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Scene from the production »Panikherz« based on Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre's book in the Berliner Ensemble, directed by Oliver Reese
Photo: Julian Roeder / Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble will start with a performance of »Panikherz« on Friday next week.
The Berlin Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer describes a pilot project that was presented in detail on Thursday as "unique in Germany" and contributes to "a carefree visit to cultural events", with which freshly tested visitors are to be admitted to theaters, concert halls and clubs.
The enjoyment of culture will be possible "primarily for a test audience from Berlin and Brandenburg," said the politician. With the purchase of a ticket, every visitor acquires the right to a free test in one of five Berlin test centers.
The test may only be taken from twelve noon on the day of the performance.
The range presented by Lederer includes nine events between March 19 and April 4, including a symphony concert by the Berliner Philharmoniker with Kirill Petrenko at the conductor's desk scheduled for the coming Saturday, for which, according to the newspaper »BZ«, up to 1000 visitors Visitors are expected.
"Differentiated, very practical opening scenarios"
“We can't always just stare at incidences,” says Oliver Reese, the director of the Berliner Ensemble, “testing is a counter-model”.
In months of preliminary talks with experts, the details of the pilot project were determined, and testing the audience creates, in addition to other security measures, "the prerequisite for really safe events."
Other rules include strict »admission management«, ventilation of the auditorium, the spacing between seats in a checkerboard pattern and the obligation for spectators to wear a medical protective or FFP2 mask during the entire performance.
Reese, 57, refers to countries such as Spain and Poland, in which theater operations continue to run under safety conditions despite the threat of the pandemic - there, culture is apparently given great importance.
"In view of the opportunities to enjoy culture in a protected manner, I am of the opinion that it is wrong to keep our places de facto closed with blanket incidence rules instead of using our incredibly differentiated, very practical opening scenarios."
Reese is confident that after the recent lockdown, public interest will not only be huge in his house.
"Many people express in letters and e-mails their need to really gather in front of a stage again," says the theater director.
In the months of the pandemic, the theaters were more publicly discussed than ever before.
“That showed that our cultural awareness as a nation is perhaps stronger than some people would like to believe.” Reese believes that Lederer's pilot project is not about who is the first to open.
"We just have to show that there are ways out of lockdown that are feasible."
»You can't beg for relevance«
The left-wing politician Lederer, 46, officially the Berlin Senator “for Culture and Europe”, announced in his announcement that he was “proud of the fact that the testing pilot project brought all the different cultural institutions in the city together”.
Among other things, a concert in the »Säälchen« belonging to the Holzmarkt club area has been announced on March 27th.
The premiere of "come as you are ..." directed by Armin Petras is to be shown in front of an audience in the Volksbühne on April 1st.
And Daniel Barenboim plans to conduct a new production of Mozart's “Le nozze di Figaro” on April 2nd at the State Opera Unter den Linden.
The Schaubühnen director Thomas Ostermeier is rather skeptical about the opening efforts.
"I think it's nice to gain new experience," he says.
“And I'm happy when it works.” The Schaubühne is not involved in the testing pilot project.
"We weren't even asked."
The theater does not open again until after Easter at the earliest, depending on the development of the incidence number.
In the event that one is forced to test after Easter because the incidence value is over 50, the Schaubühne recently commissioned employees to come to reliable, current test dates in Berlin test centers.
Unfortunately, test slots were only promised in several weeks.
After all, the pilot project announcement by Senator Lederer promises that the visitors will receive “after purchasing a ticket from the respective organizer, a link to the participating test centers and can book their test date there independently”.
Will this really work in the apparently only five participating test centers?
1000 Philharmonic visitors on a Saturday afternoon, that sounds sporty.
Schaubühnen boss Ostermeier, 52, is also calm about a possible longer closure of the cultural institutions.
He finds the complaints of many theater people incomprehensible that German politicians did not classify culture as really relevant in times of the pandemic.
“Either you are relevant to people's lives.
Or you are not.
You can't beg for that. «Ostermeier is reminiscent of a sentence by the playwright Heiner Müller from 1995, in which he demanded that the theater should be closed for a year,» then you might know afterwards why theater «.
He himself is convinced that the audience willingly return to the theater even after an even longer pandemic break.
"And if they don't, it is certainly not the fault of the pandemic, but the fault of the theater."
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