The German Theater Welcomes its First Female Director: Iris Laufenberg Discusses Her Plans and Vision for the Theater

By Sebastian Bauer

Even though it has been twelve years since Iris Laufenberg (57) quit as director of the Berliner Theatertreffen, she hasn’t had to get used to the city again. “I always stayed in Berlin with one leg anyway. Berlin is a city that is worth every visit,” says the new director of the Deutsches Theater, whose older brother, Eric Uwe Laufenberg, ran the Potsdam Hans Otto Theater until 2009.

BZ: The Deutsches Theater was honored as “Theater of the Year” for your predecessor Ulrich Khuon’s last season. Is this a mortgage for a new start or an incentive?

Iris Laufenberg: This is pure motivation. I am very happy for Uli Khuon. The audience probably associates an award like this with the quality of a house like the Deutsches Theater. This is a very good starting point for us to start here and build on it. And we will resume the productions that are relevant for the award – Jossi Wieler’s Jelinek production “Indication of the Person” and Sebastian Hartmann’s “The Only One and His Property” – we had already planned that before these new honors.

How has Berlin’s theater landscape changed since your time as head of Theatertreffen?

At that time, the East-West conflict was much more noticeable. When I started, the Theatertreffen even had advance ticket sales for West Germany. We have changed this and other habits with a headwind.

Is the German Theater still noticeably an Eastern theater?

We take up the location with our first premiere “Space Earth Human”. The piece is named after the infamous book that was given as a gift for youth inauguration in the GDR. Already during the preparations and a public rehearsal, we noticed what intensive conversations this choice of topic through East or West family biographies creates. And if we can transfer that to a large audience, that would be great. Because there are still many prejudices between East and West. There is still some potential here for our theater.

Do politics and social issues need to be specifically discussed in the theater?

I think we have to approach all topics and pieces in such a way that they resonate with the audience. And it is advisable not to slip into party political trends or to always think of some topics in catastrophe categories. Even when it comes to major challenges like climate change. Instead, we need visions of how we can live better together. And the fact that it’s tiring is sometimes a good thing, because you can see everywhere today that simplification tends to have a divisive effect.

How can theater manage to engage an often divided society as a whole?

We need to focus more on listening and allowing debate. This also means admitting your own mistakes instead of trying to be as correct as possible. Theater cannot actually be politically correct.

Does theater still have the social relevance it did 20 or 30 years ago?

At least after Corona we saw that when the fear of the disease disappeared, people came back to the theater. The reception is good. Sure, it used to be better, but that has to do with the increasing fragmentation of society and not with the declining relevance of theater. It is still suitable as an agora of democracy.