Leadership must be based on benevolence. Benevolence however does not mean, to go with the masses, it is rather a matter of open and unreserved support for one’s supporters. We’re tired of leaders we have to fear, of leaders, we love, but most of all we’re tired of leaders who allow for us taking liberties with them. We need courageous men as leaders, who are so efficient that they basically abolish their own position. As strange as it might sound, great leaders assert their authority by delegating it.
Admiral James B. Stockdale
Not at the archaic royal courts, not in the world of the wealthy and the powerful, but in a middle-class family business is where Yana Ross stages Shakespeare’s MACBETH in her first production at the Volksbühne. In an unstable world, where globalisation and rationalisation act as threateningly incomprehensible forces, the desire for security is alive. Security through wealth. Wealth through success.
The family, the only frame of reference believed to be reliable, turns into a fragile entity – questioned by external circumstances and shaken by inner conflicts: the success of the individual is always a loss for the others. In the closely-knit family business, ambition and desperation are forging their way just as destructively as in Shakespeare’s Scottish royal dynasty.
Yana Ross, born 1973 in Moscow.
She spends her childhood between Mongolia, Russia and the Baltic countries. At 17 she moves with her family to New York City. She has received awards for her work at Performance Space 122, New York Theater Workshop, Yale Repertory Theatre and a number of International Theater Festivals in Russia, Romania and South Korea.
She is receiving her training at the Yale School of Drama.
She realises one of her first formative works with Elfriede Jelinek in New York, which turns out to be a successful coalition. The result: Ross stages, successfully and controversially discussed, “Bambiland” at the National Theatre of Lithuania.
In the future, Yana Ross will obtain her doctorate at Yale University, Yale School of Drama and work in teaching.
Director and adaption: Yana Ross. Stage and costumes: Zane Pihlstrom.
Music: Sir Henry. With: Steffen Gräbner, Sebastian König, Inka Löwendorf, Naomi Krauss, Uwe Preuss, Jorres Risse, Uwe Schmieder, Axel Wandtke, Ensemble P14.
With: Steffen Gräbner, Sebastian König, Naomi Krauss, Inka Löwendorf, Uwe Preuss, Jorres Risse, Uwe Schmieder and Axel Wandtke
Director: Yana Ross
Stage and Costumes Supplier: Zane Pihlstrom
Music: Sir Henry
Light Design: Ralf Scholz
Dramaturgy: Katrin Wächter
