The hard-edged comedy Professor Bernhardi, by the great Austrian Modernist writer, Arthur Schnitzler, will be staged in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre on the University’s Downing site.

Arthur Schnitzler’s unlikely comedy Professor Bernhardi (1912) tells the story of a Jewish doctor who prevents a Catholic priest from giving the last rites to a patient who is unaware that she is dying. It is a play about doctors talking to doctors, raising questions about the politics and ethics of medical care.

The venue is the Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Downing Site, Cambridge. It has particular meaning for the drama. Anatomical theatres, like dramatic theatres, are places to see and to acquire knowledge. The topography of the anatomy theatre elevates the observer to a position that looks at the open body from above, almost with a birds-eye perspective.

Doors will open at 6pm. A 30-minute pre-show talk by literary scholar Annja Neumann and clinical anatomist Cecilia Brassett will introduce the venue, the current anatomy teaching programme, and the production.

The Saturday performance is part of the Festival of Ideas 2016. For more information please visit: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/

The production is a collaboration between [Foreign Affairs] and academics from the Schnitzler Digital Edition Project, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The adaptation was first staged in London’s Barts Pathology Museum in September 2016. Performances in Cambridge are co-organized with the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience.

Booking Policy

• Booking closes one hour before the start of the performance
• 24 hours cancellation policy
• Limited places available
• Non-transferable