Bertold Brecht founded
the Berliner Ensemble in 1949, and it set up home in the Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm five years later. Photograph: Paul Hamann/AFP/Getty
Images
The future of the Berliner Ensemble, the theatre company founded by the Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht,
hangs in the balance as a result of a row over the rental contract
between the group and the owner of the theatre it calls home.
The company has been based at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm beside the river Spree in Berlin for almost 60 years, but the leader of the foundation that owns the theatre says he is cancelling the contract and evicting the company.
Rolf Hochhuth of the Ilse Holzapfel Foundation claims the BE and its director Claus Peymann have consistently flouted the contract's conditions, including a requirement to stage an annual performance of Hochhuth's 1960s play The Deputy, which criticises the perceived indifference of Pope Pius XII to the deportation of Jews from Rome during the second world war.
The company has been based at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm beside the river Spree in Berlin for almost 60 years, but the leader of the foundation that owns the theatre says he is cancelling the contract and evicting the company.
Rolf Hochhuth of the Ilse Holzapfel Foundation claims the BE and its director Claus Peymann have consistently flouted the contract's conditions, including a requirement to stage an annual performance of Hochhuth's 1960s play The Deputy, which criticises the perceived indifference of Pope Pius XII to the deportation of Jews from Rome during the second world war.
