Docufilm ‘German Theatre Variations’ at Goethe Institute

Screening of the documentary film ‘German Theatre Variations’ and a discussion organised by Inter Act Art theatre and Goethe – Institut Sri Lanka will be held as a part of Colombo Theatre Forum (CTF), a project conducted to promote theatre, drama and cinema. The forum will be held on Tuesday, October 29 at the Goethe Institut Hall from 5.00 pm onwards. The discussion is curated by M. Safeer.

Re-commenced in 2017 with the participation of many young theatre lovers and foreign delegates, CTF is a space created for those who are seeking new dimensions in Sri Lankan theatre. Scholars, directors, script writers, actors and actresses, critics, lighting directors, back stage creators, stage managers, students and spectators can join this forum in order to widen their horizons in the field of theatre.

‘German Theatre Variations’ opens with an excerpt from G.E.

Lessing`s bourgeois tragedy “Emilia Galotti” and goes on to show examples of the work of the “classic” playwrights Goethe and Schiller, Kleist and Büchner, the leading dramatists of the 19th century. The Film shows how Otto Brahm and Max Reinhardt freed the German stage from the historicism of the late 19th century. Expressionism is presented as an important influence on the theatre as the Berlin of the 1920s becomes the stage capital of the world. The rise of the Bauhaus theatre is described, as the political drama movement led by Erwin Piscator and Bert Brecht. 1928 sees the premiere of the latter`s “Threepenny Opera”. In 1933, following the Nazis rise to power, many important figures from the arts world are forced to leave Germany.