Ersan Mondtag’s Double Serpent selected for Theatertreffen
Ersan Mondtag's production of Sam Max's Double Serpent has been selected as one of ten ‘most remarkable’ productions to be performed at this year's prestigious Theatertreffen at the Berlin Festival, 2 to 18 May 2025. It received its world premiere at Staatstheater Wiesbaden in September 2024, and was chosen from 738 German-language plays staged across 88 German cities in 2024.
In selecting the production, the jury wrote: ‘This play fits Ersan Mondtag’s nightmarish theatre language like a glove. In the text by dramatist Sam Max from New York, meaning is assembled like a puzzle where all the pieces find their places only at the end. Mondtag’s staging is peopled by stylised, artificial characters whose shells break open bit by bit. Biographical facts come to light, levels of time and reality become more relatable. The balance of power, on the other hand, appears more and more obscure. What are we watching in Alexander Naumann’s fantasy-art noveau set? Is it a consensual gay BDSM-relationship or sexual abuse? Young Connor is at the centre of fascinating loops of light, sound and slow motion, where violence is ever present – even though it is never displayed, not even in Luis August Krawen’s computer-animated videos. This is no show for voyeurs: Instead, this artistic synthesis is disturbing in a unique, almost ceremonial manner, and it develops a hypnotic slipstream.’
