At a press conference in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the jury of the Berliner Theatertreffen announced this year's selection.

The following ten productions from German-speaking countries have been invited to the sixtieth edition of the festival in Berlin in May: "The Natives of Maria Blut" (Burgtheater Wien), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Theater Basel), "The Bus to Dachau" (Schauspielhaus Bochum) , "Nora" (Münchner Kammerspiele), "Ophelia's Got Talent" (Volksbühne Berlin), "Dialogue" (Burgtheater Vienna), "The Unique One and His Property" (Deutsches Theater Berlin), "Children of the Sun" (Schauspielhaus Bochum), "The Inheritance" (Residenztheater Munich), "Hamlet" (Anhaltisches Theater Dessau).

Simon Strauss

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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The many multiple invitations are particularly surprising.

Both the forgotten play “The Natives of Maria Blood”, which has just premiered, and the poorly staged new premiere of Peter Handke’s “Zwietalk” come from the Burgtheater, which will be happy to be positively discussed again for a change.

The adaptation of the dramatic social epic “Das Vermächtnis (The Inheritance)” comes from the Residenztheater in Munich, and an emancipation revue by Felicitas Brucker from the Kammerspiele.

Berlin is also taking part twice, on the one hand with the Stimer evening (“The Only One and His Property”) by Sebastian Hartmann and – not unexpected given the wide impact – the shrill dance provocation evening “Ophelia's Got Talent”.

Finally, the Bochum theater can look forward to an invitation to a documentary theater evening about Dachau and Mateja Koležnik's Gorki production "Children of the Sun".

Only Basel and Dessau are there with only one invitation each.

So the focus narrows significantly.

Soon only theaters from five cities will probably be noticed nationwide.

The jury's implicit message was that the interesting theater events are concentrated in a few important areas.

Nothing is going on in the periphery.

Then the whole thing is soon no longer a meeting of the German theater, but an exchange of the big city theater among themselves.