 Welcome everybody back here to Segal Talks at the Martin D. Segal Theater Center, the Graduate Center CUNY in Midtown Manhattan. It's kind of a grayish colder day here in November and those wonderful sunny days after the election are gone and the country is still in turmoil. But we do think there is again a light at the end of the tunnel and I think that democratic forces here did prevail. I do think that the contribution of the arts are important, have been important and will be important. And to show that theater especially and performance can be a place where we can reflect the complexities of this life that we are living right now in the 21st century, that it helps us to know where we come from, where we are, where we are going to and that it helps to create meaning and to make us comfortable. So it's coming ahead in the future and also be part of shaping it. We have spoken to so many artists since March, theater artists, to hear their own experience of the COVID crisis and now we also move on to this castlist theater and the political performance and the political but also dedicated series two. Theater of the Real last week and this week will be the idea of the dramaturgy and the new dramaturgy and also the multifaceted parts of that field that is significant, that is growing and also very, very much connected to the single center and also hear the PhD program at the Graduate Center at CUNY. And with us today, we have a dramaturge from a theater that really was legendary, still is, but especially at the time when he was there. This is Sebastian Kaiser from Berlin. Sebastian, welcome. Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, thank you. He was part of the Volksbrüne at the Rosa Luxemburg Platz in Berlin. It became an iconic theater at a time of change and time after change after the opening of the wall. It created a unique theater and it was part of the engine of change and defining actually also almost an aesthetic of the city, but also was a place that thinking of experimenting, collaborating and open access discussions and many, many things around and Sebastian who actually also is born or was born in East Berlin. I was working there in over 30 productions, three zero, with Frank Kastoff, who put his imprint, I think, on this time post opening of the wall and also this Vigat Winger and Ida Möller, also have been at the Siegel, great, great theater artists and so many, many others. There has been influence around the world. The style of the Volksbrüne has been as significant in a way for the digress. Maybe the Beatles or the Rolling Stones were kind of a contemporary, also political theater, also really polished work came out at that time. So he curated also large political and artistic events, for example the Africa Conference, 130 years of the Berlinization of the continent and he cooperated in funding the movement, DM25, if I say it right, he was artistic director of an international festival, the Balakava Odyssey and now he also collaborates and works in China. He has deep ties to the Soviet Union, also through his marriage or the former parts of the Soviet Union Ukraine and he has studied music and theater at Leipzig. I don't know, he has taught at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Music and Theater School in Leipzig and then also he is one of the workers in the great field of theater and in dramaturgy. And I have many questions for him and to know what part really did theater play after that big time of change, something which we feel we are experiencing now in the US and North America. And so I would like to know from him what was it really like, what was the contribution of the theater to the city and also his work as a dramaturg. How does he define it? So, Sebastian first, thank you for joining us, for being with us. Where are you and what time is it? I'm there, I was born actually, so I'm in the part of Berlin which was formerly Berlin, so I'm living here not far away from the location and the district where I was born. It's six o'clock, six p.m. in the night and it's a lousy November day city is in a so-called light lockdown and the leaves are falling, so to have a walk now outside what is still possible, so it's not possible to enter a theater, it's not possible to go to a restaurant, but it's possible at least to have a walk outside, but this is in this November months. It can be a bit depressive. Yeah, I mean it's these famous days when at 3.34 o'clock it gets dark in the afternoon. Right, it's around 4 o'clock it gets dark already. So there is a lockdown at the moment? They don't call it lockdown, they call it lockdown light. Lockdown light means especially so that the people who are working in the companies and in the companies say are forced to go to home office to work at home, but the main target of this lockdown light is actually the public space or the culture institutions. The stores are closed, all opera houses are closed, the restaurants are closed, but at least we can go out so the stores are open and it's not so hard or so tough like it is for instance in Italy or in France where we cannot go to the street, so this is no problem to move and to walk outside. And of course it's limited the groups and the people with whom you are allowed to meet on the street, this is limited, so this is lockdown light, but churches are open for instance and this is possible to go ahead with the religion. Yeah, you said there was an opening of a cast of production, I think 50 people were allowed and had to be far away, but churches are open, it's still kind of puzzling, you know, all the rules. Right, yeah, Frank Kastafal, a premier with the opera in Munich, the opera house has a capacity of more than 2000 people, and for the premier 50 people were allowed. But the churches at least at that moment were open, so they also see the priority, also lockdowns and lockdowns have priorities and in that case it's not the god of the opera, but it's the god in heaven. Incredible, so Sebastian, tell us a little bit, I mean not everybody knows, tell us a little bit about the Volksprinibolene, about the cedar where you were and about your work. I mean, don't forget that I started to work, they are not of course in the 90s because I'm too young for this, I started to work there in 2008 or 2009. So actually my entire theater education I got from Volksprinibolene, because you must imagine the very special time in the 1899, when the two political ideological blocks, so communism and the rest of the self identity, free world, when they came to came together, so we're divided in the entire world, but in Berlin they were especially divided in one city, and then you had the wall in the city. And the wall was taken out of the historical chessboard overnight. And then, of course, you have a certain clash of these big blocks, the clash of two narratives, of two logics, of two languages, even if we're speaking the same language in Berlin, German, of course. There were different political languages that were used, different attitudes to go to the public space to talk and to communicate, and this was an extremely intense time when these two political blocks clashed. And Volksprinibolene was in the situation that, let's say, in this vacuum, which was created in the 90s, in the early 90s, by the clash of these blocks, that some very, very special spaces emerged. You can call it heterotopic spaces where things were possible to say, to try and to experiment, which were not possible in that way, not in the former east block, not even in the free west theaters before. And as far as I'm from the east side, the destabilization in these times, the political destabilization, but also in the biographies because the majority of the people, of the parents, for instance, from the classmates or from my fellows in school, they lost their jobs in these months and in these years, early 90s, and there was a big destabilization and the need to look and to find a new orientation. And the language to do it was everywhere limited. So it was limited in the family, it was limited in the school, it was limited later in the university. And in that frame, the folk screen plates that absolutely unique role in the 90s, and especially then beginning with a barricadeship of Frank Astof and his dramaturgic routine around Matthias Liedlenthal and Karl Hegema. So they created a very special theater, which was always more than a theater. So on the one hand, of course, they offer performances with very different styles and aesthetic. So like Frank Astof did it, who was interpreting a classical drama text but integrating to these drama texts and performances, always some contemporary questions. There was Christoph Schlingsef with his performances, which were always crashing and smashing the borders of the theater. So actually, as an ancestor of Josef Bois and as an ancestor, sitting on the shoulders maybe of Josef Bois, he created performances which you can perceive as social structures. There was Christoph Martala with his philosophy of slowness and so on. So the way he shows, but beside this, there were also always discussions, rock concerts on the, on the, or the Luxembourg Square where the folk screener is located. So actually, you could go every day to the theater and every day you've got a new spirit there in performances and in the, in the theater show on the one hand, but also in philosophical discussions in a concert in just maybe in some personal meetings in the, in the canteen. There was also folk screener, which was in this heterotopic, heterotopic space of the theater, maybe one more exclusive heterotopic space in the canteen. This was, you know, really electrifying, I think, German theater, Western theater knew it was a new, new pulse giving inspirations. The folk screener means the theater of the people, almost like something like public theater, as we could call it here. It also has a long history, right, maybe tell us a little. So the special thing with the folk screener is that it was not like normally the theaters in the, in the West and Western Europe, they were not erected and established by the order of a king or by the decision of a government or of the city council or something like that. But it was a result, the building of the house was a result of so-called workers movement and theater movement. So in the 19th century, you must imagine the situation in Germany was a situation where you still had censorship and all these authors, which are now so classical to us, for instance, Gerhard Hopper, or also parts of the place of Henry Gibson, they were simply forbidden. And there's a trick in the, in the, in the German law system that you can organize something what you can, what you can call a closed society. Yeah, the closed society. And for instance, not institutions, but registered societies, registered unions, and they can organize those events in a closed society. And so you could become a member of the theater movement and of this labor, labor movement. And by doing so, you had the right to go to those and to join those shows and performances which were offered by the theater society. You could just join them. And by that, you could avoid the censorship. And that movement existed for for for a pretty long time. So for some decades, and it had enormous amount of members. So when we see today is this amount of people, it was something like 100,000 only in Berlin. After, after some decades, it was a wish also to build an own theater. And there is a story about that. So then, with each show, the theater movement was presenting and showing the visitors and the audience had to donate and caution. So 10 cents. And the workers crossing to erect this theater, which opened then in 1915, I think 1914, 1915. So it existed for more than 100 years. So very special conditions as a, as a, as an explicit working theater, this house was was funded. It was a special history that workers, you know, so that system of subscription created the own theater. And it was possible to have it almost like this theater in Switzerland during the World War II, when Brecht went to work. And also thanks to drama talk, you know, which was owned privately, it was most probably the only three theater in the German speaking countries to be able to play the plays they wanted from France also and from America in the time of the war, so the folks doing they had a great history. I think also in front of it, you know, the Nazis had their, had their parades and their troops. So it's an incredible, significant place in Berlin and for Germany. And after the opening of the wall, that theater became like a crystal diamond where more light was coming out, perhaps even was put in. So you were a drama talk there and you joined that theater. What was the job of the German? What did you think was this the job of a drama talk or was the job at that time of change? It's of change. So I was much later. I was not in this time. It was so part of that. So what was that job? What did the drama talk do at the under customers and but there's also always this what my mother was asking me and I never found the real proper answer to this in general, general to answer general is a question what what the grass talk customer what drama talk is doing. I would maybe answer it to someone who wants to direct it by himself, but it's not talented enough or brave enough to be to be a director. So it's becoming drama talk. Seriously speaking, the sort of function in the contemporary theater of drama talk you can describe actually on two fields. On the one hand, he is developing together or without the director, he's developing the concept of a show. He's searching for certain certain interpretation. For instance, when you're doing a classical text, then you just can stage it like this written or you tried to find interpretation, which is touching you in a certain way. So you read the text, and you try to find out from this reading and interpretation and the perspective, which might be interesting to you to the director to the actors and later also to an audience you're doing. In this case, you help to create the text version of this, but this is the classical job of the German theater as it exists maybe enough for me for 100 years. But in the last time it became more and more urgent because also the theaters changed. The books started to work like curators or that they participated in the creation of the artistic program of the house besides the immediate theater shows. And this has a tradition in folk sprinter, which goes even to the late even to the to the 70s under the directorship of Beno Besson. The first so called spectacles were organized spectacles and that time that meant that you do not show in one evening just one show but that's a house for some hours for seven, eight hours, maybe even for an entire day or the entire night is completely full with different offers of of theater shows and the theater shows also happening parallel and that's audience is moving through the house and can create beside watching one show can create also your own story of each evening. And what I was doing then 40 years later after this when those spectacles were organized by Besson and his team was to to create and to curate political artistic events, so events which were always on the edge so the political and to look for for a certain topic and to use the entire house of the folks to create such as perspective for two, three days. This is also a work of the drama talk, but this is a work which is then more similar to a work of creative. Tell us which example those two or three days of engagement to give us an idea of a theme. For instance, this is what you quoted already in your introduction was an event what we called this was organized in 2015, what we called after conference Berlinization of the continent, and that was dedicated to the African conference which took place in 1885 in Berlin in the old rice consulate and where the leaders of the European countries came together and actually made the distinction of Africa and fixed the borders of an entire continent, which is still valid. And yeah, this kind of, I mean when we hear now Berlin. So we always think oh this is this party capital and so on. And when the Germans talk about the histories and we always confess of course good there was he's very bad and even Nazi time, but that's it we don't want to go deeper to history because the burden of the fascism is already enough on the shoulders of the Germans, but the entire colonization and the role which Germany played in it is still I would say, won't, which is not enough opened and open on the on the table to bring it really to a to a conscience of people in Germany. And so this was our aim or target to objective of this event to take the scene of the African conference to invite artists from African countries, and to discuss the topic of this historical event on the one hand, but also of the continuity. Then, yeah, because there are certain certain thinking was set up in the 19th century and in the colonization, which later than in the Nazi time, for instance, came up again. And yeah, so first we had to see we had an idea we had the complex to discuss, and then we went ahead to invite artists from a lot of African African countries from Ghana from my desk from from Kenya, and so on. But also theoreticians, also from from from Africa, but also from Germany from France and to discuss the Berlin conference and it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's consequences in the 1020 century. Hmm. So in your with your work, let's say you work with you know castro from on the play, let's say it does to yes key adaptation of whatever and then you organize is when was that half and half of your work you were half involved in productions half you organized events you get created a space for representing the complexity of the lives we live in and showing the structures over centuries that have created it. So how, what is the percentage of time you spend on what we would call a traditional production and what we would you said the curators work, which is an interesting combination the dramatical curator or the curator drama torque the dramaturgy of curation, the curation of drama to a G so what are the, how was that distributed. So it's actually difficult to answer because actually the full time full time job is already just to be in the productions. So to do the rest, at least for me it was a bit like like the hobby in the, in the in the afternoon in the night. Besides, besides the production work so the production we did a lot of production I was involved in a lot of production also, I also must say with a very different intensity. So, from customers also brilliant drama talk by himself maybe the best drama talk and, at least in Germany. But, at least, it was always also okay for him and also for the for the team of the house to make something besides the original original Seattle Seattle. These conferences was where one thing but we organized them also political events and also for from customers those things were just important that they appear in the house that you have besides the artistic programs that you also have always that kind of political programs. So did people come let's say to your Africa, people how many people how many speakers did you how many people came. I forgot I mean this, the house was full I forgot how many days it was two days or three days I think it was three days. And it was full I think three 4000 people something something like that I don't have to complete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you have the capacity of the of the main hall which has around capacity for 1000 people, but the theater was open during the entire days and so we started with the performances, also in the small when use of the house at noon, for instance. And then of course you do have a certain time, you then only have 1500 or 2000 people in the house, but during these two three days and you have 4000 people, maybe, which are, which attending such an such an event. And, yeah, folks is not only the main hall and the main stage, which is huge but it has server, plenty of smaller venues. It has big for you which can, can be used for for artistic, artistic shows. It has container. We also opened the, the part of the house which is actually just for for administration purposes so where you have offices and so on. And by opening the house in this way you of course you create also for the audience always a very special event, just that you can move as you want in these caves and in these tunnels and in the basement of the house and to discover new locations and by discovering new locations you're also always discovering new topics and new, new, new artists and new artistic performances. And so the audience in a way used the house performed the role of the audience member in the house and did they have to pay was it open free. What was the No, it's like always unfortunately we are it's very difficult we always wanted to make those events free and also the political events. This is a bit tricky with with the German law. The entry fee but this was very, very moderate. So I don't remember how exactly this was. I see 10 euros maybe or 15 euros. So this was very moderate fee. I must say also not only that the folks bring us a city run theater has of course subsidized subsidies subsidies of the city for those event events we also ask for the special money in that case to the federal culture foundation who also founded this project with a certain amount of money. I'm Sebastian for you just and I'm just to ask to speak for you. What do you think what is what is the work of what should it be about your definition. I mean, maybe this is now an epilogue also maybe I will never work again as a drama as a drama talk. I will deal just with other things. I never learned it in that way I never got an education as drama talk so therefore I don't have a formula for this everybody must somehow find out what it is or what he can do as a drama talk. So I came to this to this job or to this position as a drama talk, actually on the way, which went far away so I was doing together with with a friend, a huge artistic event in a military former military bunker in, in Crimea, towers mountain. In Crimea in Ukraine so till 14 100% Ukraine and then all these events after was 2014 shakes the situation. Very, very heavy but of course projects is in those international projects only were possible before 2014 after that simply not possible first project was in 2006 and the other was in 2010. And that was for me actually the most intense experience to work as a curator or as a drama talk but you cannot learn it because I visited that place as a together with a friend shortly after the last military unit shortly after the last submarine went out of this marvelous bay, Valaclava close to Ceos Doppel in Crimea, and I just had to walk together with the director from Moscow in this, in this former military town. We hired a fisherman or fisherman brought us on a on a little boat in this now abandoned bunker for submarines, which is located exactly in the towers mountain. We have the entire Greek mythology of Virginia on towers and so on. That place was closed as a military town to the, to the late 90s. And this was for me such a gift to be in the right moment. It's the right place and to have together with the director from, from, from Moscow. The idea. Yeah, let's do a cultural answer. Let's create something in this towers mountain let's integrate the people who worked in this in this bunker let's integrate the people from the inhabitants from this little former military bay in an artistic project and to try to create something culturally in a location on location which was before this only used for military purposes. And by doing so so this was actually this was making art in real time of, of the change of an entire city. And this artistic project and really had an immediate impact actually, at least in a short period. The change of this very, very special culture place in the south of of Crimea. And by doing so I learning by doing and doing so I just got the ability to write a concept to write an application to two foundations. And by no foundation, no government, not from the Ukrainian not from the Russian side gave any money to this project. So this was really just a strength of this location and of this place to go ahead with this project and to formulate something. And by doing so then somehow you've got a certain ability to create and to produce artistic events. And this was maybe then the button to continue it then also in. But I must say before I did this I already worked as I made it into an already in 98 and work as a system in folks bring already in the 90s. So these Ukrainian things and Crimean things. This was even after my first experience. Hmm. So you created performances talks, gatherings in the in the Crimea. And then people. You heard about the bunker inside inside the bunker in the dark room in a black box giant with giant water channel of 400 meters bunker which had to be an atomic which could be an atomic attack with facilities where torpedoes where were built with an everything underground underground but with water. So actually this is a big cathedral, which talks a lot about the was impossible to take it away you cannot I mean it's a bit like with with tribunes from the Nazis in Nuremberg or even in Germany. When after the war, there was a, there was an intention to take it away and to destroy it to get rid off of these monuments of the Nazi time, but these things were simply too heavy. It's impossible to destroy it so that you have still these tribunes and, and so on from the Nazis and it's a bit the same with this military facilities from the Cold War, which were built in this obsession of a potential atomic attack, and which serve now actually as like like monuments or cathedrals or ruins of a certain period of time. Of time, and then you in a way went to that cathedral of the of the folks we also that was built before and completely other time, perhaps you know for a subscription system that in that way also didn't exist anymore with workers. And do you, as a dramaturg, what was your aim, what did you feel you and cast off and everybody, what was the, what did you wanted to bring to the city of Berlin, what was the idea of the folks. I mean, I cannot speak about the entire idea that was not sitting there at a table and thinking which which product we want to create. Actually, this was liberal in a sense that everybody participated just in this project of folks winner and put it put it in in this project, its own ideas from cast of made his shows, and at least for the shows I can describe the target as something to make the things more complex. If you quote it when you said, for instance, when you staged the show, then of course you just do it in a regular way you're reading the text you're figuring out which who can play which role, and so on but this was somehow not enough, and we tried always to go to a certain time in that case to the time of the 19th century, and to stack into put even more content in it to draw a more complex pictures and even the novel is the one is, for instance, in the one show gambler we created in the in the house we found out there are some political writings of Dostoevsky, how he's dreaming about colonizing Asia, how he is thinking that Constantinople must be opened, must be reopened again as a certain Roman Roman city to Byzantium to St. to the south and so on. And then we took those political texts and tried, beside just staging gambler and tried to write to draw a broader picture of an, of an entire time of a period, which is maybe then, yeah, which we have to to to decode it in a different way, so we have to decode it just just but concerning the house I mean there were so many so many artists I was just a very, very little piece in this. There are so many brilliant artists beside from custody, sonographer, of course, that Norman, who developed even when he made a set design. This was also half of the drama touch a concept already, yeah, when he made the set design for instance, for the game of for brother, Karamazov, the actors put it in their their impact heads ideas for the shows so beside this that's a house of course in a very classical and even not so sympathetic way was hierarchical organized. It always gives a free space to the artist to participate in it and to develop there in a pretty radical way. Actually, they are their own wishes and projects and folks bring a was a addition of all this of all these pieces. Yeah, no, it was an extraordinary or still is and by the dead time an extraordinary place in a way also like a show been a defined a way of the they also like two different, you know, families to construction sites they maybe didn't overlap too much but for that, especially for Isabel and the work of the folks Boone was was was shining a defined in a way also the image of Boone. I think, you know, just to remind Bert Neumann who used that he created the logos for the folks Boone, which reflected the Lebensgefühl, the feel of living in building the aesthetics, an entire city saw itself reflected also in that change of a theater at once used to be the workers theater you know then was part of the Nazi regime that it was a communist that the communist is German government and now open up to the rest of all the open rules and all the open strains of history, the circles, you know, where it came together there. And it is inspiring to hear that you say it was such an open place where people got together and that did their things and it's true very different. I like very much what you said about the drama talk I never learned that nobody perhaps also one cannot learn it. And so that you learned it by by doing so which of the shows you felt you were connected most when you worked at the folks which is the one you actually this where the shows, which dealt with the very, very precise history of the location even of folks. So one of my absolutely favorite shows was Kaufmann from Berlin, the merchant of Berlin by like I'm hearing an expressionist writer from the from the 20s. And he was writing for a cabaret cabaret as well. And Piscata staged the show already not in fox but it was already when he was kicked out as an artistic director in the late 20s. He was in the Piscata stage at Noelnorfplatz I think in 29. And that show and that play of mirroring deals with concrete location was a place where folks bring it is located, let's say in this trial of Alexanderplatz, which you have. And Alexanderplatz in that time as Dublin writes about it. Yeah, in his, in his novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, yeah, full with criminals, the depraved people. This was Karl Marx, what describes a loop proletariat, which collected around the Alexander, Alexanderplatz proletarians. On the other hand, the Jewish quarter, which was to the Nazis came to power, just on the opposite of, you know, Grinadierstraße Hürtenstraße there. So the entire Jewish life of the immigrants and refugees who fled and escaped from the October revolution in 1917 from the from the Eastern countries from Ukraine from from from Russian Empire, but also from white Russia from South Poland from Russia, they settled down to poor refugees, they settled down in Rosalucsenburg in this area, which is now around Rosalucsenburg Square Square, Püloplatz at that time. And the immediate neighbor of the Foxburner is former headquarter of the Communist Party. And Piscata was a member of the Communist Party. And it was also his intention to make agitation in the sense of Marx imagined it to create a conscience of the people and of the proletarians for certain for their for their working and living condition, maybe to unite them later and create revolutionary subjects out of them. And a meeting is taking these different influences from the concrete location of Rosalucsenburg Platz is shaking this together. He's writing actually like taking a camera and going around to all this different different place to the Jewish community to the to the Alexander Platz said always cut cut cut cut this fast expressionist writing. This was actually one of my my my most favorite shows this is of your voice played the main main role played the merchant of Berlin in this. Yeah, but it's also because it was so precise and historical and dealing with this concrete location of Yeah, no truly they had their own still have or have been mostly had their own so lots of cast of productions were famous for the length of it for a stage design that could basically never leave the state of the folks when it was too complicated to assemble disassemble somewhere else that was really specific and just made for that theater for that time in that place I also remember you when you once came to the Segal and talked about your work. You know that he had a unique work of videotaping rehearsals or something this is radically different approach of creating a piece on on the stage if you know which is also in a way a drama to a jiggle idea maybe tell us a bit about that what you mean about the working style of from cast of. Yeah, so that he which is you know part of that aesthetic of the folks going to the land but he created his work, you know, I think it's not so known. You mean that he used also camera and in the shows and that video was a was a big part in this. Often they would be one rehearsal or two forces I don't know if this is this is the thing I mean that it's also a question how you keep a see at the vital. And how you you bring a certain idea and energy which you have in a rehearsal stage and in the in the rehearsal situation, how you bring it then really also in the shows to the stage and the answer from cast of his special working style is this that actually each scene, it's drawn or it's drawn as a draft actually only once. Yeah, so he's improvising together with with with actors on the basis of his preparation. He's improvising each scene only once. And then it's an enormous work for the assistants as well, then in the shows to fix everything to write it down all the rehearsals are recorded with with cameras and then the assistants they made night shifts and they try to fix everything like in a script for like in a film script. And then this first trip is handed to the, to the actors, and the actors learn it then till actually the primary, because there's never actually the time for for for one through. This is a very brutal method because the springs, especially the actors, of course, to the edge of this what is just physically possible to do stage to memorize these enormous masses of texts. And once I understand you have the novel of Karamazov for instance is to 1400 pages, and there's no fixed text version before, before the rehearsal start. Yeah, so the actors have in the only the time to memorize the text they only have to leave the rehearsal process by itself which is normally not longer than four, I mean between three and five weeks, maybe. In this time the actors have not only to learn their, their role and all these movements and stage but also the text so physically, this is, this is, this is a high level sport actually for the, for the actors. But the idea beyond this, you can say so that there is a certain message beyond this is how to, how to, how to bring a vital atmosphere from the rehearsal stage and from the first impulse of an idea how to transform and to translate this, then to, to each show. It's almost like a subconscious Zen like a capturing of the moment within the moment. I just want to say again how radical that idea was of the folks greener. He would say this is the scene. This is the tax we're going to rehearse it once you do whatever you feel close to it's going to be taped. And tomorrow we do another scene. And then we redo maybe with some massaging or some cuts, but we're going to redo what we are doing here. So it was also an actress theater and supposedly Karl Lagerfeld was known to read books and he would pay out that page once he read it and burn it or throw it away. I'm not going to read it again so I have to focus on it. So this idea of a director rehearsing once and then like collaging it. If more or less it's if, if I understand right. I'm not sure it's not so black and white, but it is quite a radical idea. I think it's not only that there was just sitting with a pencil on the table and said, oh no, I'm developing now a concept where I rehearse only one. This was also developed. But during all these decades he's working as a director, and he is working since decades with the same actors also. And I mean, I came and that I entered that style and that that's here that pretty late when customers was working already 30 years and see that I was less than 30 in the time when I was work first time with him together so that you had already working for 30 years. I think that style came to this point, just by doing it and working under this project for under these for 30 years with the same actors who know how he works and who understand that ideas much faster than when a new actors just entering let's say this system for instance. So there's also a close relation and artistic relation between the director, the actors and the sonographer, and even in the wider sense and people are dealing with the costumes with with the ones who are making the light because say, understand certain impulses and how to transform them to stage. It's an artistic collective, which is doing this. It's in a way a real, a real collective and what the actor did in the rehearsal did matter, you know, so it was kind of co directing in the sense and then all these events as you said before around it. And so where the slingsy productions, things that are present he creates something around it, or when he ran for chancellor or other thing what was it, or was it always also a production of its own was the beginning to have met the director to come or to create part of the of the atmosphere around this. And unfortunately, I never worked again, work together with with with slingsy so I was always just in the audience hall as one of these 1000 people or 500 people, seeing this therefore I have no insights to the work of slingsy, but of course he definitely made a message also to to work and to create this shows, which means if you cannot, you should not forget that he comes from the film. Of course, so before you work first time in theater and before Matthias Liedenthal was calling him to work in Fox Brunner, he made a lot of those films which you can call underground films, actually, and he created for instance one of the most, for me, still strongest comments on the reunion on the reunion processes and reunions to German stage states, when he directed and made an 89 and 90, when you shot the film the chainsaw massacre. And where he said, okay, this is now the process of reunification and this has only one aim to make out sausages out of the people from the from the east. Yeah, and this is in its ready radicality. He made this film in just during the process of the unification in this process of unification and had this very radical thesis. A few years later, he said, even though I was wrong with my film, and he said, oh, maybe he said no, although it was good because of democracy and so on, said no, it was even worse. The Aussies were not transformed to sausages. It was even worse. They were made the way out of them was done porridge. It was only porridge, even not sausage. I don't know if I make myself clear my English is limited. That is incredible. I mean, what it shows that this theater that really worked and functioned and had fans was full people are coming, but that's been in this closeness to that idea of curation closeness to visual art or to film interdisciplinary work political discussion. So you brought in big philosophers, right? You brought in significant thinkers and writers to actually, we tried to to leave the level just of talks, because I mean, folks Bruno and my colleagues, Carl Hegemann, my colleague Carl Hegemann, he started with this actually to bring talks to theater philosophical talks to theater. Yeah. So, so we just it was very early in the 90s. This is the founding of the NSK, New Slovenian Art State, New Slovenian Art State was founded and so folks bring it was one of these speakers. Boris Grois very often was a speaker in, in, in folks Bruno, but this were the 90s and the 90s, where these time where you just where it was a longing and the need for an elation of this was, what's going on, the time changed since, since then, I mean the states you had the period of, of, of Trump, but also in Germany there was a threat of, of the right wing movement was was growing the threat, even not only of a right wing movement in one stage but but often international movement of fascists, let's say in that way. So it's not only the time of describing the problem of this what's going on, but to use also the free space, free public space with it, which at least in Germany is in theaters still and this is a big bonus, and the big big thing was the theaters in, in Germany, and to use that free space even to help to create political movements. Yeah, so it is very common in German theater to invite dissidents from, from Russia, from Ukraine from the North African countries, and to celebrate and to admire them for their, for their struggle against the governments. But I always ask myself, what, what gives us the right to invite these people and to make us equal Sam, because these people in their countries a risk so much. Before we meet with them, we also should actually risk something, or we should introduce although these dissidents of the West, they exist. It's not only that and our system everything is fine at nice and countries in the east they just have to adapt to our model, and therefore I initiated this series with talks about Europe, where we put the focus and the dissidents of the West, and invited people like Edward Snow, who was sitting in the time already in Moscow so actually with him we had a video conference, Home Office conference, being locked in Moscow conference. Always, Julie Massage, who was sitting that time already in the Ecuadorian embassy and, and could not leave it. So we had first that serial of talks, as is also with slowly and after first meeting and first talk with a former finance minister from Greece, James Varoufakis, there was slowly the idea, not only to talk but to act also and to take action. And out from this idea then became the founding of a political pan European progressive movements, movement you quoted also in your presentation at the end 25, which then even was candidates and taking part in the European elections, and which in that year established even a bigger project together with centers foundation. In this stage, they created now even the wider movements and just the European movement together with the centers foundation they create now a progressive international. And this is really an outcome, the possibility still of the German theaters that we really can, should not forget by all his critics about the hierarchical organization, which is here that has all these critics are right. It should be taken under consideration for improvement. But the German theater, the theaters as free spaces, on the one hand, for great that these artists are completely free in their artistic creation and in the sense that they want to use. And in using that free space also for political messages. This is something what is unique what does not exist in that way in the most countries of the world. In the States, I would say, not in Russia, not in some in the Asian Asian countries. And my, my idea was always to use the free space even to help to create to form. Yeah, it is stunning. I mean, to mind our listeners, especially in the US, I think up to 80% most probably of the cost of the folks Bruno, which I guess is 120 million a year or 70 million, you know, the the folks who has had a budget which is comes from the from state of 70 million, 70, 70, 70, 170, 170, 170, 170, 170, 170, 170. still a lot. What is still a lot? I mean it's not the richest subsidized theater in Berlin. But if you got money from the city of Berlin and you still were one of the most fiercest critics of the city of the capitalistic system, but you still had the space to create and discuss it and it worked. It connected people to the town and in a way it also confirmed that it is actually a free society because you could say that, you could do that. And also early on hinting, I mean you said where you live now, you are born in Berlin, Mitten, East Berlin, 95% of all the people who live in your street left after the wall came down, right? I mean the figures doesn't do not exist for the street, but only for the for the areas and the streets and during the last 30 years, so I would say that 95% of the people were gentrificated out of the city. So there are only very, very few people left and when I want to speak with Berlin dialect and want to meet people speaking with this Berlin dialect, I have to go to the supermarket and have to go to the cashiers. So the cashiers and these low level jobs, there you have some people from Berlin, but they hardly live in these gentrificated areas because they simply are too too expensive. So they are just kicked out from their from their native neighborhoods. Yeah, yeah, yeah and the place also of rainy polish and so when you're early dealt with that in quite a fierce and open way. Sebastian, here a question perhaps also closely to us in the US. You saw change in Germany. You grew up in East Berlin and you witnessed the opening of the wall and it's too much over and always reminds that it's the opening. It's not the fallout. People went on the street. People worked for it. People demonstrated also for it. So the wall you worked in Soviet Union in the Ukraine. In the former Soviet Union, the Crimea region of the Ukraine. You also now work in China in the Beijing University assistant. So these are three radical changes have taken place in these societies. How for us here, at least we feel this is a moment of change in the US, in New York or whatever it is, something is different will be different after the COVID, hopefully the election point in that way. So what do you think works? What is what can theater do? What is necessary? What can we learn from what you have seen, what you have been involved in? I don't have a recipe for this. The first I think what really we must understand now that this was happening now was a pandemic and with COVID. This is really a system change and this one which comes not like the bank many people and even the leftist maybe expected like in a form of revolution or of a crash of the banks and so on. I think this is a tsunami which comes in the speed of a snail. But that tsunami will change everything and a lot. And the first thing I think what at least what we have to learn is to have a perception for this dramatic change of of the society. Actually when you, George, invited me to the Siegel Center, I was reading and rereading and rereading just one text of Baudelaire three years ago. I had read this text already. Baudelaire, the French philosopher. Yes, I read these texts already in the time of in the university, but I forgot how politically it is. And in 89, so when just the Cold War ended and when the wall was taking out from from Berlin and from the chest of politics, he said, hey, let's not be too optimistic. It's not like that that we open now just the iron curtain and everything will be fine and great and the democracy will come to the eastern countries like the turtle is finding its way to the sea. But when the east block is toying, he's saying so, so John Baudelaire is using this model, when the east block is toying, then everything comes up what was perceived in this ice block. And what was perceived in this ice block are viruses. And this is Baudelaire saying in 89. And when the ice block now is toying, then these virus, that virus, it's coming and it's going to the west. And with with the virus, it's the virus is connected with a certain potential of destruction and of destabilization. And that virus will destabilize also the western countries and the western societies. But in the same process, when the virus comes from the east, there's of course the evil virus from the west, which is going from the west to the east. All these obsessions with consumption, all these obsessions with the media, all these, yeah, the spectacle of the media, which is not connected with with with Analyzation. So what he used even Baudelaire in 89, the formula to say virus for virus. Yeah, we saw, okay, we have post-communistic area, we have this was Francis Fukuyama is saying we have now the endless end during liberal liberalism. Yeah, the end of history just started in 89. And now the entire world will only go to the shining side of of of life. But I said, no, this is an area of virus, actually, what started. And when it was 89, the crisis and the crash of the western of the communist system, I think what we are witnessing now is the same crisis even of the west. Yeah. And when you ask me for a recipe, I don't have this recipe. But I think first we must understand that crisis of the recipe. And the advantage of all these people from the from the east is that they went already through this crisis. They know what it means to be disorientated to lose to lose the jobs to be yeah, just in a certain historical situation, helpless and without support and orientation. And so on. So this is an advantage of the people from the east. What can I what can I what can I recommend? The thing is, theaters have theaters are important for two things. On the one hand, of course, for the artistic creation for this unique space where people can meet in an intimate space and to have an artistic outcome and a protected intimate space. This is one thing. The other is the public space and the role to interfere as a public space to society. I think this is something what also the theaters, as you described it yesterday, the theaters are abandoned now at the at the Broadway. And I don't know how accessible these theaters are. But that could be an interesting thing, actually, to use these theaters also to substitute the public spaces, which are just in all these lockdown processes, which are gone, and to have a talk about this, what comes next and how we can unite and create something together. I think you once said that also in Moscow, you know, after the collapse of several union hundreds of theaters, you know, they were shut down, they were empty, they were closed, right? Not in Moscow. I mean, this was just an example of what is important for the people in a crisis. And now when I see it and when I hear the statements from the directors of German theater saying, oh, theater is so necessary. And this is really like, like, like, breathing and like eating bread. I mean, it's good that they are saying so, but I'm a bit suspicious that they mean maybe only the also the privileges which are connected with the theater world, and maybe their own, own contracts. What happened in the, in the post Soviet time was that a lot of theaters and cultural houses were just used not as theaters, but for instance, as green markets. I saw still in Kiev in 2005, I still saw in the center of the town, the former cultural house, big cultural house for maybe, maybe 600 seats, which was just a usual market where people could buy cheap clothes and so on. And there you see how important the theater is in this moment when people have really other problems, when they have existential problems, and when they have a feeling which is can be described with hunger. That's interesting. Yeah, to say this is also a contribution of a theater house to be a place where you could buy the jacket unit, you know, and perhaps talk to someone and they're coming together in the idea of a house and flea market. They're becoming closer also to the end. Sebastian, I know that you are taking a bit time out in that old monkish tradition to take, to think what one does, not even before I think the corona crisis hit. But still in your heart, I do think you are a dramaturg. And is there something you see, what you think about, what one could say, is there kind of a new dramaturgy involved? And maybe also something after a fox, what you personally think about, or examples you see, do you think there is a recalibration? And if so, what would be examples? I cannot speak for the new dramaturgy as a system. I'm sure that now this crisis, the crisis is somehow healthy also like Ato wrote it. So theater is infectious, but you can go out of this infection only on two ways, either with healing or with death. And this radical position. And I think it's an existential crisis, a question why theater will also lead to a lot of new trials and new models of theater networking, digitalization, play a role of it, which one we have to see. I'm interested at the moment, actually in this, what I tried to describe with Jean Bovallard, who was talking about the era of a virus. And to think about the last 30 years, as that kind of era of a virus, which led to this point in which we are living in. And I was thinking now the last months about the model, how to react on this crisis. And what is it, what is it, you have outside, you have a virus, then of course you go to quarantine and you protect yourself. The person who was doing this is a hermit. And the hermit is living in a cave or is isolated from the other people, maybe in his living room or in a laboratory of a theater. So I'm thinking about this, how to vitalize this model of a hermit, and maybe of a network of caves. Caves can be everything, this can be living room, this can be a rehearsal room, this can be a real cave somewhere in the mountains where an artist is living. I'm trying to think about an intelligent network of caves and of an artistic production in such a model. I mean, it's not 100% fixed what I, in which direction it can go. But I want to use that model hermit, cave, networking, keeping also international. That is so important because we are all locked now in our rooms and in our countries because there's no possibility to travel. But remaining in contact to our artists and friends in other countries is so important. And therefore I appreciate also your project with the Cegotalk so much because this is such a good example to discuss and to connect people from everywhere in the world. I think this is actually also a new kind of post-pandemic dramaturgic, what you are doing with Cegotalk. Thank you, that means a lot to me. How interesting that in a way, the old platonic idea of mankind, even the caves and the shadows, let you say in a way, maybe we have to go back there and start and take it serious also as a foreign new beginning and not modify or adapt. There are disruptions and there are modifications, like someone said the iPhone was a disruption on the phone market. And now the Google phone is the modification of the iPhone, but maybe it is a time of serious disruption and we don't modify what was before and massage it, but perhaps it is a time where we really radically have to rethink. I like very much what you said about dramaturgy. Also the role of a dramaturg that you actually have to get involved, you have to do productions, you have to do your own project and people get together for a certain amount of time, almost like a rock band. When you play together and then it lasts however long or short, which is not so important, it's more important that it's good, like a good novel, it's not important how long it is, but it has to be good. And that you say this is a way to do dramaturgical work, to be close to curating, to the visual arts, to film and the others. So that is really a significant impulse also for us to think about and your experience in these times of changes you already went through and perhaps there's something that is ahead of us. And we will continue to explore this week at the Siegel Center, the idea of dramaturgy and will be also other weeks we feel is at the center also, you know next to that idea also which we last week, the leader of the real, that we also will talk on site, specific or on site, Theta as Bertie Thordmann reminds us to call it. But the idea of a dramaturgy perhaps is what's missing and hasn't been missing, the bigger context that really reflects the complexities of the world with additional areas, arenas that Theta gives to audiences to think, to discuss, to show the best ideas, to have a competition of good ideas in an agonistic way as we learned from Thomas Florian Malzahar when we when we talked with him. So tomorrow we will continue, we have the great Enkatanio from Lincoln Center Theater who over decades also runs the director's lab, has been very influential, a global project, very significant and she will come and speak with Sydney Mahon about the golden age in a way when dramaturgy entered the American stage in the 70s and 80s and she actually was a motor, an important part of it and just want to remind her where we come from in all her work as she created with Salamda and now she's creating a Wikipedia page of documented and that work and on Friday we have Peter Ackersall, my colleague at the Guadalupe Cuny who is teaching dramaturgy also has ideas of a new dramaturgy, is writing a book at the moment and he will join him in the process while he is also trying to figure things out in the lockdown more or less next to his work to think about that what is not there but what is so important and essential. So really Sebastian this was a great talk and I hope we will have other ones that people who will listen to can contact you that you will find also ways of engagement you know in the times ahead of you that connect to that experience I'm sure of that I think it's also courageous as you said you know we invite other people who speak up in with risk are we taking really the risk are we as honest you know as those people we might invite and present and in a way for you also to say I go now in a research phase I go in a cave I rethink maybe this is the best to do it this moment to think right and to collect and connect to what's inside us so it's an important contribution also in what how to deal with this time. So thanks to Howrom for being a platform for this you know global discussion that I think you're also right we can no longer think in national borders even so New York already is so vastly different than Texas or the California or Alabama in one nation already it is so different the word meaning already has so many different meanings and but if there is a fight for you know ecological crisis against racism and others it's a global one actually and it might help us to get get through it and we have to have to honor that so thank you and thank you for the patience thank you for giving us a possibility for the talk. Thank you HowlRound for Vijay the great seer who gets up in Los Angeles every morning before 9 a.m. which is terribly early for every actor and director so we appreciate that and I hope you will all continue to listen to us we will take a break in Thanksgiving week and then be back after this so Sebastien again thank you and I'm sure you only scratch the surface but I think we get an idea for the idea and this was a really illuminating and a very meaningful conversation thank you thank you