Back to the Present (New Version) von Constanza Macras

In the organizer's words:

Memory is fragile, garbage lasts forever.

In 2003, Constanza Macras and her company DorkyPark created the legendary piece Back to the Present, which premiered in the abandoned Jandorf department store in Mitte and then toured the world. Now, after more than 20 years, Back to the Present is back!

With Back to the Present, Constanza Macras embarks on a journey into the past. Where do you go when you don't want to deal with the past or the future?

Jill Emerson, the iconic actress from DorkyPark's earlier work, is back in the show, surrounded by a completely new cast.

All the characters find themselves in a casting for a reality show after falling out of love. They try to be themselves - absolute originals - and at the same time they become archetypes for a mass audience. Fetishized objects from previous relationships pile up like rubble under a mountain of ruins.

How do you recycle things that decompose, like love letters, flags, old props, old ideas? What is the difference between storage and memory when history is increasingly digital?

Back to the Present lives in a kind of limbo between the layers of its own history. It leaves behind uniforms and costumes, old props and programs, video recordings, broken and unusable parts of the stage set. Like the debris of past relationships: Torn movie tickets, old phone numbers, love letters, cards from Valentine's Day.

Jill has moved on, but somehow she has decided to return to where she thinks it all began: Back to the Present!

More info at: https://www.volksbuehne.berlin/#/de/repertoire/back-to-the-present