Projections layered over each other on stage, a person plays the french horn
photo credit Koen Broos
Past Event
Theatre

The Making of Berlin

BERLIN/Yves Degryse (Belgium)
3 performances between Fri 10 & Sat 11 May 2024
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Film, theatre and live music combine in an extraordinary portrait of a city. 'a clever play on fact and fiction, documentary theatre and music. [It] confronts you with fundamental questions about how we inject meaning into everyday life by fabricating stories.' De Morgen

The Making of Berlin sees the innovative Belgian theatre and filmmakers attempt to fulfil the dream of Friedrich Mohr, a former employee of the Berliner Philharmonika orchestra who, towards the end of the Second World War, was involved in an audacious scheme: to present a live radio broadcast of Wagner's Götterdämmerung from seven separate bunkers across the city. 

As BERLIN work with Mohr to try and restage this undertaking, followed by a documentary maker who is tracking their progress, they come to realise that the story is not as straightforward as it seems. Instead it reveals itself to be about one of the 'unbrave' who failed to stand up for his colleagues when it counted. How far could they-or should they-support his version of the truth as an old man seeks atonement? 

This is the UK premiere of The Making of Berlin, described by de Standaard as ‘overwhelming from start to finish’ and one of its top ten productions of the year.

'A feast of confusion.'
Jowi Schmitz in Trouw
'an overwhelming and poignant ode to the power of stories and how they can lift people above themselves and bring them together'
Natalie Gielen for Etcetera
'Wonderful how beauty can turn everything upside down.'
Tuur Devens for Theaterkrant
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Credits

Co-producers: DE SINGEL, le CENTQUATRE, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, C-TAKT, Theaterfestival Boulevard and Berliner Festspiele. Supported by the Flemish Government. Sabam for Culture, Tax Shelter of the Belgian federal government via Flanders Tax Shelter.

Supported by: