© Bernd Schönberger
UPSTAND
A play development by Milena Michalek
World premiere
Director: Milena Michalek
Stage: Robin Metzer
Costume: Charlotte Pistorius
Music: Hans Petith
Video & Support: Karl Börner
Dramaturgy: Franziska Benack
Following her highly acclaimed production of “Anna Karenina”, Milena Michalek is once again bringing a story to the stage at the Cottbus State Theatre that deals with social order and disorder.
order and disorder. “Uprising” focuses on solidarity, the possibility of emancipation and freedom in the midst of constraints, embedded in the everyday reality of Cottbus.
Her first novella “Der Aufstand der Fischer von St. Barbara”, which won the Kleist Prize, already posed the question of the power of the weak that is typical of Anna Seghers. In it, the inhabitants of a fishing island suffer from increasingly poor working and living conditions and decide to go on strike. The strike is crushed and money wins out over humanity. Shortly after the book was published, director Erwin Piscator used the novel as the basis for his feature film debut. In it, however, he does not put down the uprising, but instead lets the film end in a bloody battle in which the fighting spirit for better conditions cannot be quelled. Hanns Eisler was commissioned to compose the film music for the unfinished German film version. The musical director Hans Petith, who himself performs on stage as Hanns Eisler, received the decisive tip from our board member Dr Tobias Faßhauer for the sheet music of “Lied vom vierten Mann” and “Streiklied” in the archive of the Akademie der Künste zu Berlin. The basis for this was the Hanns Eisler Werkverzeichnis Filmmusik 1927-62, published by Quintus Verlag Berlin in 2023.
These works, their connections and the creators behind them form the inspiration for this production. In the examination of the life’s work, struggles and longings of
longings of Anna Seghers, Erwin Piscator, his set designer and visual artist John Heartfield and their contemporaries Helene Weigel, Hanns Eisler, Bertolt Brecht and co.
Brecht and co., Milena Michalek and her team also set out in search of the power of the (supposedly) weak and the power of art.
In the months leading up to the start of rehearsals, the team discussed and analysed the themes of strike, struggle, grief and longing with Cottbus residents in so-called regulars’ tables. These regulars’ tables continued to take place during the rehearsal process and were incorporated into the production. Together with citizens and the ensemble, a practice of togetherness is being tested.
An evening full of appreciation and gentleness, full of doubt and trust, which looks at the current conditions of our coexistence with humour and melancholy, which
It searches for common ground, reveals the big and the small stories and thoughts and thus creates a theatre of encouragement.
As Anna Seghers, Erwin Piscator, John Heartfield, Hanns Eisler and others: Torben Appel, Manolo Bertling, Sophie Bock, Michael Borgmann, Carlotta
David, Ina Denda, Anett Ferstl, Gunnar Golkowski, Andrea Hauff, Erik Hofedank, Kerstin Kreisel, Anke Liepert, Hans Petith, Christian Raupach, Frank Ristau, Janet Stahr
(Gabriela Schulz)
PREMIERE Saturday, 5 April 2025, 7.30 pm, Kammerbühne
Further performances: 4 May, 6 June and 27 June