It’s always fascinating when you see a familiar place on stage or screen. And Berlin Kleistpark, Hakan Savas Mican’s play about family and forgiveness at the Maxim Gorki Theater, is no exception. Most of the drama takes place within the four walls of a Schöneberg Altbau – though unusually this apartment does feature a four-piece band, playing compositions by musical director Jörg Gollasch. The play is the second in Mican’s “City Trilogy” of works set in Berlin, though the story very much stands on its own. It follows the rocky relationship between Turkish Berliner Adem (played by Taner Şahi̇ntürk) and his girlfriend, Israeli-born Moria (Sesede Terziyan), as they are paid a sudden – and possibly final – visit by Adem’s mother Meryem (Çigdem Teke). The visit inflames old tensions over Adem’s childhood abandonment and makes him question his relationship with Moria. Subjects like immigration and culture are handled with humor and originality: you expect the first meeting between Meryem, an elderly Turkish lady, and Moria, a strident young Jewish woman, to lead to fireworks. But Mican turns this assumption on its head – with hilarious results. It’s the highlight of a play that is dark, irreverent and utterly Berlin.
Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Ute Langkafel Maifoto
Maxim Gorki Theater, Dorotheenstr.9, 10117 Berlin–Mitte; map
Berlin Kleistpark is showing on 23.02 and 02.03 at the Gorki Theater. Tickets are available online.
@maxim_gorki_theater
