Theater landscapes

The building, which originally housed the Zelter Sinkakademie, was converted into a theater after the war: In the spirit of a new utopia, the Maxim Gorki Theater was founded.
From 1946, it initially functioned as a venue for the neighboring House of Culture of the Soviet Union.
Wolfgang Langhoff, communist and director of the Deutsches Theater, staged Vsevolod Vishnevsky's Optimistic Tragedy here in 1948.
In 1952, the theater is named after the Russian revolutionary poet Maxim Gorky.
The declared program is to propagate a socialist view of humanity.
Maxim Vallentin, who had returned from exile in the Soviet Union, became the first artistic director.

Outside, directly in front of the theater, the truth of the socialist utopia has long since shown its ugliest face.
The uprising of June 17, 1953 was bloodily crushed by Soviet power.
Communist theater makers like Vallentin, however, continued to cling to their lofty ideals of a new, better society.
But these ideals and actually existing socialism were drifting further and further apart.
The Gorki Theater gradually began to adopt a critical tone.

In 1968, Albert Hetterle becomes the new artistic director of the Gorki Theater.
He felt committed to the Russian and Soviet tradition of the theater.
Many considered the Gorki Theater to be a party theater that people shouldn't go to.
Hettertle combats this attitude with a kind of socialist tabloid theater.
But in the 70s and 80s, even the ideals of convinced party soldiers in the GDR melted away.
Artistic director Albert Hetterle changed, as did his relationship with the state.
"Three Sisters", the play by Chekhov, in which an ossified society dreams of a different life, is seen by many viewers as a parable of the GDR.
In 1988, Volker Braun continued "Three Sisters" in his "Transitional Society" and related it directly to the GDR.
The premiere evening became a controversial sensation.
Just under a year later, in November 1989, East Berlin theater people initiated the big demonstration on Alexanderplatz, the artists' call for more democracy.
The Gorki Theater is at the forefront.
On November 9, 1989, the Wall fell and the end of the GDR was sealed.
One year later, Germany is reunited.

At this point, the Gorki Theater is a house with a strong ensemble and a strong profile and with great audience interest.
Many years have welded the staff together.
The family-run Gorki undergoes major changes in the post-reunification years.
After 26 years, Hetterle steps down and the Gorki family is reshuffled.
And once again, the tabloids draw audiences to the theater.
The whole of Berlin is turned upside down when the popular actor Harald Juhnke plays the "Hauptmann von Köpenick".

In the 1990s, Berlin slipped into a major crisis after the great euphoria of reunification.
Many theaters and cultural institutions were closed.
A radical cut for a theater in depression: Armin Petras is appointed head of the Maxim Gorki Theater in 2006.
He opened his directorship with ten premieres in one go.
And it continues at this pace.
He is also known as the "furious Armin".
Young audiences flock to his productions and the aesthetics of Armin Petras have a great appeal for prominent actors such as Fritzi Haberland, Peter Kurth and Regine Zimmermann.
Petras gathers people around him whose work deals with German-German history.
But he is also oriented towards today.
Petras has made 50 world premieres possible in two years - young authors are on the repertoire and the average age of the audience has dropped from mid-50s to mid-30s.

The Maxim Gorki Theater has a future again in the center of Berlin, the center of the German capital.
On the boulevard with all its history... embedded in this important, historic environment.

First broadcast: Sun, September 06, 2009, 12:30 p.m., 3sat.