From Berlin-Mitte to Köpenick in the south-east of the city you need about an hour by public transport, then you are in such a green idyll between forest, villas and lakes that you immediately think you are in the summer resort. Claus Peymann, who is himself a listed building, lives here in a listed building that would be worthy of a magician. Doyen of directing, director-patriarch, living theater legend. He was director of the Vienna Burgtheater for 13 years, head of the Berlin Ensemble for 18 years, before that he was a theater revolutionist in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Bochum – and he still doesn’t retire, directing as a freelance director whenever and wherever he is allowed to. A troublemaker. A theater person through and through. He turned 85 last Tuesday, and to mark the occasion he invited people to a party in his garden at the weekend. Not, without playing the charming entertainer on two evenings beforehand at Thomas Bernhard readings in the Renaissance Theater in Berlinas if 85 were the new 60 and old age was something that just had to be staged well.
Claus Peymann’s 85th birthday party – Culture
