"Penthesilea"

© Birgit Hupfeld

Penthesilea

by Heinrich von Kleist
Bertolt-Brecht-Platz 1
10117 Berlin
Contact & Access

Box-Office

+49 30 284 08 155
theaterkasse@berliner-ensemble.de

Der Vorverkauf für alle Vorstellungen im Dezember bis 5. Januar läuft! Unsere Theaterkasse hat montags bis samstags von 10.00 Uhr bis 18.30 Uhr für Sie geöffnet.

Currently no performances

“We destroy that which we love”, is how writer Christa Wolf encapsulated the theme of Kleist’s Penthesilea. In a world of war, grounded in violence, the Amazon queen Penthesilea and the Greek commander Achilles collide like two celestial bodies and nearly burn up in their fatally boundless love. The law demands that the Amazons must find and vanquish their mates on the battle-field. But war hero Achilles has never lost in combat. He challenges Penthesilea to a duel, which he enters unarmed, to surrender as the vanquished. Misconstruing this admission of love, the Amazon slays him in a passion of murderous ecstasy. Michael Thalheimer has staged Kleist’s masterpiece of language in a version reduced to only three persons.  

Du fürchtest mich doch nicht? Heinrich von Kleist

Press

“A capital evening of theatre.”Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“Both precise in language and powerful in imagery.”Deutschlandfunk