Klaus Erforth

Klaus Erforth (born July 6, 1936 in Berlin ) is a German director and theater director . Erforth was one of the most successful theater directors in the GDR . Since 1990 he has been the artistic director of the Sonnenuhr e. V. and has been leading the KALIBANI ensemble at the RambaZamba Theater in collaboration with Kerstin Janewa since 2004 , which he founded in 1990 with Gisela Höhne in Berlin. Since January 2011 the KALIBANI group has been operating under the KALIBANI e. V., a spin-off from the Sonnenuhr e. V. to find.

Life and theater work

Klaus Erforth studied from 1954 to 1956 at the drama school in Berlin-Schöneweide and then worked as an actor in Berlin, and also worked in films. In 1960 he began an assistant director in Potsdam , where he also worked as an actor. He then trained as a director with Wolfgang Heinz at the GDR Academy of Arts as a master student and was assistant to Benno Besson . Another assistant director at the Berliner Ensemble with Manfred Wekwerth followed until Erforth himself directed Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble and, as a guest director, in Görlitz in 1968 .

In 1970 Erforth moved to the Deutsche Theater Berlin , where he stayed until 1990. There he staged, often together with Alexander Stillmark , plays by Schiller ( Kabale und Liebe ), Volker Braun ( Die Kipper ), Pablo Neruda ( Splendor and Death of Joaquim Murieta ), Athol Fugard ( Die Insel ), Wolfgang Borchert ( Outside the door ), Heiner Müller ( tractor , battle ) Federico García Lorca ( Yerma ) as well as adaptations by Franz Kafka ( The building ). He worked with many well-known actors such as Jutta Wachowiak , Alexander Lang , Walfriede Schmitt and Christian Grashof .

For his staging of the play Die Insel von Fugard, Erforth received the GDR Art Prize in 1976 . Nevertheless, he was repeatedly confronted with performance bans or unfounded discontinuations, for example in his production of Volker Braun's Der Sonnenstaat in 1978, Ulrich Plenzdorf's legend of happiness without end in 1986 or Heiner Müller's Germania Tod in Berlin .

Guest directing took him to Germany and other European countries. Erforth also worked as a lecturer at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Art .

As early as 1986 Erforth, who became the father of a mentally handicapped son in 1976 , began a theater work with so-called mentally handicapped children. After he finished working at the Deutsches Theater in 1990, he founded the Sonnenuhr eV association together with his long-time partner Gisela Höhne . V. - Workshop of the arts for people with intellectual disabilities and others , of which he became the artistic director. The following year he founded the integrative theater RambaZamba with Höhne . The RambaZamba theater developed into an internationally renowned theater, which occasionally also does joint productions with the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne Berlin . For example the matinee The Murder of the Useless Eaters - Euthanasia in the Third Reich , a joint production of the Sonnenuhr eV with Giora Feidman , so-called disabled musicians and the actors of the German Theater in 1993.

In 1992 Erforth gave a benefit concert together with Ludwig Güttler and the wind choir of the Stephanus Foundation Berlin-Weißensee in the Berliner Schauspielhaus .

In 1999 he accepted the award of the German Children's Culture Prize from the German Children's Fund in Berlin's Friedrichstadtpalast . V. to the Sonnenuhr e. V. against.

In 2006, the 70-year-old Erforth, who also celebrated his 50th anniversary on stage, received the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon .

Filmography

• 1971: Optimistic Tragedy (TV)

theatre

• 1969: Bertolt Brecht : The Manifesto (Brechtabend No. 5) - directed with Alexander Stillmark ( Berliner Ensemble )
• 1969: Wsewolod Wischnewski : Optimistic Tragedy - Direction with Isot Kilian / Alexander Stillmark (Berliner Ensemble)
• 1973: Volker Braun : Die Kipper - direction with Alexander Stillmark ( Deutsches Theater Berlin )
• 1974: Pablo Neruda : Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta - Direction with Alexander Stillmark (Deutsches Theater Berlin - Probebühne)
• 1975: Henrik Ibsen : Ein Volksfeind - Direction with Alexander Stillmark (Deutsches Theater Berlin - Kammerspiele)

Awards

• 1976: Award of the GDR Art Prize for the performance of "Die Insel" by Fugard
• 2002: Awarded the Berlin Order of Merit to Klaus Erforth and Gisela Höhne
• 2004: Awarding of the BZ Culture Prize to Klaus Erforth and Gisela Höhne
• 2006: Awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon

Web links

• Klaus Erforth is the artistic director of the group Kalibani, formerly Theater RambaZamba: http://kalibani.jimdo.com
• Biography of Klaus Erforths on the website of the RambaZamba Theater
• Klaus Erforth in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Biographical data from Klaus Erforth in: Humboldt , editions 135-137, Goethe-Institut, 2002, page 59
2. ↑ My ambition is on a colorful jacket - tribute to Klaus Erforth  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Article of the ZDFtheaterkanal from October 17th, 2006.  
3. ↑ Federal Cross of Merit for Klaus Erforth - article on kobinet-nachrichten.org from October 16, 2006.