Overview
- The Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg is staging a new version of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog by writer Armin Petras under Claudia Bauer’s direction, recast as a Silicon Valley dystopia about AI and the quest to cheat death.
- The production layers puppetry and live performance as Oscar Olivo’s dog figure becomes human, with Bettina Stucky as the operating professor and Sandra Gerling as a glitching AI narrator.
- Designers drive a dense, tech-heavy look and sound with Andreas Auerbach’s towering cityscape, drone flyovers, and video snow, scored by Peer Baierlein and Andi Otto.
- The script threads in pointed jabs at a “financial‑electronic‑military complex,” a truth ministry that tunes online debate by algorithm, and a chorus that sings of democratic decay.
- Reviews split sharply, with WELT praising an image-rich, haunting revue, taz calling it an unfocused flop, and der Freitag describing a loud, hard-to-follow ride that saw some viewers leave.