Berliner Ensemble: De Profundis By Oscar Wilde

Directed by Oliver Reese & Performed by Jens Harzer

“When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself.” – Oscar Wilde

From the Berliner Ensemble, award-winning German actor Jens Harzer performs Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis. Directed by Berliner Ensemble Artistic Director Oliver Reese, this masterful performance captures Wilde’s impassioned reflection on his life and society.

“A sensational, unforgettable solo performance.” (Welt)

In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years in prison – for being provocative; for loving men, for not hiding his true self and for defying convention. His trial was meant to be a warning to others – against the crime of homosexuality and his irrepressible drive for freedom and recognition. While imprisoned, he wrote a long, impassioned letter to his estranged young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Later published as De Profundis, Wilde’s letter describes the unbearable pains and blissful pleasures of his love, as well as his views on art, Christianity, and incarceration, and a society that doesn’t tolerate what it doesn’t understand.

De Profundis is the last outcry of a broken but untamed spirit. Bankrupt and shunned by society, Wilde writes with literary mastery about contempt and loneliness, about pride and pain. What remains when everything that a person once was is taken away from them?

In German with English surtitles.

Text: Oscar Wilde

Direction: Oliver Reese

Performer: Jens Harzer

Stage Design: Hansjörg Hartung

Costume Design: Elina Schnizler

Music: Jörg Gollasch

Lighting Design: Steffen Heinke

Dramaturgy: Johannes Nölting

German Translation: Mirko Bonné