On Saturday 25 April 2009, the German language premiere of Václav Havel’s Leaving took place at the Theater Aachen in Germany. The play with which the former Czech president returned successfully to stage writing after twenty years was directed by the Berlin based director Nicolai Sykosch in a translation by Joachim Bruss. The opening was attended by the author who, a day before, was awarded the first ever Bonn International Democracy Prize in the former capital of Germany.
The comments in German press:
U. Fischer: Václav Havels «Abgang» in Aachen, Augsburger Allgemeine, 26.4.2009.
S. Keim: Václav Havel - Der selbstironische Blick, FR-online.de, 27.4.2009.
Following the Czech Republic, Britain, Poland and Slovakia, Germany became the fifth country where Havel’s text was staged. (Note, that the world premiere of the play took place a year ago at Theatre Archa in Prague and that the production won the Alfréd Radok Award as the best original Czech play in 2008.)
The reviews available show that the first German staging of the play will be original compared to other productions: the director used just nine actors to play the seventeen characters in the play, with, in one case, gender-blind casting decision.
The central couple of protagonists, Rieger and Irena, were played by Heinz Kloss and Bettina Scheuritzel (both, by the way, excelling as Peachum and Jenny in the same theatre’s production of Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera).
The director Nicolai Sykosch (b. 1963) works at several German theatres and lectures at art Academies in both Berlin and Leipzig. His most successful productions up to date include his staging of Café Umberto by Moritz Rinke at the Theater Bremen chosen from several productions in Germany of the same play to represent contemporary German playwriting at the festival in Mühlheim in 2006.
Reviews of the Aachen production in the Czech Republic:
tt: Havlovo Odcházení má německou verzi, exprezidentovi i publiku se líbí, iDnes.cz, 26.4.2009.
ČTK: Havlovo Odcházení si získalo německé publikum, týden.cz, 28.4.2009.