A workshop held at the Astakhov Cultural Centre in Moscow, Fragen Theatre engaged in an in-depth analysis of one of the 20th century's most important plays to explore the increasing divergences in the internal and external landscapes of human interaction - society, economy, industry and technology vs the human heart, spirit, aspirations, fears, hopes and dreams.

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In 1933, when Heiner Müller was a little boy just 4 years old, his father was arrested in the middle of the night by secret police of the Nazi Regime. By 1945, Müller found himself drafted into the army of the very regime he hated to fight in the closing stages of Germany’s catastrophic defeat.

 

Müller lived through extraordinary moments of history and these events became his material. He lived through the most paradoxical century ever experienced by humanity and he wrote about those paradoxes.

 

His most famous play, Hamlet-Maschine, is a history lesson from the past about the future. It is full of fragmentary images and stories that try to unpack and comprehend the terrible paradoxes of war, violence, genocide and division.

 

Hamlet-Maschine is arguably the most important play of the 20th century but also perhaps the most important play of the 21st century as well.

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