Devising German Democracy

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, PATRIARCHY WILL be a thing of the past. In separate interviews, celebrated coartistic directors Shermin Langhoff and Jens Hillje insisted matter-of-factly that Rewitching Europe, a new production premiering at Berlin’s Maxim Gorki Theater this fall, is what will do the trick.

“It might take some time to figure out what comes next,” Hillje conceded, seated at a picnic table in the theatre’s courtyard café late this summer. “Shifting from a culture of domination to a culture of cooperation is quite a challenge,” he said. “But it starts on the first of November,” referring to the date of the play’s premiere.

Langhoff and Hillje were only half joking. Such disarming humor and bold assurance is characteristic of the Gorki’s vibrant and radically engaged artistic works. The smallest of Berlin’s five state theatres, the Gorki is also the youngest and most diverse, both in the makeup of its artistic ensemble and the audience it attracts. Since 2012, when the city appointed Langhoff artistic director and she named Hillje her partner, the Gorki has twice been deemed theatre of the year by leading arts publication and the pair has