What’s it like directing a show in Germany? Lily Sykes’ experience as an in-house director in Dresden

When Sykes was growing up in England, her mother, a journalist, impressed on her the importance of learning a foreign language to a high standard. She ended opting for German and was, she says, fortunate to study at a school with inspiring language teachers. She continued to study German alongside philosophy while at Oxford, using her year abroad to further her interest in theatre. Sykes attended workshops at Hannah Hurtzig’s ensemble Mobile Academy Berlin – “an amazing deep dive into the German cultural landscape” – and started seeing as much work as she could, getting her first taste of Frank Castorf and other prominent German directors. 

“I remember thinking: ‘Wow, this is rock’n’roll.’” The work struck her as different from a lot of theatre in England, she says. “It seemed much more engaged with the themes and questions of the play and how to bring them to you in an essential and physical way.”

If you want to compete with Netflix, you have to give people a good time

After graduating, Sykes attended the Ecole Philippe Gaulier from 2006 to 2008, during which time she founded international theatre ensemble Aitherios. The company made two shows, one of which toured internationally, but it was hard to sustain. “It was just too ambitious.” Sykes returned to the UK with training in clowning but with little formal experience as a director. 

“I found it really difficult to break into anything,” she says, so she turned back to Germany, landing a job as an assistant director at Schauspiel Frankfurt. There was a period of adjustment as she got to grips with the German system. She didn’t realise, she says by way of example, that in Germany the prompter is supposed to attend rehearsals. “I had to learn very quickly,” she says. “There are all sorts of different approaches to directing, some of which seem totally straightforward, and some seemed completely baffling. I had to plug into that.”

In 2010, after assisting on several productions, she directed the German premiere of Simon Stephens’ Sea Wall, which she had seen and loved in Edinburgh. Sykes and actor Isaak Dentler worked on the play in between rehearsals for the main-house shows. “It showed me what a great thing it is to have so many resources available that you can create things on the fly.” She ended up pairing it with T5, another monologue by Stephens.
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Q&A Lily Sykes

What is your next job?
The Game of Love and Chance at Staatsschauspiel Dresden.

Who or what are your biggest influences?  
Jürgen Gosch, Peter Greenaway, Louise Bourgeois, Miet Warlop and Lucille Ball.

What advice do you wish you’d been given when you were starting out?
Work hard – it’s the only thing you can do and don’t do anything just for the money.

If you hadn’t been a director, what would you have done instead?
I don’t know. People say you should only do this if you can’t think of anything else, and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.
 

As a freelance director, she has gone on to helm productions of Lucy Kirkwood’s Beauty and the Beast – “a great feminist interpretation” – at Theater Oberhausen in 2013, an adaptation of the Yorgos Lanthimos film Dogtooth at Schauspielhaus Zurich in 2014, and the German premiere of Dennis Kelly’s wrenching monologue Girls & Boys at the Berliner Ensemble in 2018.

Later in 2018, she returned to the UK to direct The Maids at HOME in Manchester, then under the artistic directorship of Walter Meierjohann. After so many years making work in Germany, one of the main pleasures of working in the UK – aside from the constant offers of tea – was being able to work in her mother tongue.

She also relished the structure that UK theatre provides. “In Germany, the only person who has any real power is the director,” she says, whereas in the UK, during the tech rehearsal “the stage manager is the boss”. Because they open a handful of in-house productions a year instead of more than 20, as is typical in Germany, “everyone gave 150%”.

German theatre seemed much more engaged with the themes of a play

However, she was aware of a difference in attitude to the rehearsal process, one that is reflected in the language – the German word for rehearsal is ‘proben’, which means to try rather than to repeat, she explains. “Psychology is at the bottom of all theatre work. My rehearsal process is very immersive. One of the luxuries of the German system is you have rehearsal set and costumes, so you can experiment and try things out.“

In 2020, Sykes directed the German- language premiere of Isobel McArthur’s Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort Of) with a group of Max Reinhardt Seminar students at Vienna’s Burgtheater. “It was such a fantastic vehicle for these young women.” Vienna can, she says, be a bit stuffy and while people liked the energy of the performance, not everyone was on board with the choice of a play based on Jane Austen. The artistic director called it “a women’s story”, says Sykes. These attitudes are still present in German theatre, she adds. “That’s still a bridge that needs to be crossed.” 

There can still be a bit of a snobbery around the idea of theatre as entertainment, too, she says. But now, especially after the pandemic lockdowns, theatres are starting to realise that “if you want to compete with Netflix, you have to give people something where they can have a good time”.

Following her mother’s advice and learning German created many opportunities for her, Sykes reflects. It allowed her to become immersed in another culture. “I really wanted to escape the rigidity of English society, with its focus on where you went to school and your social background; to create my own life. Learning a language enabled me to do things on my terms.”

CV Lily Sykes

Born: London, 1984
Training: University of Oxford, Ecole Philippe Gaulier
Landmark productions:
• Seawall, Schauspiel Frankfurt (2010)
• T5, Schauspiel Frankfurt (2011)
• Edgar and Annabel, Schauspiel Frankfurt (2012)
• Dogtooth, Schauspielhaus Zürich (2014)
• Dieses Kind, Deutsches Theater (2014)
• Girls and Boys, Berliner Ensemble (2018)
• The Maids, HOME, Manchester (2019)
• My Brilliant Friend, Theater Luzern (2019)
• Pride and Prejudice (*Sort Of), Burgtheater, Vienna (2020)
• Orlando, Schauspiel Hannover (2020)
• Cyrano de Bergerac, Burgtheater, Vienna (2021)
• König Lear, Staatsschauspiel Dresden (2021)
• Woyzeck, Staatsschauspiel Dresden (2023)

Woyzeck is in repertoire at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. Visit staatsschauspiel-dresden.de for full details