Goodbye Berlin

Inspired by Christopher Isherwood's famous 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, which later became the basis for the musical Cabaret, and by the academic research of performance historian Kate Elswit (Watching Weimar Dance), a dazzling stage world unfolds that resembles a ‘nightmarish hall of mirrors of political and social fears’.


At the same time, it evokes the Berlin that fascinated and disturbed so many in the 1920s – a city that today is once again regarded as a symbol of creative freedom, queer desire and precarious hopes for the future.


Goodbye Berlin positions itself precisely in this field of tension. Drawing on the legacy of performers such as Anita Berber (1899–1928) and Valeska Gert (1892–1978), Macras conjures up a cabaret of resistance – subversive, excessive, uncompromising. The body becomes political once again: as a medium of ecstasy, exhaustion and revolt.

In a Berlin that was then, as now, the stage for global movements, social upheavals and cultural hubris, the Volksbühne becomes a place of experimentation: can spectacle be more than mere distraction? What can the ritual of performance achieve in the face of growing repression and global crises?


The production brings stage elements from earlier works to life in new, unfamiliar constellations. Just as Isherwood's semi-autobiographical novel transforms lived experience into a multi-layered portrait of the city, the recontextualisation of familiar design elements invites reflection on personal and collective memories. In the spectacular remnants of their own past, Constanza Macras | Dorky Park carry the memory of our artistic heritage into new narratives – blurring the line between what belongs to the past and what still echoes in the present.

The production blends dance, language, live music and visual excesses into a delirious panorama in which memories of the Weimar era collide with contemporary political struggles.

Goodbye Berlin is more than a homage. It is an invocation of the power of performance, the possibility of resistance and a different, dangerously beautiful Berlin.

World premiere: 30 October 2025

Further dates in autumn will be announced shortly.