The great ten and the interrogation of new theatre forms

The Berlin festival Theatertreffen - the German-speaking equivalent of the Maribor Theatre Festival (Borštnikovo srecanje) featuring ten 'most noteworthy' performances selected by jury - takes place every year at the beginning of May. 'Courage to Audaciousness' was the motto of the latest edition of the festival, which presented several long performances with very diverse but distinct authorial signatures: from the archaic Gotscheff and the hysterical Castorf to the emptied Borgmann, the poignant Final Witnesses of the Holocaust, the apparently cold petit- bourgeois horror by Susanne Kennedy, the global implication in the arms trade by Rimini Protokoll, the entertaining Fritsch, Karin Henkel's play with identities, Hermanis' integration of an uncivilized foundling, and Platel's choreography on the theme of social exclusion.