Herbert Fritsch

Herbert Fritsch is an actor, director, set designer and media artist. He first made a name for himself as an anarchic actor, who acted voraciously up to the point of exhaustion, most recently as a member of the ensemble of the Berliner Volksbühne on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

»In the theater I can surrender to madness,« he described himself at the time. Since 2006 he has directed drama and opera with great success, always also designing the stage sets. His productions have been regularly invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen, and Herbert Fritsch as a director has been showered with prizes. In addition, he makes films and designs art installations.

His theater is radically artificial, often silly and extreme. He hates coolness on stage and any apparently »authentic« acting. Together with his actors, he searches for extravagant, affected and tense gestures, for contortions, spasms and eruptions. It has been described as "buffoon-esque" and “physical slapstick theater", and he himself as a "worker of fire, and someone who sets loose a lust for playfulness".