About the work
"Das Archiv der Träume" ("In the Dream House") is a stage adaptation of the autofictional memoir "In the Dream House" by the American author Carmen Maria Machado. Leo Lorena Wyss (winner, among other honours, of the Nestroy Prize for best newcomer) dramatised the text for the Berliner Ensemble; the director is Jules Head from Bristol. The production is shown in the Berliner Ensemble's Werkraum as part of the emerging-directors series WORX.
Plot
Machado's text tells of toxic and violent structures within a queer relationship. In Jules Head's staging, the figures Carmen and Val undertake a "re-enactment" course through Carmen's past, with Val repeatedly taking on the role of the abuser. In search of a stage language for the psychological mechanisms of traumatic experience, the evening makes visible how emotional and psychological abuse unfolds within a relationship – beyond the conventional images of violence.
Cultural significance
Carmen Maria Machado's "In the Dream House" is regarded as a landmark book about domestic violence in queer relationships – a subject long treated as taboo and rarely told. The stage version at the Berliner Ensemble carries this pioneering work into the theatre and widens the discourse on abuse to include a queer perspective. As a production created within an emerging-talent series, it also stands for the cultivation of young directorial and authorial voices.