The theater at the end of the 20th century marginalized contemporary drama. But there are also exceptions: Thomas Bernhard's plays, especially in Claus Peymann's productions with Bernhard Minetti, Marianne Hoppe, Kirsten Dene and Gert Voss, become actor festivals. Botho Strauß develops brilliant forms of intellectual social comedy. Franz-Xaver Kroetz renews the dialect-critical folk play. The stage serves less and less as a tribunal for enlightenment, the new media are too fast for the theater and hardly allow current time pieces. Peter Stein contrasts his own wild beginnings with a new fidelity to the work. In addition, the theater of deconstructing given texts flourishes with Frank Castorf and his disciples. Directors such as Robert Wilson and Christoph Marthaler are even more decisive in delimiting the literary-dramatic theater and opening the stage for music, dance and video. This brings the theater closer to its oldest dream: the dream of a total work of art.

• Peter von Becker

• Max Reinhardt
• Otto Sander
• Esther Schweins