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Johan Simons Reimagines Antigone at Berliner Ensemble With Ascetic Three-Actor Staging

Hölderlin’s text underpins a role‑fluid production built on fragile paper architecture that rejects simple hero‑tyrant readings.

Overview

  • Critics describe a stripped, laboratory-like approach that foregrounds inherited violence and collective culpability over topical politics.
  • The cast of three—Jens Harzer, Constanze Becker, and Kathleen Morgeneyer—shifts roles, with Harzer embodying Antigone and Becker shaping a reasoned Creon.
  • Johannes Schütz’s design centers on a suspended divider skinned in paper, paired with a sparsely dressed stage strewn with sculptural objects.
  • The performance runs about two hours without intermission and leans on Hölderlin’s language, demanding concentrated delivery and precise balance.
  • Reviews note an intimate, rehearsal-like tone with occasional ambient sounds, and a deliberate estrangement that offers few bridges to contemporary references.