"Zement" is a play by the German dramatist Heiner Müller, which was created in 1972 after the novel of the same name by Fjodor Gladkow. It tells a story of men and women, workers and intellectuals, communists and enemies of the revolution and their relationships to each other in the difficult years in the Soviet Union. The locksmith Gleb Tschumalow, returning from the war as regimental commissioner, finds his town transformed into a village, the cement plant into a goat stable, his wife into a man. The communist worker is still an owner as a man, the woman insists on equal rights.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a gothic novella by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. The work is also known as The Strange Case of Jekyll Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London legal practitioner named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll and the evil Edward Hyde.
Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. His play "The plummeting old women" is an absurd story. Excessive curiosity made one old woman fall out of a window, plummet to the ground and break into pieces. Another old woman poked her head out of a window to look at the one who had broken into pieces, but excessive curiosity made her too fall out of the window, plummet to the ground and break into pieces. Then a third old woman fell out of a window, then a fourth, then a fifth.
Before the performance began, thirty drummers whirl their mallets in the foyer of the Berlin Volksbühne, so that the rebellious sound penetrated your body. Pimped up in his expectation, one can then enter a dark theater room, but is given a Chinese flashlight in his hand. This allows you to shine the actors who are beginning to act in the background of the hall out of the darkness. Director Andreas Kriegenburg, Castorf's supporter for a theater of contradiction, has come up with all sorts of ideas to make Lew Lunz's premiere of the political spectacle "City of Truth" effective.
The play by Ray Galton and John Antrobus is a hilarious farce from 1988. An extramarital affair turns into a nightmare when a thief pinches the husband’s trousers: Bookmaker Howard Swerling is married – and visiting his lover when a burglar steals his trousers. The hunt for spare trousers commences, leading to a sex-mad policeman’s proposal of marriage, drug parties and half-clad men and women – and from there straight into mayhem. And yet all Howard wants is to be home before his wife wakes up...
The Robbers (Original title: Die Räuber) is the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany, and was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play Julius of Tarent. The plot revolves around the conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Karl and Franz Moor. The charismatic but rebellious student Karl is deeply loved by his father. The younger brother, Franz, who appears as a cold, calculating villain, plots to wrest away Karl's inheritance.
Heart of a Dog (Original title: Собачье сердце, Sobachye syerdtsye) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when communism appeared to be relaxing in the Soviet Union. It is generally interpreted as an allegory of the Communist revolution and the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind. (Source: Wikipedia) For the first time in the GDR, the play was performed at the Volksbühne. (Source: Volksbühne Archiv)
Last of the Red Hot Lovers is a comedy by Neil Simon. It premiered on Broadway in 1969. Barney Cashman, a middle-aged, married nebbish wants to join the sexual revolution before it is too late. A gentle soul with no experience in adultery, he fails in each of three seductions: Elaine Navazio, a sexpot who likes cigarettes, whiskey, and other women's husbands; Bobbi Michele, an actress friend who he discovers is madder than a hatter; and Jeannette Fisher, his wife's best friend, a staunch moralist. (Source: Wikipedia)