Never before have there been so many private collectors making extensive acquisitions of contemporary art. Are they the real key figures of a global art business?...
more
Peter Sellars' "Othello" which premiered last week at the Viennese Festwochen is a psychological study with political muscle. Shakespeare's Venetians are an occupying US force of Afro-Americans and Latinos. The motor of the tragedy, a flabby white brain played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Barbara Villiger Heilig was impressed. Photo: Gaius Charles by Armin Bardel
read more
Since being diagnosed with lung cancer last year, Christoph Schlingensief has made his illness the subject of a theatre trilogy. In what he describes as a readymade opera, "Mea Culpa", the final part now playing in Vienna's Burgtheater, is a mature, elegiac and exhibitionistic parody of everything the world has ever constructed around the big C. By Peter Michalzik
read more
An interview with one of the grand old men of German theatre, Gert Voss, about Schiller's Wallenstein, the glories and the disappointments of the stage, and a life-long love of cinema. By Peter Kümmel
read more
The celebrated German theatre collective Rimini Protokoll gives centre stage to "experts on everyday life". Eva Behrendt met three of its unsuspecting stars: English Literature student Priyanka Nandy, lorry driver Vento Borissov and corporate consultant Sven-Joachim Otto.
read more
Although Belarus "Free Theatre" stages its critical plays in discreet locations - cafes, apartments and even the woods - they have not escaped the attentions of the state authorities. Ingo Petz on a theatre group that's immune to intimidation.
read more
The Berlin festival Tanz im August presents human swarms, wailing feedback and the dark side of the pas de deux. This is good for dance. By Katrin Bettina Müller
read more
A great theatre pair director Luk Perceval and actor Thomas Thieme talk about fear, fury and self-hatred on the occasion of their five-hour Moliere marathon which just premiered at the Salzburg Festival. And about being a potato. By Peter Michalzik
read more
Fighting the system of informers in the GDR was his life's task. It made him ill - and famous. On the death of Ulrich Mühe. By Matthias Heine
read more
The Mülheimer Theatertage is a festival of contemporary plays. Christopher Schmidt takes a look at current trends and discovers truth-protocols, text surfaces and the Hamburg telephone book. But is there a dramatist in the house?
read more
Of mothers and children: Sasha Waltz has staged Pascal Dusapin's "Medea" opera in Luxembourg. Yet while the spirit races, the dancing is in slow motion. By Christiane Peitz
read more
Germany's top theatre festival is taking place in Berlin, the Theatertreffen. But does the theatre still have anything to celebrate? Absolutely! A defence of the stage in the age of cable TV and computer games. By Peter Kümmel.
read more
Revolution with a whiff of dementia. Nicolas Stemann stages Elfriede Jelinek's play "Ulrike Maria Stuart" in Hamburg's Thalia Theatre. Intelligent septuagenarian RAF schlock horror, says Christopher Schmidt.
read more
Sylvia Staude reports from Vienna's ImPulsTanz festival, a month-long contemporary dance platform with something for everyone, from the biggest names to the most passionate non-dancers.
read more
Theatre director Thomas Ostermeier and choreographer Constanza Macras have shaken things up at the Athens & Epidaurus Festival in Greece, with a sexed-up, grotesquely over the top, babylonically confused party called "A Midsummer Night's Dream." By Christine Dössel
read more
Berlin's favourite Russian writer Wladimir Kaminer sat on the scriptwriting jury at this year's Theatertreffen festival. He recounts the horrors of reading plays by the kilo and reminisces about his own dubious-sounding contributions to the dramatic arts.
read more