Christoph Müller
Nicole Widera
as alternating cast for Teresa Schergaut (from January 2024)

Letzte Station Torgau. Eine kalte Umarmung (UA)

Documentary Theatre Project by dura & kroesinger
Freital, Groß Leuthen, Wittenberg, Burg – these place names are tied to lasting memories for many people. But they aren’t memories of clean countryside air or sightseeing castles: These were the locations of “Jugendwerkhöfe” of the GDR’s youth welfare system, places intended to make those who were deemed in the language of the system to have “behavioural problems” more compliant with real socialist society. Sometimes simply refusing to become a member of the FDJ, the Free German Youth, was reason enough to be institutionalised.

Using disciplining methods imported from the Soviet Union, the spirit of collectivism was hammered into the young people. Physical and mental violence were daily occurrences, culminating in the feared “explosion method”.

Many of the people affected had already undergone an odyssey through other, equally humiliating kinds of institutions before they were sent to the Jugendwerkhof, spending nearly their entire childhood and youth in the system of forced education. Others were collected with no warning and sent on random trips of several days, with the ultimate destination kept secret until the end.

Under the disguising term of “work education”, inmates were trained as “unskilled labourers” for a pittance – which means that they were exploited as part of a system of forced labour. Among their products were components for self-assembly furniture for major Western corporations – which brought valuable foreign currency for the workers-and-farmers-state of the GDR and allowed the “free world” to enjoy their cosy living-atmosphere at a low cost.

Those who had enough courage defied the institution in small and larger ways – from secret parties which brought severe sanctions if discovered, all the way to escape attempts which were doomed to end up with a return to the institution sooner or later. And over all of this, one name hovered as a threat against repeated misdemeanour: Torgau. This was the location of the “Geschlossener Jugendwerkhof”, a closed institution, the final resort which no longer concealed the reality of what the entire system of homes was: a prison those who wouldn’t or couldn’t participate.

Regine Dura and Hans-Werner Kroesinger have worked together since the year 2000 and are among the eminent creators of contemporary documentary theatre. They integrate reports by contemporary witnesses and documents into concentrated and multi-layered texts. They have worked both internationally and at German-language theatres including Berlin’s HAU, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Landestheater Linz. At Schauspiel Leipzig, they looked back on the history of brown coal mining in the region of Leipzig in their 2020 work “Brennende Erde”.
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Premiere on 11.03.2023
Diskothek

Dates

https://www.schauspiel-leipzig.de Schauspiel Leipzig Bosestraße 1, 04109 Leipzig
Sun, 21.04. 20:00 — 22:00
Diskothek

Further dates in planning

Duration

ca. 2:00, no break

Strobe lighting is used in this production.

Cast

Nicole Widera as alternating cast for Teresa Schergaut (from January 2024)

Team

Director: Hans-Werner Kroesinger, Regine Dura
Concept and text: Regine Dura
Music: Jonas Marc Anton Wehner / Warm Graves
Stage and costume design: Hugo Gretler
Dramaturgy: Georg Mellert
Light: Mattheo Fehse
Video: Fabian Polinski
Sound: Udo Schulze, Gregory Weis
Theatre pedagogy: Nele Hoffmann

Extended Team

Assistant Stage Design & Costume: Arabella Marsh-Hilfiker
Stage Manager: Jens Glanze
Prompter: Philine von Engelhardt
Assistant to the Director: Emily Huber
Make-Up: Anja Engert
Props: Thomas Weinhold
Stage Master: Thomas Kalz
Intern Dramaturgy & director: Sophie Albrecht, Vincent Koch
Intern Stage & Costume Design: Charlotte Kaiser

Trailer