William Shakespeare: Othello / The Strangers
In the translations by Christoph Martin Wieland and Frank Günther in a version by Marcel Kohler
Tickets & dates
About the production
Start
7 p.m.
End
9:45 p.m.
»Othello«, Shakespeare's dramatic masterpiece about destructive rage and deadly jealousy, and »The Strangers«, a text that has only been attributed to the English playwright for a few years, form the basis for an immersive station drama in the former Telux glass factory in Weißwasser. The play is directed by Marcel Kohler, who is also responsible for the text. The play, which features Götz Schubert, Linn Reusse, Leonhard Burkhardt and the Stadtchor Weißwasser e.V., among others, was launched at the Lausitz Festival 2024 and became an instant hit with audiences. The critics were also highly impressed. Very positive reviews were followed towards the end of the year by the production being named in a top ten list of the best productions of the 2025 theatre year in unusual locations by the daily newspaper »Die Welt«.
About the play: Even the initial situation is complicated. Venetians and Turks, Western economic power and military power from the East, are fighting over the now divided Cyprus. Iago has not been promoted and, in retaliation for the humiliation suffered at the hands of General Othello, initiates an intrigue to make the commander of the Venetian fleet believe that his wife Desdemona is cheating on him with his favourite. Disappointed desire and fear of loss send the characters in this play into a rage. Anger and desire, both powerful driving forces in their dealings with each other and familiar historical forces not only in Lusatia, set in motion a disastrous game in which there are only losers in the end.
Marcel Kohler and his team are interested in the »Othello case«, the contradictory truths associated with it and how it is instrumentalised for various purposes. The Danner Hall at the Telux cultural centre – which has repeatedly hosted highly acclaimed Shakespeare performances at the Lausitz Festival in recent years – also becomes a protagonist: the audience, divided into groups, experiences the Othello story in the former glass factory at various stations, in different sequences and from different perspectives. Only gradually does an overall picture of the drama emerge, until finally everyone comes together again and is confronted with their own desires and dangers. After acclaimed performances in 2024, the festival programme includes a revival in 2025 with four performances at the same location.
»Jeli maće hudźbu, kotruž njesłyšiš, potom hrajće dale.«
Brabantio w Shakespearowym Othello
»If you have any music that may not be heard, to ’t again.«
Brabantio in Shakespeare's Othello
Marcel Kohler
Marcel Kohler, born in Mainz in 1991, studied acting at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin (2011 to 2015). He was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation. During his studies, he took on his first roles at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, where he was permanently engaged from 2015 to 2023.
He joined the ensemble of the Schaubühne Berlin for the 2023/2024 season. Recurring appearances at the Salzburg Festival. He has received several awards. Among others, he received the Daphne Prize, the O. E. Hasse Prize, the Alfred Kerr Actor Prize for the best performance by a young actor at the Berliner Festspiele's Theatertreffen and was named Young Actor of the Year 2016.
Marcel Kohler works regularly as a director and set designer, for example at the Nationaltheater Weimar, Deutsches Theater Berlin and Theater Heidelberg. His productions have been awarded the »Der Faust« theater prize in a retrospective and received the Dr. Otto Kasten Prize from the group of artistic directors in 2021. He has also been invited to renowned festivals such as the Ruhrfestspiele, Mülheimer Theatertage, Fringe Festival Beijing/China, Gogol-Festival Kyiv/Ukraine, Festival di Spoleto/Italy and the Fiesad-Festival Rabbat/Morocco.
Marcel Kohler has a close working relationship with the actress Corinna Harfouch. He has staged two monologues with her.
Marcel Kohler is the initiator and founding member of Neues Künstlertheater.
Most recently, he received the Berlin Art Prize from the Academy of Arts in 2023.
Leonard Burkhardt
Leonard Burkhardt was born in Berlin in 1997. He gained his first acting experience at the DT Jung* in Berlin. He completed his acting studies at the Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich in 2022.
In the same year, he appeared as a guest in »Identitti« (director: Salome Dastmalchi) at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. In addition to theater, he also works in film and as a speaker. In the 2022/23 season, he was a permanent ensemble member at the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Since 2024, he has been a guest at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and Schauspiel Köln.
Sina Kießling
Sina Kießling studied acting at the Rostock University of Music and Drama. She then went to the Theater Heilbronn from 2003-2007. This was followed by a two-year engagement at Theater Lübeck, where she played roles including »Lulu«, »Karoline« and »Maria Braun«. It was during this time that she met director Anna Bergmann, with whom she has maintained a close artistic collaboration to this day.
Since 2009, she has worked as a freelance actress at Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Volktheater München, Stadsteater Malmö, Theater Lübeck, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Theater Basel, among others. In 2006 she was awarded the Kilian Prize for Best Actress and in 2010 she was nominated for Best Young Actress in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In addition to her work as an actress, she also studied cultural management at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama. Since then, she has also worked as a production manager and producer with Fabian Hinrichs for the Foreign Affairs Festival and Nordwind Festival, with the choreographers Simone Aughterlony, Kat Válastur and Ligia Lewis and, since 2015, with the theater collective machina eX.
Dagna Litzenberger Vinet
Dagna Litzenberger Vinet was born in Oakland (USA) in 1987 and grew up in France, Germany and Switzerland. After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, she studied acting at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin from 2010 to 2013. Her first engagement took her to the Schauspielhaus Zürich from 2013 to 2017. In 2018, she appeared at the Berlin Theatertreffen as Cassandra in »Beute Frauen Krieg« (director: Karin Henkel).
She then worked freelance and performed on the stages of the Maxim Gorki Theater, the Lucerne Theater and at the Salzburg Festival, among others. From the 2020/21 season, she was a member of the ensemble at the Burgtheater in Vienna for two years.
In addition to her work in the theater, Dagna Litzenberger Vinet also regularly appears in front of the camera in various film and television productions.
Götz Schubert
Since the beginning of his career, Götz Schubert has impressed audiences and the press with his acting range and distinctive intuition for the roles he plays.
He always finds his own approach with a deep feeling for the idiosyncrasies of the characters in order to bring out the fragility, the humanity and the humor of the characters and to give them a closeness to life and truthfulness. His differentiated, masculine and sensitive execution of the traits with which he gives the characters a believable life of their own was recognized early on by theater directors such as Alexander Lang, Amélie Niermeyer, Herbert Fritsch, Jürgen Gosch, Karin Beier, Peter Stein, Philipp Stölzl and Thomas Langhoff, who repeatedly cast the actor in their productions.
In film, he has won over audiences and the press in collaborations with Ben Verbong, Christian Schwochow, Edward Berger, Francis Meletzky, Isabell Kleefeld, Matti Geschonneck, Robert Schwentke, Till Franzen and Lars Kraume. Lars Kraume has made many award-winning films over the years, such as »The Silent Classroom«, »The State against Fritz Bauer« and »God according to Ferdinand von Schirach«.
He has performed at major German-speaking theaters, including the Berliner Ensemble, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Maxim Gorki Theater, Residenztheater Munich and Schauspielhaus Hamburg. Since the beginning of his career, Schubert has appeared in numerous cinema and television productions, including »Der Turm«, »Meine Tochter Anne Frank«, »Tage, die bleiben« and »Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter«, as well as in serial audience successes such as »Die verlorene Tochter«, »KDD« and »Wolfsland«.
He was voted Actor of the Year by Theater heute, honored several times with the German Television Prize and the Grimme Prize and awarded the Audience Bambi for his acting. Götz Schubert is an ambassador for the German Palliative and Hospice Foundation. The actor lives near Berlin.
Linn Reusse
Linn Reusse, born in Berlin in 1992, studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts from 2012 to 2016. Even before and during her studies, she had roles in the theater (Deutsches Theater Berlin, Renaissance Theater, BAT Theater) as well as in film and television productions (including »Goethe!«, »Bloch«). She played the title role in the movie »Die rote Zora«.
Linn Reusse has been a member of the ensemble at the Deutsches Theater Berlin since the 2016/17 season. There she works with Stephan Kimmig, Daniela Löffner, Timofej Kuljabin, Lilja Rupprecht, Karin Henkel and Jossi Wieler, among others. In 2018, Linn Reusse played Swanhild in »Siegfried's Heirs« at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms, directed by Roger Vontobel. In 2019, she received the Daphne Prize from the Theater Gemeinde Berlin, which honors outstanding young performers on the Berlin cultural scene.
In 2023, Linn Reusse performed in »Nathan the Wise« at the Salzburg Festival, directed by Ulrich Rasche. Linn Reusse is part of the Neues Künstlertheater. She experiments with live drawings on stage and runs the mental health blog »Semikolon« together with journalist Maja Goertz. She also regularly speaks for audio book and radio play productions. Linn Reusse has been a member of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg ensemble since the 2023/24 season.
Artists
Play Leonard Burkhardt
Play Sina Kießling
Play Dagna Litzenberger Vinet
Play Götz Schubert
Play Linn Reusse
Choir Stadtchor Weißwasser e.V.
Direction Marcel Kohler
Stage and costumes Torsten Köpf
Music Christoph Bernewitz
Choir direction Lars Deke
Video Linn Reusse
Light Henning Streck
Drama Michael Höppner
Location
Location Danner-Halle, TELUX-Gelände, Weißwasser O.L. / Běła Woda
Address Straße der Einheit 20, 02943 Weißwasser O.L. / Běła Woda
Cooperation partners
