With this year's theatre production at Plötzensee Prison, aufBruch ventures into the confines of a psychiatric institution in 1960s America, where Nurse Ratched rules over the patients' lives with an iron fist under the guise of unwavering kindness: an unchanging daily routine, rhythmic as clockwork, the hours dragging on, hopeless.

In this wasteland of muted despair and stifled voices, a new arrival strikes like lightning: Randle P. McMurphy – a soldier of fortune, a gambler, an unattached bon vivant. With booming laughter and playful defiance, he resists the mechanised order. The fragile balance is disturbed, the carefully constructed order begins to crack. His refusal to comply rouses the patients from their torpor and transforms the lonely men into a community. More and more, they rebel against an oppressive system that stifles individuality in the name of order and reason.

What begins as a game for McMurphy turns into bitter seriousness as the fronts harden. A battle begins between oppressive control and individual freedom, which will cost the loser his life.

 

Together with the ensemble of the Plötzensee Prison, the production raises questions about the nature of reason and the individual's right to self-determination. How does individuality fit into a system that aims to maintain order and preserve the norm? But what is normal? And who has the authority to interpret and thus the power over the rules of behaviour in a community?

 

Ken Kesey, an icon of American literature and culture, struck a chord with his 1962 novel, torn between petty bourgeois convention and the longing for new ways of life. Based on his own experiences as an employee of a psychiatric institution, Kesey was convinced that society locks individuals who do not fit into rigid ideas into institutions instead of dealing with the complex chaos of human reality. McMurphy is a character forged on the anvil of American mythology. His heroism lies in his refusal to surrender his individuality to the oppressive regime of conformity. He becomes the archetype of the revolutionary individual who challenges the shackles of conformity and dares to be free amid oppressive walls.

 

Prison theatre in Plötzensee Prison

 

 

Performed by the aufBruch prisoner ensemble in the JVA Plötzensee:
Andreas Thomas, Dominic, Eren, Erik, Maxa, Nehad Fandi, Shero, Steven Mädel, Tobi Müller.

 

 

Director Peter Atanassow Stage design Holger Syrbe Costume design Haemin Jung Dramaturgy Franziska Kuhn Musical coach Alexandra Rossmann Video Pascal Rehnolt Production manager Sibylle Arndt Assistant director Nina Flemming Technician Lukas Maser Graphic design Dirk Trageser

 

 

Tickets: 15 € / 10 € (reduced)

 

Advance sales only, starting Saturday, 25 November 2023 at 11 a.m.

 

 

 

Gefördert durch Zuwendungsmittel der Senatsverwaltung für Justiz und Verbraucherschutz
Unterstützt durch die JVA Plötzensee, Justizvollzugskrankenhaus Berlin, JSA Berlin, JVA Tegel, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.