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The people who buy paintings like this aren''t just driven by aesthetic desire. People who buy paintings like this want a story. A story that catapults them into the orbit of the Fuhrer. As Nicola and Philipp are clearing out their late father''s house, they find an old painting stashed in the attic: a quaint watercolour of a church on a pale summer day, signed ''A. Hitler''. Nicola wants to sell it. Philipp wants to keep it. Philipp''s wife Judith wants to burn it. A jagged satire from one of Germany''s foremost playwrights, Nachtland opened at the Young Vic Theatre, London, in February 2024.
About the author
Marius von Mayenburg was born in 1972 in Munich. He studied Medieval Literature in Munich and Berlin, and, from 1994 until 1998, Playwriting at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1998 he began a collaboration with Thomas Ostermeier at Deutsches Theater in Berlin that continued, from 1999, at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin. He was awarded several prizes for his first play Fireface (1997). Since then he has written numerous plays, including The Ugly One, The Stone, Martyr and Plastic, which have been translated into over thirty languages and performed both in Germany and abroad. Since 2009 Mayenburg directs regularly at the Schaubühne in Berlin, as well as in other cities in Germany and across the world. His productions include plays by William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Stefano Massini, Maja Zade, Alan Ayckbourn, and his own work. Alongside his activities as playwright, dramaturg and director, Mayenburg has translated a number of plays, including Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, Measure for Measure and Richard III, all of which were staged by Thomas Ostermeier at the Schaubühne. For his own productions, he has translated Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet. His work as a translator also includes contemporary plays by Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp and Richard Dresser. Mayenburg lives in Berlin.Maja Zade is a dramaturg, playwright and translator. She is head of dramaturgy at the Schaubühne Berlin. Various translations into German include work by Lars von Trier and Caryl Churchill, and translations into English (from German and Swedish) by Marius von Mayenburg, Lars Norén and Falk Richter. Her plays status quo, abgrund, ödipus and reden über sex all premiered at the Schaubühne and have been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Czech, Latvian, Polish, French and English. She will direct her new play spinne at the Schaubühne in June 2024.
Summary
The people who buy paintings like this aren't just driven by aesthetic desire. A story that catapults them into the orbit of the Führer. As Nicola and Philipp are clearing out their late father's house, they find an old painting stashed in the attic: a quaint watercolour of a church on a pale summer day, signed 'A.
