Michael Billenkamp

Dramaturg

Productions

The cycle of revenge and retribution is endless. Every drop of blood spilt has to be atoned for with more. Everyone thinks they have the law and the will of the gods on their side and this conviction drives them on to commit new injustices. This is the spiral of violence that grips the ruling house of the Atrides in Aeschylus’s «Agamemnon», the first part of his trilogy «The Oresteia».

Agamemnon
Residenztheater, 19.30 o'clock
Wed 09 Oct
Residenztheater, 19.30 o'clock
Sat 02 Nov

Elisabeth Gärtner, a retired architect, has only one more wish: she wants to die. Her beloved husband died of cancer three years ago and without him life has no meaning for her any more. A drug that would allow her to die of her own volition has been refused her. Now the Ethics Council must make a decision on her case. Expert witnesses from the fields of law, medicine and theology argue over the question:  Does a human being have a right to determine their own death? Are doctors allowed to help someone commit suicide? And who do our lives actually belong to? To us? To the state? Or to God?

Gott (God)

After a quarter of a century, the time has finally come: Brandner Kasper returns to the Residenztheater, where it has already been performed over 1000 times! Franz von Kobell's tale has been a cultural treasure with cult status in Bavaria since its publication in 1871. A 75-year-old sprightly locksmith and hunting assistant from Tegernsee is to be called away to heaven. However, Kasper defeats the Boanlkramer, whom St. Peter had commissioned to bring the old man to him, while playing cards and drinking Kerschgeists. «The story of Kasper Brandner» is a poignant play about the deeply human desire to confront one's own transience. Director Philipp Stölzl grew up with the material as a Munich resident and poses the most elementary question of humanity in his new old «Brandner Kasper»: How do I deal with my own mortality?

Die G'schicht vom Brandner Kasper (The Story of Kasper Brandner)
Premiere
Cuvilliéstheater
Sat 14 Jun

After fifteen years in exile, Orestes returns incognito to his home city of Argos – the same city in which his father Agamemnon was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus on his victorious return from Troy. However, desire for revenge is not the reason for his spontaneous homecoming – it is the rumour of a mysterious plague of flies. When his sister Electra persuades him to stay, it gradually dawns on him that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are not only cruelly oppressing the people, they have also implicated him in Agamemnon’s murder. Only then does Orestes decide to take action.

Die Fliegen (The Flies)

When Goethe set «Götz von Berlichingen» down on paper in 1771 in a true writing frenzy, the 22-year-old writer was still a complete unknown. This came to an abrupt end with the publication of «Götz», as suddenly the young poet was being talked about everywhere. Goethe’s early work is a powerful stage epic with over fifty locations, several plots running in parallel and a huge cast of characters. What is more: Goethe dispensed with all the customary conventions that 18th century drama had been using up to that point.

Götz von Berlichingen

Imagine that you haven’t been born yet. And imagine too that your whole life so far is unimportant. Just like all the opportunities you might have missed or bad decisions you might have made. Leave it all behind you. In «Now or Never» we are going to make a completely fresh start!

Jetzt oder nie (Now or never)
Residenztheater, 19.30 o'clock
Fri 11 Oct
Residenztheater, 19.30 o'clock
Tue 22 Oct

No other play by Heinrich von Kleist inspires quite so many superlatives as «Käthchen of Heilbronn». It is not only the most successful, but also the most romantic, the most fairy tale-like and at the same time the most mysterious play that he wrote.

Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (Käthchen of Heilbronn)

In June 1816 the «Medusa», the fastest frigate of its time, sets to sea. Its destination is Saint-Louis in Senegal. There are two hundred and forty people on board – besides the sailors, most of them are soldiers, but they also include the colony’s Governor and his family together with priests, teachers, doctors and engineers. Two days’ journey from their destination the ship runs aground on a sandbank and splits. As there is not enough room for everyone in the lifeboats, a raft is cobbled together for the lifeboats to tow on shore. But as soon as they set off, the rudderless and heavily overloaded raft is left behind by the boats on which the dignitaries are rescuing themselves. Of one hundred and seventeen men only fifteen will survive. Many of them will fall victim to their own comrades because the few goods they were able to save – barrels of wine, sodden biscuits, a few weapons and valuables – are as heavily fought over as the power the make decisions about possible rescue measures.

Der Schiffbruch der Fregatte Medusa (The shipwreck of the frigate Medusa)

The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta is just around the corner. But first Theseus has to help his friend Egeus. His daughter Hermia has fallen in love with the wrong man, Lysander. In order to change Hermia's mind, an effective threat is set up. The lovers have only one choice: to flee into the darkness of a dreamy June night. And here, in the pale glow of the wild setting, reality and reason are transformed into sexual desire and animal lust. «A Midsummer Night's Dream» is not only William Shakespeare's best-known comedy, but also perhaps his most abysmal. Stephan Kimmig stages the creatures from Shakespeare's famous fairy world as real-life eccentrics. Weird, unconventional and dazzling, they radically question what is considered normal.

Ein Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Residenztheater, 19.00 o'clock
Thu 10 Oct
Residenztheater, 19.00 o'clock
Fri 18 Oct
18.30 Introduction
Tickets Save date
Residenztheater, 19.00 o'clock
Thu 31 Oct
Residenztheater, 19.00 o'clock
Tue 05 Nov
Residenztheater, 16.00 o'clock
Sun 24 Nov

The team led by director Ewelina Marciniak and author Jarosław Murawski scrutinises Oscar Wilde's drama about the biblical princess and legendary femme fatale Salome from the perspective of the present day and of feminism. They shed light not only on the formerly scandalous self-empowerment of a woman in a man's world, but also on Oscar Wilde's view of the character in the era of the Décadence.

Salome
Premiere
Cuvilliéstheater
Thu 06 Feb