02/24/2022 > FIND 2022: Schaubühne releases program for the Festival International New Drama from March 31 to April 10
Eight productions from five countries can be seen for the first time in Berlin at FIND 2022. Artist in Focus of this year's festival is Canadian playwright Robert Lepage. Advance tickets go on sale March 1.
After restrictions imposed due to the pandemic obliged the previous edition of FIND in fall 2021 to focus on Europe, the festival - back to its original date in spring - is once again presenting new works from other parts of the world, too. This year's edition pays special attention to the "Americas", from Canada to the USA and Chile. Works from France and Belgium are also on the festival program.
Artist in Focus: Robert Lepage
For this edition, Schaubühne is focusing on the Canadian theatre director, writer, actor and filmmaker Robert Lepage (Quebec) who, after a decades-long absence from this city’s theatre scene, can now once more be seen on stage in Berlin.
Lepage’s oeuvre is unique in its expansive utilisation of theatrical resources and has been formative for several generations of theatre makers. At FIND 2022, the audience can experience live performances of two legendary productions from different periods of the director’s work, providing an intensive insight into his creativity. In addition, the two films »The Confessional« (1995) and »La Face cachée de la Lune« (2003) by Robert Lepage will be shown as part of the festival.
One of Lepage’s most recent plays, the monodrama »887«, is being shown in Berlin for the first time. Lepage, appearing himself as an actor on stage, embarks on a journey into his own memory that is both touching and surprising.. With »The Seven Streams of the River Ōta«, created between 1994 and 1996, Lepage is reviving a masterpiece from his early years for FIND. The eponymous seven branches of the Japanese Ōta River are embodied in seven stories that represent the great plagues of humanity in the half century between 1945 and 1995. In addition to these performances on the Schaubuhne stages, other events will also shed light on the various facets of Robert Lepage, especially as a filmmaker.
Internationales Panorama
In »Until the Flood«, Dael Orlandersmith (St. Louis) uses interviews with eye witnesses and those directly affected to research the background to the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting to death of the young man Michael Brown. The result of this research, which she performs on stage herself, provides a theatrical face for the Black Lives Matter movement.
In »Is This a Room«, another play based on documentary evidence – in this case the verbatim transcript of an FBI interrogation log as the Bureau investigated a data leak – Tina Satter (New York) develops a gripping and, at the same time, haunting portrait of a 25-year-old whistle-blower and of state repression.
The Belgian theatre maker Anne-Cecile Vandalem (Brussels) is once again a guest at FIND: in her play »Kingdom«, a new home away from civilisation turns into hell for one family.. »Kingdom« is, after »Tristesses« and »Arctique«, the last part of a trilogy by the director about the failure of Western civilization.
The new play by Caroline Guiela Nguyen (Paris) begins in a no less dystopian manner: in »FRATERNITE, Conte fantastique «, the survivors of a solar eclipse in which half of humanity has disappeared meet in a »Centre for Care and Consolation«. There, they form a utopian community and help each other to come to terms with the loss.
The Schaubühne Studio will also be hosting the latest production by Marcus Lindeen (Paris/Stockholm), »L’Aventure invisible« which, based on three real-life case histories whose unusual nature seems to make them border on the fantastical, addresses issues concerning identity, death and transformation.
New Drama at the Schaubühne
With the co-production »Oasis de la impunidad«, the Schaubühne is continuing its long-standing collaboration with the Chilean director and writer Marco Layera (Santiago de Chile). In his latest production, which is celebrating its international premiere at FIND, he and his company Teatro La Re-sentida tackle the 2019 rebellion in Chile and the effects of violence on the streets and on stage.
»Erinnerung eines Mädchens« (A Girl’s Story), an adaptation of the text by Annie Ernaux, explores the correlations between the individual body and standardised gender roles. This directorial debut by Sarah Kohm (Berlin) is celebrating its premiere in the Studio. And, from the repertoire, Maja Zade’s most recent play »reden über sex« (Talking About Sex).
And in terms of talks, the artistic programme is accompanied by panel discussions including one on the subject of Whistle-blowing in which Lisa Kretschmer from Reporters Without Borders
speaks about her experiences and the fight to protect civil rights activists who are criminalised as traitors. On the second Sunday of the festival this year, an edition of the Streitraum discussion series is being held as part of FIND. With the title »Black Lives Matter – not just sometime and somewhere else, but here and now«, Carolin Emcke ties in with the theme of the production »Until the Flood« and discusses discrimination and anti-Black racism in Germany with Tahir Della, the activist and spokesman for the Initiative Schwarzer Menschen in Deutschland (Black People in Germany Initiative) as well as with the Frankfurt journalist Hadija Haruna-Oelker and others..
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