with hilarious results as the ‘odd couple’ is born.

November 12 – 14 at 8 pm

The Gentle Sisters by Stewart Booth

Stewart Booth’s latest play introduces an all-female cast. On a warm evening in June, Vicky is waiting at home for her friends from the local amateur dramatics group to arrive. The wine’s been chilled; finger food at the ready, and she’s feeling quite pleased with herself. She’s managed to find two new actresses for the production they’ll be doing in autumn at the local theatre.  One of them being a German girl, newly introduced to the group. When she announces that the professional actress, Kate Taunton, is to possibly take part, there is a buzz of excitement in the room. However, not all of the six women react in the same way. In this touching drama, the fate of the ladies is intertwined with deep-seated consequences.

December 3 – December 5 / December 10 – 12 at 8 pm

HAMBURG

The English Theatre of Hamburg

http://www.englishtheatre.de

Quartet by Ronald Harwood

Written by one of Britain's most acclaimed dramatists, this amusing play had a sell-out season in London's West End in 1999. The setting is a home for retired opera singers, where the motto is "NSP" -- "No Self Pity." Each year the residents put on a concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday. Cecily, Reggie and Wilfred are trying to decide what to perform, when Jean, a former colleague who was married briefly to Reggie, takes up residence at the home. Her arrival sparks old jealousies and painful memories. It also means that the four of them could recreate in concert their former stage triumph -- the famous quartet from Rigoletto! But Jean, a diva embittered by age and her reduced status, refuses to sing. Can they change her mind? More to the point, are they still able to raise their voices in song?

Premiere on 10 September, 2009; Final Performance on 14 November, 2009

Birthday Suite by Robin Hawdon

Geoff has arranged a special birthday treat for his old friend Bob whose marriage is on the rocks. The treat is a hotel room for the night, complete with champagne, a double bed and a very attractive girl called Mimi. Arriving at the hotel, Bob discovers Kate in his room and assumes she is Mimi. The shy Kate thinks Bob is her date from a computer-dating agency. The confusion continues with the arrival of an amorous psychiatrist as well as Bob's wife, who believes she is dining with Geoff. The whole mix-up is due to a highly excitable Italian waiter, who shows everybody to the wrong rooms and then makes matters worse by trying to correct his mistakes. An evening of delicious and uproarious fun, this comedy-farce has enjoyed tremendous success all over the world.

Premiere on 26 November, 2009; Final Performance on 13 February, 2010

Hamburg Players    

http://www.hamburgplayers.de

Christmas is a time of cheer and joy, but not for penny-pinching old Ebenezer Scrooge. Over the years his heart has turned to stone. The only thing that counts is his money – never waste a penny, and certainly not on the poor! Song and dance? Bah, humbug! But then a chilling thing happens – the tormented ghost of his old partner Jacob Marley comes back to warn him of what lies in store unless he changes his ways. That night, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-to-Come call to haunt Mr. Scrooge. They remind him of who he once was, confront him with the realities and hardships of the present, and reveal his personal fate if he stays hard-hearted. Can Scrooge be moved to a change of spirit? Set in Victorian times, and with live music, folk dance and song,
A Christmas Carol tells a timeless heart-warming tale of humanity and the true spirit of
Christmas.

November 11 – 14 / 18 – 21

Expatica
September 2009