Mephisto

A theatrical play with music based on Klaus Mann's novel - a production by the Neues Globe Theater.

The story follows actor Hendrik Höfgen from 1926 in Hamburg to 1936, when he becomes a star of the so-called Third Reich and is appointed intendant of the Berlin State Theatre. Höfgen, who initially flees to Paris, returns to Berlin at the insistence of Lotte Lindenthal - wife of an "air force general" and prime minister - to enable her debut at the State Theatre.

As a passionate actor for whom the role of Mephisto in Goethe's Faust seems tailor-made, the opportunist Höfgen realizes far too late that he has indeed made a pact with the devil. During this descent into moral abyss, he loses nearly everyone who matters to him: his lover Juliette, his wife Barbara, his communist friend Otto. Only the actress Nicoletta, whom he marries for convenience, remains loyal to him - in the end, Hendrik has become the "monkey of power", the "clown for the murderers' amusement".

The Neues Globe Theater stages Mephisto as a dance on the volcano - in the distorted mirror of a political cabaret of the 1920s and 1930s, with live music and a master of ceremonies.