Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
Photo: Arno Declair, 2016 
 

Borgen

after the series written by Adam Price, developped with Jeppe Gjervig Gram and Tobias Lindholm
Version by Nicolas Stemann
Direction: Nicolas Stemann

German translation by Astrid Kollex

What is politics? Niklas Luhmann probably gives the most direct answer: politics is the production of collectively binding decisions. And in order to bring about these decisions and enforce them, politics requires power. Which brings us to our second, perhaps much more significant question: how does power develop?

»Borgen« is set in a European democracy’s centre of power. In Christiansborg Palace, home to the government, political parties and their members fight over coalitions and majorities in the popular vote. In its thirty episodes, the hit Danish TV series created a realistic perspective on power and the people who strive to gain and maintain it. At the start of the series, Birgitte Nyborg becomes Prime Minister due to an unexpected election victory. From then on, her life and that of those around her is determined by different truths: the rules of maintaining power differ from the principles of her political objectives and her duties as a stateswoman conflict with her role as a wife and mother. In order to render these contradictions less apparent, a spin doctor in the bowels of the castle develops a narrative which makes her politics appear correct and without alternative. »Borgen« unfolds the political questions of our time in a story which poses the questions of our postmodern world: how many different truths can one person bear, and what does the appropriate narrative make of the truth?

Performance rights: with kind permission of Nordiska ApS - Copenhagen

>>> Essay about the production in Pearson's Preview:  Pulling Back the Curtain on »Borgen«

Direction: Nicolas Stemann
Stage Design: Katrin Nottrodt
Costume Design: Katrin Wolfermann
Music: Thomas Kürstner, Sebastian Vogel
Video: Claudia Lehmann
Dramaturgy: Bernd Stegemann, Bettina Ehrlich
Lighting Design: Erich Schneider
Duration: ca. 225 minutes2 intermissions

Premiered on 14 February 2016

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