Karen Breece

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Karen Breece, 2013

Karen Breece is a US -American theater director who lives and works in Germany. She develops theater projects in the field of political-documentary theater . The specialty of her work lies on the one hand in the independent documentary and journalistic research that becomes the textual basis of the pieces she wrote herself. On the other hand, Karen Breece is characterized by the involvement of everyday experts in her productions as well as the sensitive handling of authentic places from contemporary history and the present away from closed theater spaces.

Professional background

From 1997 to 2001 Karen Breece studied performing arts with David Esrig at the Athanor Academy . She has been working as a freelance director since 2006. So far she has staged u. a. for the Berliner Ensemble , realized theater projects in co-production with the Münchner Kammerspiele and the Münchner Volkstheater and was a guest a. a. at the Schaubühne on Lehniner Platz in Berlin . She writes and stages plays that she develops on the basis of investigative research and personal conversations. She lives and works in Germany.

Working method

Karen Breece initially focused on dealing with German Nazi history and coming to terms with it . In the meantime, she is also increasingly concerned with the political and social present and with “discourses and questions of interculturality and identity , especially against the background of a changing Europe”.

Karen Breece is "known for her unusual scenic-documentary research". These do not serve to justify prefabricated political thought patterns, but are retained in the theater texts developed from them in order to show the ambivalence and inconsistency of human action and thought.

The texts for all pieces, most recently on Auf der Straße , Don't forget to die and Oradour , are based on interviews and conversations that Breece conducts with her ensemble and with everyday experts from the respective subject area. For Welcome to Paradise it was asylum officers and refugees, for Dachau // Trials contemporary witnesses and descendants of SS members, for Don't forget to the old people, nurses, death attendants and undertakers, for On the street homeless and homeless people, politicians and homeless workers.

The places where her plays are performed play a major role for Karen Breece, and it's not always just theater: “She wants to get out, to meet the people.” She is characterized by her sensitive approach to “authentic places from contemporary history away from closed theater spaces”. In a few years she developed several participatory site-specific projects . In the justification for the award of the Kron-Maus-Kulturpreis , it was recognized that the director had opened two non-locations in Dachau's topography of contemporary history to art for the first time: for the staging of Die Blutnacht auf dem Schreckenstein or Ritter Adolars Brautfahrt and its gruesome end or True love is not that, "the industrial wasteland of the former MD paper mill was opened for cultural interim use for the first time in 2012". Dachau // Karen Breece was able to show trials in 2014 on the site of the former SS garrison in Dachau, which is now the site of the Bavarian riot police . In the former SS tailoring shop on the site where uniforms were sewn, the Dachau trials against Nazi criminals took place from 1945 onwards , which ended with 36 death sentences. Her play about refugees and asylum officials Welcome to Paradise was performed in the parish hall of the Sankt-Matthäus-Kirche at Sendlinger Tor in Munich , where demonstrations, counter-demonstrations and hunger strikes had taken place in the recent past .

The participatory approach also plays an important role in Karen Breece's work. By integrating the audience by means of participatory structures and working on a site-specific basis , i.e. consciously at connoted places in public space, she creates spaces for reflection that make the border area between art and life appear blurred. In this way, principles of the documentary and the genre of documentary theater are reflected in their foundations. This operation is in some of their projects linked to the work with so-called everyday experts, people "who do not actors re-educated to or issued on the stage, but in their solar and existence as the basis for observations on the social and political conditions of our present togetherness become".

In Dachau // processes, for example, the audience should become part of the process. “We want to give everyone the opportunity to examine and reflect on their attitude towards history and the present,” says Karen Breece. The audience first explored the area in buses for half an hour while listening to memories of the wife of the concentration camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß , Lisa Weiß ( Hildegard Schmahl ), who described the time in Dachau in 1943 as her most beautiful. These were contrasted with texts by the American Walter J. Fellenz ( Walter Hess ), who was there when the concentration camp was liberated on April 29, 1945. The audience experienced a new Dachau trial with a fundamental debate about individual guilt. In the end it was called upon to judge, the usual final applause was not planned. On the return trip of the bus, the audience heard what Weiss wrote to his wife and children after his conviction: “My dearest Müggelein, I mustn't think about what we've lost. Our beautiful apartment, plus all the wonderful gifts. Fine linen, clothes, curtains. It was really only a short dream. "

In addition to everyday experts, well-known actors, such as Katja Bürkle and Benny Claessens (Oradour) , Walter Hess ( Dachau // Trials ), Nico Holonics and Bettina Hoppe (Auf der Straße), have worked in Karen Breece's projects . Sebastian Mirow ( Dachau // processes and Welcome to Paradise ), Hildegard Schmahl (Dachau // processes) and Ursula Werner ( Don't forget to die ). Karen Breece worked on other pieces with people who live at the performance location, such as Was we loved with old people from the city of Munich or Die Blutnacht auf dem Schreckenstein with Dachau citizens. Sometimes the ensemble is made up of members of both groups, for example in Auf der Straße or Don't forget to die .

Financing, collaborations and co-productions

Several projects by Karen Breece were funded by the state capital of Munich's theater funding, such as shout out loud , Oradour and Don't forget to die . Breece has repeatedly worked with municipal theaters in Munich: She participated in the urban space project Die Perser at the invitation of director Johan Simons ; Oradour was realized in coproduction with the Münchner Kammerspiele, Don't forget to die made a guest appearance there in February 2018. Welcome to Paradise was co-produced by the Münchner Volkstheater and later presented as a reading in several district cultural centers in Munich.

Theater projects

  • SHOUT OUT LOUD (2019), BLITZ Club Munich
  • Mothers and Sons (2019), Berliner Ensemble
  • On the Street (2018), Berliner Ensemble
  • Oradour (2018), HochX
  • Don't forget to die (2017), HochX , Münchner Kammerspiele, Schaubühne Berlin
  • Welcome to Paradise (2015), St. Matthäus Munich
  • Dachau // Trials (2014), Dachau riot police site
  • What we loved (2013), Church of the Redeemer, Munich
  • The Night of Blood on the Schreckenstein (2012), site of the former Dachau paper mill

Content and genesis of the pieces (selection)

Oradour (2017/2018)

Using the example of the Oradour massacre, this project deals with the relationship between law and raison d'etat as well as with the "need of the descendants of the victims for personal justice". On the basis of historical investigation and trial protocols as well as conversations with contemporary witnesses, a text was created “in the border area between historical report and fictional narrative, which makes the denial and justification strategies of the perpetrators and the failure of the German post-war justice visible and tangible”. The aim of the project was to “open up historical spaces that extend into the present”. The director worked on this project with the German actress Katja Bürkle and the Belgian actor Benny Claessens . The musician and composer Beni Brachtel was responsible for the music. The historian Andrea Erkenbrecher provided academic support for the project.

Don't forget to die (2017)

In her production Don't forget to die , a theater project about dying, five people between the ages of 73 and 93 grapple with their own death on stage. From discussions resulted in a text, "which at the limits of memory and hope, reality and fiction moves". On stage, Livia Hofmann-Buoni (79), Rosemarie Leidenfrost (93), Uta Maaß (89), Christof Ranke (78) and actress Ursula Werner (73) made both tragic and comic perspectives of dying tangible. “Between performance , acting and biographical narration, they talked about their personal fears, wishes and hopes, sang songs of their time and played through different variants of dying.” The result of a joint process by the group was shown, which “both tragic and comic perspectives of the Making dying tangible. ”According to the director,“ it's about consciously getting involved with what these people have to say on this evening. ”

Welcome to Paradise (2015)

The starting point for dealing with the topics of home and flight was the concept of the welcoming culture . Karen Breece had numerous conversations with refugees and asylum officials. She concentrated the material in ten voices , which became anonymous "characters with authentic statements". Actors from the Munich Volkstheater (Justin Mühlenhardt, Pascale Riedel, Lenja Schultze , Constanze Wächter ) and the Baden-Baden Theater ( Sebastian Mirow ) embodied the different perspectives. The play showed how refugees lived in Bavaria and contrasted this world with the perspective of those who decide in the authorities about the fate of the refugees.
The play was co-produced by the Munich Volkstheater and later presented as a reading in several district cultural centers in Munich.

Dachau // Processes (2014)

The basis were minutes of the Dachau trials in which Nazi criminals such as concentration camp commandant Martin Gottfried Weiß were indicted before an American military court, as well as letters and memories of Weiss and his wife Lisa, which were little known at the time. The historian Edith Raim and the historian Robert Sigel provided scientific support for the project. Here, too, the basis was conversations with contemporary witnesses and people from among the former SS personnel. The project raised the question of "how it was possible that people in the SS garrison lived a happy everyday life on one side of the fence, while on the other side they tortured, abused and killed prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp". A choir made up of citizens of Dachau, in which the actors were also involved, played an essential role. Actors Sebastian Mirow and Patric Schott played the roles of prosecutor and defense attorney . Teresa Vergho was responsible for the costumes. Eva-Veronica Born's stage design remained abstract, the room itself had an effect. At the end of the performance, the actors attached coat hangers to the floor installation; after the last performance there were 41,500, one for every person who had died in the Dachau concentration camp and its satellite camps .
The project received a lot of media coverage. In April 2017, parts of the production were presented again in a shortened and slightly modified version as a staged reading in the NS Documentation Center (Munich) .

The Bloody Night on the Horror Stone or Knight Adolars Bridal Ride and Its Horrible End or True Love Is Not That (2012)

This piece is ostensibly a knight's farce , but on a deeper level it is a parody of Adolf Hitler . It was written by prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp and premiered in the camp in 1943 . The prisoners understood the allusions, but the SS present did not. Martin Gottfried Weiß , who approved the showing of the well-camouflaged satire, was later chosen by Karen Breece as the main character in her play Dachau // Trials . In the version revised by the director, the context of the creation and memories of those involved in the 1943 production also found a place. “It tells of the prisoners' attitude, courage and resistance and the power of art that could not be stifled even under the Nazi terror.” Karen Breece staged the play with Dachau citizens on the site of the former Munich-Dachau paper mills .

Reception of theater projects (selection)

On the Road (2018)

Peter Laudenbach praised in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that Karen Breece asked "Hartz IV recipients, homeless people and social workers for months what it means to be poor in Germany" with a lack of sophistication and accuracy that is rare in theater circles. "This" accuracy and the factual "Empathy not interested in the usability of the tear glands" protected the production from "the social voyeurism effects that are not uncommon in the theater"; it becomes possible to "enter other worlds of experience" and to feel "the shock of one's own hardening of prosperity". In the Berliner Morgenpost, Volker Blech highlighted the stage design and the two appearances of the integrative choir '' Different Voices of Berlin ''.

Oradour (2017/2018)

The critic Egbert Tholl called the piece in the Süddeutsche Zeitung a masterpiece. Breece does “not do a docu-theater”, but investigates “the memory itself, the impression of what happened”. The work of the costume designer Teresa Vergho, who has already been part of Karen Breece's team on several theater projects, was praised by the critics.

Don't forget to die (2017)

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung there was a statement that the piece “deserved every applause”. The theater magazine Theater heute found that a topic that was persistently kept silent had been asked "with cautious curiosity".

In 2018 the play was invited to the Festival Internationale Neue Dramatik (FIND) at the Schaubühne on Lehniner Platz in Berlin .

Dachau // Processes (2014)

The project received a lot of media coverage. In April 2017 the play was presented to the audience again in a shortened and slightly modified version as a staged reading in the NS Documentation Center (Munich) , a sign of its ongoing relevance.

Awards

literature

Free theater team Karen Breece: Dachau // Trials . In: Günter Jeschonnek: Performing arts in public space. Transformations of non-places and aesthetic interventions. Research 127, Verlag Theater der Zeit Berlin , ISBN 978-3-95749-087-2 , pp. 52-63.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e Kron-Maus-Kulturpreis for Karen Breece. In: sueddeutsche.de . February 8, 2017, accessed July 7, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b KAREN BREECE. In: karenbreece.blogspot.de. Retrieved April 9, 2017 .
  3. ↑ "Don't forget to die": Everything you always wanted to know about dying - Munich features. In: muenchner-feuilleton.de. January 26, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e City of Munich: Jury statements for three-year funding for independent theaters 2016–2018 , accessed on July 7, 2018 (PDF file)
  5. ↑ Culture & TV: What comes after life (to: Don't forget to die ). In: ovb-online.de. January 31, 2017, accessed June 3, 2018 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Egbert Tholl: Waiting room of fear. In: sueddeutsche.de . June 19, 2015, accessed July 7, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Local: Theater project: A new Dachau process - Dachau. In: merkur.de. Retrieved July 7, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b c Melanie Castillo: January 26th World premiere: Don't forget to die - In conversation with Karen Breece - curt Munich. In: curt.de. February 4, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f Anna Schultes: Thinking processes. In: sueddeutsche.de . May 26, 2014, accessed July 7, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Upper Palatinate Media - The New Day: Karen Breeces theater project in the concentration camp in Dachau: The model student and his "Müggelein". In: onetz.de. May 23, 2014, accessed June 10, 2017 .
  11. ^ State capital Munich, editor: project funding for the free theater scene. In: muenchen.de. Retrieved June 1, 2018 .
  12. ↑ State Capital Munich, Editor: Individual project funding for independent theater professionals 2016. In: muenchen.de. Retrieved June 1, 2018 .
  13. ↑ DON'T FORGET TO DIE A THEATER PROJECT ABOUT THE DYING CONCEPT AND DIRECTOR: KAREN BREECE Director Karen Breece. In: muenchner-kammerspiele.de. January 3, 2018, accessed June 1, 2018 .
  14. ↑ The doors are open. , www.nachtkritik.de, September 23, 2015, accessed on April 9, 2017.
  15. ↑ Program February 2018. In: theater-hochx.de. February 15, 2018, accessed June 3, 2018 .
  16. ^ A b City of Munich, editorial office: Individual project funding for independent theater professionals. In: muenchen.de. June 10, 1944. Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
  17. ↑ New piece "Oradour" by Karen Breece. In: sueddeutsche.de . December 20, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b c Don't forget to die. In: www.theater-hochx.de, accessed on June 23, 2018.
  19. ^ Munich :. In: donaukurier.de. April 8, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2018 .
  20. ↑ The doors are open. , www.nachtkritik.de, September 23, 2015, accessed on July 1, 2018.
  21. ↑ a b c d Scenic reading: DACHAU // PROZESSE - Kalinka. In: kalinka-m.org. May 23, 2014, accessed June 2, 2018 .
  22. ↑ a b Katrin Hildebrand: On the trail of the perpetrators - culture. In: merkur.de. May 22, 2015, accessed July 1, 2018 .
  23. ↑ a b Viktoria Großmann, dpa: Theater am Ort des Schreckens. In: Mittelbayerische.de. May 22, 2014, accessed July 1, 2018 .
  24. ↑ a b c d City of Dachau: Theater in the paper factory. In: dachau.de. Retrieved April 9, 2017 .
  25. ^ Peter Laudenbach: On the street. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. September 2018, accessed April 7, 2018 .
  26. ^ Volker Blech: Carousel of the park benches . In: Berliner Morgenpost . Berlin September 15, 2018, p. 17 .
  27. ↑ a b Egbert Tholl: The legacy of horror. Karen Breece's 'Oradour' is a masterpiece. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, No. 40, 17./18. February 2018, p. R18, accessed March 6, 2018.
  28. ↑ Sabine Leucht: Detention for two angels. Oradour - Karen Breece and Katja Bürkle and Benny Claessens investigate the mechanisms of remembrance at the Munich HochX. , February 15, 2018, accessed June 10, 2018.
  29. ↑ Sabine Leucht: Courage and Dignity. In: sueddeutsche.de . January 27, 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Silvia Stammen: Bürgerbühne: The calm before death. In Don't forget to die , Karen Breece explores how death inspires life. In: Theater heute , der-theaterverlag.de. April 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  31. ↑ don't forget to die. In: schaubuehne.de. March 1, 2018, accessed May 28, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Free Theater Team Karen Breece - Author Directory - Publisher Theater der Zeit. In: theaterderzeit.de. Retrieved March 5, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Breece, Karen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American theater director
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century