by Tankred Dorst

Premiere on 21.01.2012, Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar

The myth attributes a unique role to him. Merlin, the embodiment of the deep-seated human dream of freedom and self-determination, is not only the master of the wilderness and the monstrous, he also acts as a kind of sorcerer, house priest and spiritual guide, in short, as a bona fide guru.

As such, Merlin becomes the founder of a grandiose experimental set-up that has retained its utopian potential to this day. The experiment is the legendary Round Table of King Arthur, Lancelot and the other valiant knights. This round table - as the archetype of a truly democratic institution - could work if Merlin did not also have something demonic about him. His father is the devil, who wants nothing else but to tear apart the divinely ordained order. And the more Merlin tries to resist him, the more he wavers back and forth, between good and evil, between creation and destruction, between elegant sorcery and disenchantment through reality.

In his play „Merlin or the Vast Land“, Tankred Dorst develops a play about power and love, seduction and seducability, in the course of which the characters are increasingly dominated by their irrational passions. The consequences are devastating, a private and public war breaks out and dictatorial fantasies unfold. The project of democracy threatens to fail, the Round Table breaks apart, loses its form and is subjected to the process of decomposition from within and without. Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope at the end, because the existence of a utopia is a necessary prerequisite for this utopia to be transformed into reality at some point....

with: Michael Wächter, Jeanne Devos, Caroline Dietrich, Nina Mariel Kohler, Elke Wieditz, Thomas Büchel, Bastian Heidenreich, Hagen Ritschel, Johannes Schmidt

Direction: Sabine Auf der Heyde

Stage: Ann Heine

Costumes: Barbara Aigner

Music: Jacob Suske

Dramaturgy: Jürgen Otten