Last year was the first year aufBruch invited the public to a play at the Gustav Böß open-air stage in Jungfernheide, when the dense greenery provided the backdrop for Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night's Dream”. The amphitheatre, which has now been cleared of thickets, is now the stage for “Till Eulenspiegel”.

The “95 stories” of the immortal prankster and gallows trickster – who probably never really existed – have occupied artists from all times, from Charles de Coster to Richard Strauß, from Gerhart Hauptmann to Daniel Kehlmann, from Erich Kästner to Christa and Gerhard Wolf.

In a collage of motifs from the folktale and Eulenspiegel texts by Thomas Brasch and Günther Weisenborn, aufBruch transports Till’s foolhardy mischief to the time of the Peasants' War: violence, poverty and hunger everywhere. The wide circle of the open-air stage becomes a circus ring. Here Till meets a travelling troupe of jugglers.

This troupe threatens to be torn apart by rivalry between revolting peasants and brutal country serfs – Till’s reckless light-heartedness is a trigger for a game with reality and fiction, with history and fantasy. The question of whether one wants to play with each other becomes, in the conflict with rebellious peasants and marauding country serfs, the question of whether one can live with each other. Or even whether one should fight.

Till Eulenspiegel is the German jester par excellence. A prankster and provocateur in a world that was – and remained – out of joint. A mischievous play about the power and impotence of art in the misery of the times. A celebration of free play in circumstances where man became a helpless plaything.

For the aufBruch external ensemble, Till’s pranks are a theatrical examination of the gap between self-confidence and self-dramatisation, fun and lack of conscience, quick-wittedness and deviousness.

The play will be performed by a mixed ensemble of day-release prisoners, former prisoners, actors and Berlin citizens: Frank Zimmermann, Gerard, Hans-Jürgen Simon, Jamal, Jonna van der Leeden, Josef, Maja Borm, Mathis Koellmann, Matthias Blocher, Mohamad Koulaghassi, Patrick Berg, Philipp, Sabine Böhm.

Director Peter Atanassow Stage designer Holger Syrbe Costume designer Melanie Kanior Dramaturgy Hans-Dieter Schütt Musical Coach Vsevolod Silkin Productionmanager Sibylle Arndt Assistant director Binks Mooney Costume assistant Alissa Schaaf Technical manager Lukas Maser Graphic design Dirk Trageser

Tickets: 15 € / 10 € (discounted)

Tickets on sale from:  31st May 2021

Funded by a grant from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Supported by the JVA OV Berlin, Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Kulturbiergarten Jungfernheide.