Wallenstein

Theatertreffen 2026 | 10 remarkable productions

Wallenstein – Eine glatzköpfige Person mit wütendem Gesichtsausdruck nimmt einen erschreckt wirkenden Mann von hinten in die Klammer

A slaughter feast in seven courses

adapted from Friedrich Schiller

Münchner Kammerspiele

Premiere: 4.10.2025

 

Jan-Christoph Gockel’s spectacular interpretation of Wallenstein takes us directly inside the field kitchen where profiteering, strategically cultivating one’s image, ambition, power and loyalty are served up and tasted in an overwhelming spectrum of spicy theatrical ideas. 

In the Thirty Years’ War, Wallenstein is the commander-in-chief leading numerous armies of mercenaries. He pays them by plundering conquered territory while also making a profit himself, in keeping with the motto “war feeds war.” When Wallenstein tries to seize political power, the emperor has him murdered. In 2023 Yevgeny Prigozhin, “Putin’s cook” and the head of the mercenary Wagner Group, sets off with his troops to march on Moscow. Their uprising fails and a plane with Prigozhin on board crashes soon afterwards. Deploying an exuberant wealth of creative ideas, references and styles, Jan-Christoph Gockel combines Friedrich Schiller’s monumental Wallenstein trilogy with the production team’s two-year research project into current ex-mercenaries. At the centre of this imaginative production are the people in Wallenstein’s Camp: soldiers, traders, children and peasants from his retinue – and their contemporary equivalents. How can war be depicted as a way of life? With a celebratory meal on stage, a party, live video, puppets, acting and a lecture performance, Gockel and ensemble devise a spectacle to appeal to all the senses.  

Jury Statement

“A dual portrait of the mechanics of war and an exuberant celebration of the theatre: this Wallenstein accomplishes both these and much more. Jan-Christoph Gockel and his team of individualists take seven hours over it. But the fact that these don’t drag is due to the multitude of perspectives presented on the material, which sometimes grate but always argue wonderfully with each other. The piece is about armies of mercenaries past and present, about military puppet masters who are hanging precariously by a thread themselves, about loyalty and the difficulty of ending wars. Central to the visual worlds and humour of the evening are Schiller’s famous line ‘war nourishes war’, the figure of the Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Harry Potter spell ‘riddikulus’, which transforms frightening creatures into something comic and dispels the paralysis of fear. In this immersive masterpiece, however, with elements of investigative and literary theatre, performance, live acting and puppetry, subtle irony, satire and seriousness, everything remains in motion. Even hope for the human being within the soldier.”

– Sabine Leucht for the Theatertreffen-jury

To the video statement (in German)

 

Artistic Team

Jan-Christoph Gockel – Direction

Julia Kurzweg – Stage

Janina Brinkmann – Costumes

Maria Moling – Music / Composition (Live-Musik)

Lion Bischof – Video Design

Christian Schweig, Stephan Mariani – Lighting Design

Michael Pietsch – Puppetry

Annette Paulmann – Piccolomini Menu

Viola Hasselberg, Claus Philipp – Dramaturgy

Sergei Okunev – Dramaturgical Collaboration and Research 

Cico Beck – Music Collaboration

Yvonne Griesel (SPRACHSPIEL) – Surtitles

Cast

Katharina Bach – Illo

André Benndorff – Questenberg

Johanna Eiworth – Isolan / Zhenya

Nadège Meta Kanku – Thekla, Wallenstein’s daughter

Samuel Koch – Wallenstein

Annika Neugart – Max Piccolomini, Octavio’s son

Annette Paulmann – Octavio Piccolomini 

Michael Pietsch – Count Terzky

Leoni Schulz / Eva Bay – Countess Terzky

Maria Moling – Seni and Live Music

Sergei Okunev – Serge – a guy from Russia, wearing a cloak and carrying a magic wand

Pari Garvanos / Daniel Hascher – Buttler

The Menu Sequence

55 minutes– 1st course: Wallensteins Lager

25 minutes – Intermission

1 hour 40 minutes - 2nd course: Die Piccolomini & 3rd course: Russischer Kitsch

25 minutes – Intermission

1 hour – 4th course: Wallensteins Traum

1 hour – Intermission

1 hour 30 minutes – 5th course: Zhenyas Lager & 6th course: Wallensteins Tod & 7th course: Kriegsende

3sat-Award

goes to Katharina Bach

on Saturday, 9.5.2026 after the performance

Audience Talk

on Sunday, 10.5.2026 after the performance

3sat “Starke Stücke”: The performance on 10.5.2026 will be streamed live with a delayed broadcast from 17:00

in the 3satMediathek and the Berliner Festspiele Media Library

Next date:

• Date Saturday, 09/May/2026 15:00 (1 more date)
• Venue Haus der Berliner Festspiele - Große Bühne
• Address Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin-Wilmersdorf