Hey! I'm not here anymore. I'm back home, and soon to be in college. So I figured calling it "Julian in Berlin" would sorta be a huge lie.
Here's the new URL
http://enemyofthestage.blogspot.com
See you there!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Dresssssssden
The train arrived and I got to Dresden. I heard varied things from, "oh its boring and strange and depressing," to it's the "Florence of Germany" to " It's sort of strange but it's worth a trip". I got in to Dresden not knowing what to expect. All the Germans I met spoke about it with great respect and awe, but the others, not so much.
Dresden, as you all know, was completely leveled during the war. It was one of the most devastating bombings of the War and thousands upon thousands of people died and numerous treasures destroyed. Since then, a massive rebuilding project was underway, building it brick by brick by brick, and now you really couldn't even tell there was one bomb let alone thousands.
That gives the city a sort of eerie feel about it, since it was rebuilt, for the most part, just like it was before. It feels like a brand new old city, kind of because it IS new. A sort of darker, more gothic epcot. I walked past a vast friendly shopping district full of people and sunlight and brand names, until I got to the Rathaus (town hall) and took a view of the city. It was quite grand, and pretty beautiful. But it was nothing until I got to the town center. Literally old buildings and castles spaced out beautifully, it was a city built to accomodate glory, and though there was a strange out of whack feeling about it, one cannot help but feel its immenseness and its absolutely gorgeous architecture. There was the Frauenkirche, rebuilt finally in 2003 and bright pink on the inside, a sort of strange cheery Dresden-like artifact. A large medieval terrace featuring more classic works. And of course the Zwinger which was the old castle, bearing a magnificent art gallery I was too tired to see. The city is cut between the River Elbe, bordering new city and old city, new city looks just as nice, with a very sort of Mediterranean feel. I even got to eat Gambas al Ajillo. Quite delectable served in the standard Spanish way, with the pan of boiling hot oil served next to you. There really isnt much else to say about Dresden, I can go on about how pretty it is, but its true when they said its like the Florence of Germany, in the sense that its gorgeous sure, but theres nothing much else to it, and it's teeming with tourists. After a nap across the zwinger, I headed back to the much uglier, but so much cooler, and a place I kind of call home, Berlin.
- J
Dresden, as you all know, was completely leveled during the war. It was one of the most devastating bombings of the War and thousands upon thousands of people died and numerous treasures destroyed. Since then, a massive rebuilding project was underway, building it brick by brick by brick, and now you really couldn't even tell there was one bomb let alone thousands.
That gives the city a sort of eerie feel about it, since it was rebuilt, for the most part, just like it was before. It feels like a brand new old city, kind of because it IS new. A sort of darker, more gothic epcot. I walked past a vast friendly shopping district full of people and sunlight and brand names, until I got to the Rathaus (town hall) and took a view of the city. It was quite grand, and pretty beautiful. But it was nothing until I got to the town center. Literally old buildings and castles spaced out beautifully, it was a city built to accomodate glory, and though there was a strange out of whack feeling about it, one cannot help but feel its immenseness and its absolutely gorgeous architecture. There was the Frauenkirche, rebuilt finally in 2003 and bright pink on the inside, a sort of strange cheery Dresden-like artifact. A large medieval terrace featuring more classic works. And of course the Zwinger which was the old castle, bearing a magnificent art gallery I was too tired to see. The city is cut between the River Elbe, bordering new city and old city, new city looks just as nice, with a very sort of Mediterranean feel. I even got to eat Gambas al Ajillo. Quite delectable served in the standard Spanish way, with the pan of boiling hot oil served next to you. There really isnt much else to say about Dresden, I can go on about how pretty it is, but its true when they said its like the Florence of Germany, in the sense that its gorgeous sure, but theres nothing much else to it, and it's teeming with tourists. After a nap across the zwinger, I headed back to the much uglier, but so much cooler, and a place I kind of call home, Berlin.
- J
Leipzig!
Is gorgeous and Medieval. I arrived early, off quite a fast ICE train. The ride was short, and showed me a bit of the green Germany countryside, though there really wasnt much to say really.
Leipzig can best be described as a big city (500,000+) with a small town atmosphere. The city center is made up of densely packed medieval blocks. Like most of East Germany it is still under heavy construction, most of it involving the tearing down of boring GDR architecture to better match the surroundings. Leipzig is also famously the home of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in the church where he composed all his famous pieces for stands his large looming countenance and figure, sculpted in black stone, which is also his tomb. My old friend Gareth, the drama counselor from my time in England doing the Experiment for International Living Program, picked me up and showed me around the city. He had a rehearsal to go to so I was given 2 hours to explore the city center on my lonesome. It was a lovely time, just seeing old buildings, walking into old churches (I lit a candle for my grandma in one of the cathedrals, just as she has for me so many times before), and trying to find the smallest alleyways possible. I was able to see most of the city center in about an hour, and then I walked into the large modern glass block that was the art museum to check out their collection and see hopefully some of the famous Leipzig School of modern art.
The people in the museum were crabby and they spoke a strange, Saxon german, kinda sounds like you have a bunch of cotton in your mouth. They weren't very nice, to me or anyone else, but no matter, cause their museum had a crap collection. Sure, there were some nice pieces. An exceptional Beckmann piece called "The battle" and a good, but small collection of the Leipzig school, but the older dutch and italian collections were heavily lacking. More boring than anything else. Even the Rubens left something to be desired.
I got through the museum pretty fast and met up with Gareth. We ate lunch in this underground sort of passageway that the students took over a long time ago and turned into a huge club. It was pretty impressive. Leipzig is primarily a student's city, with a large presence of young people it certainly has a great feeling, and I can see why someone like Gareth would call it his home.
We ate what could only be described as zucchini shepard's pie, and it was quite hearty and good as we had a long talk, mostly gareth speaking about his experiences in theatre here in Berlin. He had a lot to say, and it was great since he provided an interesting angle to my research here in Berlin.
- he noticed that as a director, the actors expect you to be more specific, than say in England where he worked. Here every moment was expected to be mapped out for a director, so it seemed, in a lot of ways that directors have more power here.
- On the other hand, your power as a director is a bit stilted, since if the actor does not agree with your direction, he doesnt necessarily have to keep it. For example, say if the actor does something that he finds great, and you dont necessarily like, if enough of the other members of the show like it, then it usually stays. Lighting designers and stage managers will also give direction sometimes. This was a sort of fascinating thing about German culture in general, they never let the person in charge have too much power. Even in government, Angela Merkel's word is not necessarily law in the way that Bush's is. She is constantly forced to compromise and work with other groups, take for example how the Green Party and the Christian Democrats teamed up to take on Global Warming for instance. We wondered if it was because of the sort of bad history of giving leaders and governments too much power in Germany that this sort of thing was the case. Just a bit of speculation.
- Actors here tend to be specialized on ONE thing, rather than UK actors which are more well rounded, here the actors tend to only do one thing but do it really really well.
- The way directing works in Germany is that unlike the UK and US where one builds and builds and doesnt find the character until the very end, right before the first night. In Germany one finds the character 3 months before and then lives with it, finding the ups and downs of progress. This results in having really different shows each night in the UK and US and almost exactly the same show every night in Germany.
He runs a theatre company here in Leipzig called Ubiquity theatre. Its goals are to have both a regularly performing theatre company (which I believe at least 10% has to be inexperienced actors) as well as holding acting workshops, specializing on people with problems (using theatre to cope with problems, sort of like psychodrama, very big in england, not so much in germany)
- Gareth's theatre (he is a writer and director like myself) has a clear goal, to give the people the tools to ask the right sort of questions. His shows therefore provide them with information a tabloid doesn't. Taking an issue and not attempting to take a stand, but, in a very Boal way, exploring all the options and opening up all the possibilities. He explained an interesting show he put up at the Schauspielhaus featuring a bunch of school students from the neighboring area. They were turkish, white, chinese and black, I believe. A complete mix. The piece was an exploration of articles that claim that most violent crime in Germany is committed by lower class immigrants. His play, which functioned also on improvisations, explored, all the different situations, and gave a voice to the statistics, showing us examples of why these things happen, and also providing examples of white violent crime as well. In doing so he attempted to give his audience a more 3 dimensional idea of the problem rather than the blatant declarations a tabloid would make.
The government is surprisingly receptive and willing to give money for these sorts of projects here, as long as they arent too far in advance and deal with a pressing issue.
I talked with him a little about my project, mostly centering on desensitization and the creation of "traumatic theatre" and he seemed interested - we both in many ways are dealing with the same problems, and though his theatre takes a very different strategy, the hoped-for outcomes, a rethinking of our problems in society, are very similar.
We threw around the idea of a play that is in many ways the opposite of my theatre - a play that aims to resensibilize us to the smallest amount of pain. The suffering of a pinch maybe, or the pain of a bit tongue...who knows maybe it'll provide inspiration for me to write something else - a show in Leipzig? Who knows.
That night I crashed a bit in Gareth's flat, he stayed over at his girlfriend's that night offering me the place, great of him. I did a bit of shopping in the supermarkt and settled on some schnitzel and a premade potato salad. The salad was horrible, to say the least and the schntzel ended up tasting good, but cooked really slowly and badly and ended up getting a bit burnt. Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) was on the tv and it was great to see familiar locations in Berlin run right through.
At night we went to a small bar/club called Tonellis where it was open mic night. I feared the worst, knowing what sort of talent comes out on open mic night. But Leipzig is a city famous for its music school, and the music students populate the open mic night. The house band was kicking and the singers were incredible, each one boasting quite a powerful set of pipes. The music itself was either bad 90s rock or some choice soul and motown, but played life with a buzzing band it was quite great. We then headed over to a karaoke bar where me and G did quite an impressive version of happy together. Leipzig is a great city, and a place I'd definitely love to come back to. It is a quiet place in a lot of ways a lot more relaxed than Berlin, but still quite nice.
The next day, Dresden!
- J
Leipzig can best be described as a big city (500,000+) with a small town atmosphere. The city center is made up of densely packed medieval blocks. Like most of East Germany it is still under heavy construction, most of it involving the tearing down of boring GDR architecture to better match the surroundings. Leipzig is also famously the home of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in the church where he composed all his famous pieces for stands his large looming countenance and figure, sculpted in black stone, which is also his tomb. My old friend Gareth, the drama counselor from my time in England doing the Experiment for International Living Program, picked me up and showed me around the city. He had a rehearsal to go to so I was given 2 hours to explore the city center on my lonesome. It was a lovely time, just seeing old buildings, walking into old churches (I lit a candle for my grandma in one of the cathedrals, just as she has for me so many times before), and trying to find the smallest alleyways possible. I was able to see most of the city center in about an hour, and then I walked into the large modern glass block that was the art museum to check out their collection and see hopefully some of the famous Leipzig School of modern art.
The people in the museum were crabby and they spoke a strange, Saxon german, kinda sounds like you have a bunch of cotton in your mouth. They weren't very nice, to me or anyone else, but no matter, cause their museum had a crap collection. Sure, there were some nice pieces. An exceptional Beckmann piece called "The battle" and a good, but small collection of the Leipzig school, but the older dutch and italian collections were heavily lacking. More boring than anything else. Even the Rubens left something to be desired.
I got through the museum pretty fast and met up with Gareth. We ate lunch in this underground sort of passageway that the students took over a long time ago and turned into a huge club. It was pretty impressive. Leipzig is primarily a student's city, with a large presence of young people it certainly has a great feeling, and I can see why someone like Gareth would call it his home.
We ate what could only be described as zucchini shepard's pie, and it was quite hearty and good as we had a long talk, mostly gareth speaking about his experiences in theatre here in Berlin. He had a lot to say, and it was great since he provided an interesting angle to my research here in Berlin.
- he noticed that as a director, the actors expect you to be more specific, than say in England where he worked. Here every moment was expected to be mapped out for a director, so it seemed, in a lot of ways that directors have more power here.
- On the other hand, your power as a director is a bit stilted, since if the actor does not agree with your direction, he doesnt necessarily have to keep it. For example, say if the actor does something that he finds great, and you dont necessarily like, if enough of the other members of the show like it, then it usually stays. Lighting designers and stage managers will also give direction sometimes. This was a sort of fascinating thing about German culture in general, they never let the person in charge have too much power. Even in government, Angela Merkel's word is not necessarily law in the way that Bush's is. She is constantly forced to compromise and work with other groups, take for example how the Green Party and the Christian Democrats teamed up to take on Global Warming for instance. We wondered if it was because of the sort of bad history of giving leaders and governments too much power in Germany that this sort of thing was the case. Just a bit of speculation.
- Actors here tend to be specialized on ONE thing, rather than UK actors which are more well rounded, here the actors tend to only do one thing but do it really really well.
- The way directing works in Germany is that unlike the UK and US where one builds and builds and doesnt find the character until the very end, right before the first night. In Germany one finds the character 3 months before and then lives with it, finding the ups and downs of progress. This results in having really different shows each night in the UK and US and almost exactly the same show every night in Germany.
He runs a theatre company here in Leipzig called Ubiquity theatre. Its goals are to have both a regularly performing theatre company (which I believe at least 10% has to be inexperienced actors) as well as holding acting workshops, specializing on people with problems (using theatre to cope with problems, sort of like psychodrama, very big in england, not so much in germany)
- Gareth's theatre (he is a writer and director like myself) has a clear goal, to give the people the tools to ask the right sort of questions. His shows therefore provide them with information a tabloid doesn't. Taking an issue and not attempting to take a stand, but, in a very Boal way, exploring all the options and opening up all the possibilities. He explained an interesting show he put up at the Schauspielhaus featuring a bunch of school students from the neighboring area. They were turkish, white, chinese and black, I believe. A complete mix. The piece was an exploration of articles that claim that most violent crime in Germany is committed by lower class immigrants. His play, which functioned also on improvisations, explored, all the different situations, and gave a voice to the statistics, showing us examples of why these things happen, and also providing examples of white violent crime as well. In doing so he attempted to give his audience a more 3 dimensional idea of the problem rather than the blatant declarations a tabloid would make.
The government is surprisingly receptive and willing to give money for these sorts of projects here, as long as they arent too far in advance and deal with a pressing issue.
I talked with him a little about my project, mostly centering on desensitization and the creation of "traumatic theatre" and he seemed interested - we both in many ways are dealing with the same problems, and though his theatre takes a very different strategy, the hoped-for outcomes, a rethinking of our problems in society, are very similar.
We threw around the idea of a play that is in many ways the opposite of my theatre - a play that aims to resensibilize us to the smallest amount of pain. The suffering of a pinch maybe, or the pain of a bit tongue...who knows maybe it'll provide inspiration for me to write something else - a show in Leipzig? Who knows.
That night I crashed a bit in Gareth's flat, he stayed over at his girlfriend's that night offering me the place, great of him. I did a bit of shopping in the supermarkt and settled on some schnitzel and a premade potato salad. The salad was horrible, to say the least and the schntzel ended up tasting good, but cooked really slowly and badly and ended up getting a bit burnt. Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) was on the tv and it was great to see familiar locations in Berlin run right through.
At night we went to a small bar/club called Tonellis where it was open mic night. I feared the worst, knowing what sort of talent comes out on open mic night. But Leipzig is a city famous for its music school, and the music students populate the open mic night. The house band was kicking and the singers were incredible, each one boasting quite a powerful set of pipes. The music itself was either bad 90s rock or some choice soul and motown, but played life with a buzzing band it was quite great. We then headed over to a karaoke bar where me and G did quite an impressive version of happy together. Leipzig is a great city, and a place I'd definitely love to come back to. It is a quiet place in a lot of ways a lot more relaxed than Berlin, but still quite nice.
The next day, Dresden!
- J
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Berlin Adventures Part II
*takes a deep breath*
okay, well its been a while since I updated, which isn't to say nothing has happened. So much has happened. And so much walking has been done. I'll start where I left off, the morning of July 9th. It is the 13th now and its hard to believe three days have passed.
So that day I woke up and heavily excited to go see the Neue Nationalgalerie I went over to the U Bahn to head over to Potsdamer Platz. I was feeling a bit chancey so instead of the usual huge potsdamer platz station I headed one station over to Mendellsohn Bartholdy Park, just to see what was around. Boring, green industrial and many cars is what I have to say. It seems that Potsdamer Platz was once a bustling city center, before being ravaged by the wall, literally cut in half. What came after was a no man's land that held a bleak future for the once bustling center. Though now it has returned, in many ways to its old glory, it does so strangely. Set apart, and almost ravaged by its large architecture, it feels strangely bleak and empty. The towering and fututristic Sony Center is one of many architectural marvels. The yellow jagged temple that is the Philharmonie is another. And yet these strange architectural beasts stand far apart from each other, almost isolated in their vain glory. To my discontent the permanent gallery, housing 19-20th century german and international art was closed until 2009, so I did the next best thing and traipsed up to the Kulturforum and checked out the Gemäldegalerie (literally Painting Gallery).
Advertised by many as Berlin's best art museum, the gallery lies in the Kulturforum, a sort of multiple museums in one. In doing so however, you feel a sort of strange mall/cafeteria like atmosphere upon entering. The stark white lobby makes you feel a little like a schoolboy and a little like a hospital warden. I paid my entrance fee and picked up another audio tour (this one didnt come with any exciting music) and made my way through the paintings.
It was quite a collection, 20 rembrandts, a good amount of Rubens, Cranach the Elder, both Brueghels, even some Renaissance Botticellis, Mantegnas, Raphaels and Bellinis. It was a bit breathtaking and certainly overwhelming. You walked into a room sort of knowing what to expect but there was such an onslaught of art you only ended up concentrating on one or two pieces. The Rembrandts housed there were quite quirky, not the usual shocking use of light and darkness, a lot of these were his older and younger works, the fabulous painting of Moses atop Mount Sinai, quite possibly on the verge of hurling down the Commandments again had a rugged orange and gold tinge that seemed to light the painting on timeless fire. The one of Samson, right next to it, also gave us a sort of fiery moment, though the darkness being more apparent and the moment being a bit more subdued. it is right before Samson makes the girl he loves's father feel sorry for marrying her off to another. Real choice biblical drama.
Rembrandts use of darkness shocks me. Just how much of his paintings are shrouded in darkness and yet how much that offers us. If we look closer we can almost make out the shapes in the darkness. Quite impressive and makes being next to his paintings quite the experience.
Rubens's St. Christopher was another standout. Completely lifelike and lifesize, we have this torrential figure in a moment of pure transfiguration. I paid attention to the way Rubens builds his shadows, using this almost green coloring to give the body a sort of humor that lets you almost feel the warm soft texture of his skin.
Lots of other paintings, a bellini of the madonna and her child (which one I cantz tell you because Bellini made about a hundred of them) really stood out to me.
I got to the Volksbühne for my final show and it was a doozy, UBUKOENIG (Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jarry) directed by Gottscheff.
I have to say the piece started with promise. The set, which was incredible was only a series of balloons. Different colors purple, white, black, red and orange. Different sizes as well, ranging from the usual small balloon, to huge ones that would sometimes fly menacingly offstage and linger around where the audience was, sometimes being hit to one side or another.
The play began with darkness, cheesy music, and an american voice listing all the characters in the play, in English. So many characters, Jarry is a stinker really.
the piece starts in mystery, with two men behind a balloon, shadows, as a light shines behind them. The tension builds to the last possible moment. And POP, the balloon pops and we see the men standing behind it, completely and utterly naked.
They have their first conversation this way, and eventually one of the men tucks his genitals behind his legs, conveying to us, that he has become UBU's wife. The other characters soon emerge from the balloons, and the meet and greet that happens is done by micing (yep, anther mic) the voices and then distorting them in real time, creating a truly horrendous soundscape.
Eventually UBU and his wife return, both in high heels, then they both have regular heels. Both actors trade the roles, an interesting choice.
Every now and then, a balloon pops. Thats hilarious.
The piece was interesting, I guess, but I was expecting a bit more spectacle from a play that claims to have two entire armies go to war and stage. For all the promise Gottscheff gave us, what it ended up being was a very well acted absurdist farce that didnt really communicate to us the absolute spectacle necessary. I prefer to think of Jarry not as an absurdist, but as a symbolist, or even an expressionistic, giving us the bombast, the sheer ridiculousness of human emotion, but not in measured naturalistic chaos, as Ionesco is best done, but in true marionette fashion. In the end, taking the words so seriously bored me, and though there were funnier lines, it all got lost in the haze of balloons. To Gottscheffs credit I was also very tired, and also very tired of seeing theatre in another language, so maybe I wasnt in the best condition to appreciate his work.
Another thing that peeved me is that his cuts just left the absurd bear and the two armies as sort of afterthoughts in the ending sequence as the stage rotated and balloons flew everywhere. The army and the bear, in my opinion are the moments when the play really comes together. And the bear scene is among the funniest I've read. Ah well, the play really was a nice culmination of my time at the Volksbühne, and 18 plays later, (is it 18 or more?) I really do have a lot of thinkin to do...
The next morning, Leipzig!!!
okay, well its been a while since I updated, which isn't to say nothing has happened. So much has happened. And so much walking has been done. I'll start where I left off, the morning of July 9th. It is the 13th now and its hard to believe three days have passed.
So that day I woke up and heavily excited to go see the Neue Nationalgalerie I went over to the U Bahn to head over to Potsdamer Platz. I was feeling a bit chancey so instead of the usual huge potsdamer platz station I headed one station over to Mendellsohn Bartholdy Park, just to see what was around. Boring, green industrial and many cars is what I have to say. It seems that Potsdamer Platz was once a bustling city center, before being ravaged by the wall, literally cut in half. What came after was a no man's land that held a bleak future for the once bustling center. Though now it has returned, in many ways to its old glory, it does so strangely. Set apart, and almost ravaged by its large architecture, it feels strangely bleak and empty. The towering and fututristic Sony Center is one of many architectural marvels. The yellow jagged temple that is the Philharmonie is another. And yet these strange architectural beasts stand far apart from each other, almost isolated in their vain glory. To my discontent the permanent gallery, housing 19-20th century german and international art was closed until 2009, so I did the next best thing and traipsed up to the Kulturforum and checked out the Gemäldegalerie (literally Painting Gallery).
Advertised by many as Berlin's best art museum, the gallery lies in the Kulturforum, a sort of multiple museums in one. In doing so however, you feel a sort of strange mall/cafeteria like atmosphere upon entering. The stark white lobby makes you feel a little like a schoolboy and a little like a hospital warden. I paid my entrance fee and picked up another audio tour (this one didnt come with any exciting music) and made my way through the paintings.
It was quite a collection, 20 rembrandts, a good amount of Rubens, Cranach the Elder, both Brueghels, even some Renaissance Botticellis, Mantegnas, Raphaels and Bellinis. It was a bit breathtaking and certainly overwhelming. You walked into a room sort of knowing what to expect but there was such an onslaught of art you only ended up concentrating on one or two pieces. The Rembrandts housed there were quite quirky, not the usual shocking use of light and darkness, a lot of these were his older and younger works, the fabulous painting of Moses atop Mount Sinai, quite possibly on the verge of hurling down the Commandments again had a rugged orange and gold tinge that seemed to light the painting on timeless fire. The one of Samson, right next to it, also gave us a sort of fiery moment, though the darkness being more apparent and the moment being a bit more subdued. it is right before Samson makes the girl he loves's father feel sorry for marrying her off to another. Real choice biblical drama.
Rembrandts use of darkness shocks me. Just how much of his paintings are shrouded in darkness and yet how much that offers us. If we look closer we can almost make out the shapes in the darkness. Quite impressive and makes being next to his paintings quite the experience.
Rubens's St. Christopher was another standout. Completely lifelike and lifesize, we have this torrential figure in a moment of pure transfiguration. I paid attention to the way Rubens builds his shadows, using this almost green coloring to give the body a sort of humor that lets you almost feel the warm soft texture of his skin.
Lots of other paintings, a bellini of the madonna and her child (which one I cantz tell you because Bellini made about a hundred of them) really stood out to me.
I got to the Volksbühne for my final show and it was a doozy, UBUKOENIG (Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jarry) directed by Gottscheff.
I have to say the piece started with promise. The set, which was incredible was only a series of balloons. Different colors purple, white, black, red and orange. Different sizes as well, ranging from the usual small balloon, to huge ones that would sometimes fly menacingly offstage and linger around where the audience was, sometimes being hit to one side or another.
The play began with darkness, cheesy music, and an american voice listing all the characters in the play, in English. So many characters, Jarry is a stinker really.
the piece starts in mystery, with two men behind a balloon, shadows, as a light shines behind them. The tension builds to the last possible moment. And POP, the balloon pops and we see the men standing behind it, completely and utterly naked.
They have their first conversation this way, and eventually one of the men tucks his genitals behind his legs, conveying to us, that he has become UBU's wife. The other characters soon emerge from the balloons, and the meet and greet that happens is done by micing (yep, anther mic) the voices and then distorting them in real time, creating a truly horrendous soundscape.
Eventually UBU and his wife return, both in high heels, then they both have regular heels. Both actors trade the roles, an interesting choice.
Every now and then, a balloon pops. Thats hilarious.
The piece was interesting, I guess, but I was expecting a bit more spectacle from a play that claims to have two entire armies go to war and stage. For all the promise Gottscheff gave us, what it ended up being was a very well acted absurdist farce that didnt really communicate to us the absolute spectacle necessary. I prefer to think of Jarry not as an absurdist, but as a symbolist, or even an expressionistic, giving us the bombast, the sheer ridiculousness of human emotion, but not in measured naturalistic chaos, as Ionesco is best done, but in true marionette fashion. In the end, taking the words so seriously bored me, and though there were funnier lines, it all got lost in the haze of balloons. To Gottscheffs credit I was also very tired, and also very tired of seeing theatre in another language, so maybe I wasnt in the best condition to appreciate his work.
Another thing that peeved me is that his cuts just left the absurd bear and the two armies as sort of afterthoughts in the ending sequence as the stage rotated and balloons flew everywhere. The army and the bear, in my opinion are the moments when the play really comes together. And the bear scene is among the funniest I've read. Ah well, the play really was a nice culmination of my time at the Volksbühne, and 18 plays later, (is it 18 or more?) I really do have a lot of thinkin to do...
The next morning, Leipzig!!!
Berlin Adventures Part I
Greetings from cloudy Leipzig! I'm here visiting an old friend and having a marvelous time in this really gorgeous little (well, little compared to Berlin, still about 500,000 people) city. But before I tell you about Leipzig I must catch you up with what have been some lovely days in Berlin.
Now that the plays are over for the most part (thank goodness since my desire to see theatre is at a zero, you could say I'm a bit exhausted seeing nearly 20 plays in 4 weeks. But I must conserve energy for the avignon festival is fast upon me and I shall be extremely busy with theatre then. However, my project has moved on to phase two. I made it very clear that half of the project was getting to know the city, and I have been doing so. Visiting museums, seeing parts of the city I haven't and talking to Berliners. The other component of my project is writing my play (and soon to be another play when I finish this one, hopefully in Paris). So my day has been spent half sight-seeing what I havent seen cause I was working so hard at learning german and seeing theatre, and then writing a scene or two, and then finally closing the evening with a bit of rest, or socializing and maybe learning more about the culture here.
So Tuesday I got up, made myself a salad, like the old days, with tomato, lettuce and onion and a bit of oil and vinegar. It was wonderful. The german food you get on the street or in restaurants doesnt really offer that much in the way of veggies so I was craving one of those big salads I would always have in argentina after a huge amount of meat. Mmmmm I miss my patria just thinkin about it. Maybe I will go to B.A. soon, I should, anyhow.
Monday I arrived home a bit earlier than usual, but still full from the currywurst I had in the midday. Currywurst, for the uninitiated is Germany's national food. Basically, a cut up bratwurst (literally meaning fried sausage) and slathered in ketchup (or some red ketchup sauce) and then drizzled generously with yellow curry powder. It sounds disgusting, and it can be, but at Konnopke's imbiss they have it down to an art. I knew I was in for something special when I had to wait about 20 minutes for service, all local berliners and the occasional tourist. Kids from school businessmen, old men, society ladies and everything in between. The place had a cool mystique about it, the faded large cart blazoned with its words, while unappetizing sandwiches lay in the window and in teh column right under the rail where the imbiß was stationed was some faded paintings promising good taste.
The first currywurst I had, I should tell you was disastrous. It was like eating a lukewarm birthday cake made of lard. Never eat under the imbiß by the fernsehturm. Please.
This currywurst was crisp, filling, and surprisingly delicious. It was a delicious snack I thought, but little did I know just a currywurst and fries could last me the whole night.
Anyway, culinary adventure aside, I came home to my house to find a very peaceful man making green tea. I had just bought some groceries so I was stuffing the food in the small fridge when he offered me a bit of green tea. I of course obliged, the man being one of the boarders and having a young, friendly face. We soon got to talking. The green tea, I should add was sipped out of shotglasses, the way it is done in Peking (Beijing).
We spoke in Spanish, the man (whose name escapes me, I'll ask Sergio later) was originally from Spain, in Santander. He lived in Peking now, for about a year I believe. Before he lived in Bristol. Why he went to Peking, he told me "for a woman, of course". The man was an artist, visual, and was living in a small artists town right outside the city. It was a community of about 500 artists, basically just living, drinking tea, talking about life, and painting. It sounded pretty fabulous. There was a simplicity to the way he spoke, pointed, but still with a resounding peace, that seemed the product of having a peace of mind that one in cities sometimes forgets.
We sipped the green tea, it seemed like for ages, I was asking him about his life there, I was telling him about new york, my mission here, my impressions of Berlin, etc. etc. The tea was prepared carefully in what looked like a bowl, the top would be pressed against the water which would then be poured into the shotglass. The tea was fresh, it tasted healthy and gently warm, it was a soothing experience to say the least.
Soon Sergio, the owner of the place joined us. Sergio, I believe I have mentioned before, is a Peruvian photographer, filmmaker, performance artist and is a great host, and this man was a friend of his, working on a project. The conversation was light and spirited, and wholly original. I feel entirely at home here, in this place, feeling unhurried from place to place, a time for people to just sit around and talk is something I don't get much when I'm huddled under 10 hours of homework or I'm rushed around in NYC. Not to say I don't get time, I do, but it's something I have to seek out, not something that seems to find me, as it does here.
The next day I saw the Alte Nationalgalerie. I went for one reason and one reason alone. Caspar David Friedrich. Since I was by myself I took the audio tour, and what a great one it was! Each one had its own little theme song, taken from the best of classical music, and the british guides, male and female, each had their own distinctive appreciation of the pieces. It made you think each piece was desired by thousands of people, and hell, maybe it was. One pet peeve though, every time a piece is introduced, they spend about 2 minutes describing what you are seeing. I was a bit confused about this, after all, we were seeing the painting, we knew perfectly well what was in front of us. Sure the smaller details escape us, but even the broadest details become introduced as if we were just staring at a bunch of colors and couldn't piece them together.
Like, for example for one of Friedrich's paintings the man was like "a mountain stands in the background"! No shit! A mountain? Wow, I was wondering what the weirdly pointed thing among all those trees was. I never would have guessed it was a mountain, thanks audio guide.
They had the abbey in the oak wood, which I remember being Professor Glenn Shuck's favorite painting. I wish Glenn all the best and hopes he gets better, and definitely thought of him in the Friedrich room. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have discovered this most mystifying of painters and through him the German Romantics that were of his age, and influenced my coming to Germany even. The paintings were phenomenal to look at up close. There you could see Friedrich's every brush stroke, and see the battle between precision and imagination.
The thing that most fascinates me about Friedrich, is how he painted most of these landscapes from his imagination. After all, for Friedrich, the landscape showed the mystical inner nature of the soul, of God, of the absolute, and not just the specificity of nature. In the grandeur of nature, Friedrich built these temples to the human condition, and they certainly shock you with their presence. Even in the darkest of paintings, like Abbey in the Oak Wood, we are shown in the glimmers of hope, and the presence of the absolute, in the half-crescent moon, teasing us with its fullness. Worth every boring German medieval painter I had to look through to get to Friedrich.
That night I had dinner with a German acquainttance of mine and her friends. They were a great bunch, one studying Art History German Literature and Psychology at Humboldt and the other Medicine, like my friend. It was wonderful not just to meet these students in Berlin but to hear them speak German to each other, it was flying fast and free, and after seeing theatre and seeing it spoken casually, it really is such an expressive language. I prided myself on being able to follow general concepts through the conversation, though they could all speak english thank goodness. We had Sushi, and I must say Berlin Sushi rivals American Sushi. Wowee.
I got home not too late and managed to crash in order for another day of sightseeing. Oh, I also finished act 2 of the Oblivious a few days ago, so I'm gonna take it easy I think.
Berlin part II includes my adventures at Gemäldegalerie, and UBU!
Tschüssies!
- J
Now that the plays are over for the most part (thank goodness since my desire to see theatre is at a zero, you could say I'm a bit exhausted seeing nearly 20 plays in 4 weeks. But I must conserve energy for the avignon festival is fast upon me and I shall be extremely busy with theatre then. However, my project has moved on to phase two. I made it very clear that half of the project was getting to know the city, and I have been doing so. Visiting museums, seeing parts of the city I haven't and talking to Berliners. The other component of my project is writing my play (and soon to be another play when I finish this one, hopefully in Paris). So my day has been spent half sight-seeing what I havent seen cause I was working so hard at learning german and seeing theatre, and then writing a scene or two, and then finally closing the evening with a bit of rest, or socializing and maybe learning more about the culture here.
So Tuesday I got up, made myself a salad, like the old days, with tomato, lettuce and onion and a bit of oil and vinegar. It was wonderful. The german food you get on the street or in restaurants doesnt really offer that much in the way of veggies so I was craving one of those big salads I would always have in argentina after a huge amount of meat. Mmmmm I miss my patria just thinkin about it. Maybe I will go to B.A. soon, I should, anyhow.
Monday I arrived home a bit earlier than usual, but still full from the currywurst I had in the midday. Currywurst, for the uninitiated is Germany's national food. Basically, a cut up bratwurst (literally meaning fried sausage) and slathered in ketchup (or some red ketchup sauce) and then drizzled generously with yellow curry powder. It sounds disgusting, and it can be, but at Konnopke's imbiss they have it down to an art. I knew I was in for something special when I had to wait about 20 minutes for service, all local berliners and the occasional tourist. Kids from school businessmen, old men, society ladies and everything in between. The place had a cool mystique about it, the faded large cart blazoned with its words, while unappetizing sandwiches lay in the window and in teh column right under the rail where the imbiß was stationed was some faded paintings promising good taste.
The first currywurst I had, I should tell you was disastrous. It was like eating a lukewarm birthday cake made of lard. Never eat under the imbiß by the fernsehturm. Please.
This currywurst was crisp, filling, and surprisingly delicious. It was a delicious snack I thought, but little did I know just a currywurst and fries could last me the whole night.
Anyway, culinary adventure aside, I came home to my house to find a very peaceful man making green tea. I had just bought some groceries so I was stuffing the food in the small fridge when he offered me a bit of green tea. I of course obliged, the man being one of the boarders and having a young, friendly face. We soon got to talking. The green tea, I should add was sipped out of shotglasses, the way it is done in Peking (Beijing).
We spoke in Spanish, the man (whose name escapes me, I'll ask Sergio later) was originally from Spain, in Santander. He lived in Peking now, for about a year I believe. Before he lived in Bristol. Why he went to Peking, he told me "for a woman, of course". The man was an artist, visual, and was living in a small artists town right outside the city. It was a community of about 500 artists, basically just living, drinking tea, talking about life, and painting. It sounded pretty fabulous. There was a simplicity to the way he spoke, pointed, but still with a resounding peace, that seemed the product of having a peace of mind that one in cities sometimes forgets.
We sipped the green tea, it seemed like for ages, I was asking him about his life there, I was telling him about new york, my mission here, my impressions of Berlin, etc. etc. The tea was prepared carefully in what looked like a bowl, the top would be pressed against the water which would then be poured into the shotglass. The tea was fresh, it tasted healthy and gently warm, it was a soothing experience to say the least.
Soon Sergio, the owner of the place joined us. Sergio, I believe I have mentioned before, is a Peruvian photographer, filmmaker, performance artist and is a great host, and this man was a friend of his, working on a project. The conversation was light and spirited, and wholly original. I feel entirely at home here, in this place, feeling unhurried from place to place, a time for people to just sit around and talk is something I don't get much when I'm huddled under 10 hours of homework or I'm rushed around in NYC. Not to say I don't get time, I do, but it's something I have to seek out, not something that seems to find me, as it does here.
The next day I saw the Alte Nationalgalerie. I went for one reason and one reason alone. Caspar David Friedrich. Since I was by myself I took the audio tour, and what a great one it was! Each one had its own little theme song, taken from the best of classical music, and the british guides, male and female, each had their own distinctive appreciation of the pieces. It made you think each piece was desired by thousands of people, and hell, maybe it was. One pet peeve though, every time a piece is introduced, they spend about 2 minutes describing what you are seeing. I was a bit confused about this, after all, we were seeing the painting, we knew perfectly well what was in front of us. Sure the smaller details escape us, but even the broadest details become introduced as if we were just staring at a bunch of colors and couldn't piece them together.
Like, for example for one of Friedrich's paintings the man was like "a mountain stands in the background"! No shit! A mountain? Wow, I was wondering what the weirdly pointed thing among all those trees was. I never would have guessed it was a mountain, thanks audio guide.
They had the abbey in the oak wood, which I remember being Professor Glenn Shuck's favorite painting. I wish Glenn all the best and hopes he gets better, and definitely thought of him in the Friedrich room. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have discovered this most mystifying of painters and through him the German Romantics that were of his age, and influenced my coming to Germany even. The paintings were phenomenal to look at up close. There you could see Friedrich's every brush stroke, and see the battle between precision and imagination.
The thing that most fascinates me about Friedrich, is how he painted most of these landscapes from his imagination. After all, for Friedrich, the landscape showed the mystical inner nature of the soul, of God, of the absolute, and not just the specificity of nature. In the grandeur of nature, Friedrich built these temples to the human condition, and they certainly shock you with their presence. Even in the darkest of paintings, like Abbey in the Oak Wood, we are shown in the glimmers of hope, and the presence of the absolute, in the half-crescent moon, teasing us with its fullness. Worth every boring German medieval painter I had to look through to get to Friedrich.
That night I had dinner with a German acquainttance of mine and her friends. They were a great bunch, one studying Art History German Literature and Psychology at Humboldt and the other Medicine, like my friend. It was wonderful not just to meet these students in Berlin but to hear them speak German to each other, it was flying fast and free, and after seeing theatre and seeing it spoken casually, it really is such an expressive language. I prided myself on being able to follow general concepts through the conversation, though they could all speak english thank goodness. We had Sushi, and I must say Berlin Sushi rivals American Sushi. Wowee.
I got home not too late and managed to crash in order for another day of sightseeing. Oh, I also finished act 2 of the Oblivious a few days ago, so I'm gonna take it easy I think.
Berlin part II includes my adventures at Gemäldegalerie, and UBU!
Tschüssies!
- J
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Two more plays, and the beginning of Berlin Adventures
Oh boy, so many happenings in these my last few weeks in Berlin. Two crazy Pollesch plays, and such and so on and such, but it's too much even for me to explain adequately, so I guess I'll start with the two plays I saw, and then move on to my adventures across Berlin.
Soooo
Darwin-win and Martin Loser Drag-King and Hygiene Auf Tauris
First of all Pollesch, WTF? Ok. Now I'm just confused. This piece was typical Volksbühne fare. Plenty of theory and completely incoherent text and then of course the usual theatrical madnesses. I've seen so much of it that by now it has become endearing. Quite the feat I must say. The stage is very much a Pollesch stage, what does that mean? There are the usual flat elements of a kitchen in fake paper and then of course a place for characters to smoke a cigarette and talk. Basically what we are seeing is the backstage of the other show. Diktatorregattinen I, which I saw the next day.
This piece, unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was about commericalization, and Cappucetto Rosso which was about theatre and the political edge, this piece was about Evolution, and Darwin and science.
The first moments of the piece we have one of the characters in a leatherjacket and oscar wilde on his shirt start talking really fast and lecturing to us. He gets more and more caught up in what he is saying until finally he bursts and just starts shifting the podium with more madness until it crashes and a piece of wood actually comes off. There is a bit of talking from the other characters but soon, instead a ballet. And we have beautiful dancing from two of th main characters, a man in what looks like a flight suit and a drag king in a ballet outfit, and another drag king in jogging pants and a muscle shirt. She is the one who takes out that dancing streamer thing, I dont know how to describe it theres a word for that thing that the dancer holds in their hand and its like a flying ribbon with them? You see it alot in the olympics.
Like el Perro Cubano, Pollesch takes advantage of the fact that we are staring right into an empty house. The theatre becomes almost like a forest, with some characters becoming animals, spoken to on camera, and some others become television reporters studying them, one other becomes a jaded character merely looking on. There is an incredible amount of versatility.
It gets exhausting sometimes articulating every single detail of these shows but some dont escape ones mind even if one tries. Pollesch's theatre hopefully averages one or two of thes emoments, and this piece certainly had them.
So we have the guy pretty much rattling on and on about evolution, when all of a sudden he takes an egg out to make a point. He cracks it and lets the white fall into the bowl and then lets the yolk dance a bit on his skin, as to make the point that the yolk itself is still alive. I dont know whether this was a rag on antiabortionists, or satirizing nature study, but what happened next was pure madness.
Basically every character took this idea to heart and began cracking eggs, removing the whites and playing with the yolk, until it unceremoniously ended up broken spread otu on their bodies. We had deliciously kitschy music to go along with this moment as the characters tried everything. One of the actors had his shirt off and was letting it dance on his belly, two others were trying to pass it from one body to the other, with varying results. The man who had it on his belly had somehow gotten it all the way to his eye, and we all gaped in awe and hilarity as he then attempted to get it off his eye and ended up spreading it all over his neck.
When it was over the characters were covered in dried yellow yoke and I had witnessed yet another challenge (is it really?) to the theatre.
Amogn other things the piece had was video (17-0?) and mics. Oh my oh me. There was a point where one of the characters was trying to convince a bunch of penguins on screen, to go the other way, to disobey their instincts.
Phew, it's exhausting to write so much, especially after a day of museums.
another image, woman dressed as man dresses herself up as this fabric sheeted angel, really beautiful moment actually.
The last image that bears mentioning is the last image of the piece, which amounted to this bizarre huge sort of thin cloth beast, that eventually devoured each one of the characters until they were all moving and squirming, getting through the door and coming towards us. Then the piece ended. Bravo, Pollesch. You crazy fucker.
....
Saturday night was Berghain. Now I couldn't feasibly go to Berlin without visiting this club, capital of debauchery in industrial Friedrichshain, right by the formidable Ostbanhof train station. The whole act of even getting in was a challenge. I was with a friend of mine who had already been there various times, so getting in for us was not as hard as for all the poor souls I would see every 5 minutes turned away. We waited for 40 minutes, which for Berghain is nothing. This is because we got there early, and by early I mean 200 am. Dont be the poor fool who makes the mistake of showing up at 4 because you will be in line for at least 2 hours.
The main man at the door, who wears some bizarre sort of jawring and stands as a hulking beast at the entrance of club-inferno is actually an incredibly established and well off artist. He technically does not need to be working the club, but continues to do so out of a sense of duty, his discerning taste keeping the lameos out and those who are apparently "cool" enough in. Whatever.
Well we got in and after that excitement passed my friend Ayman showed me all the workings of this place that is so debaucherous cameras are expressly forbidden and must be checked at the entrance.
Oh man, now this was techno central. The way up to the first dance floor is this sort of factory like stair, that when you reach the top you get to the huge darkly lit room, this building used to be a train station, with a serious soundsystem and hard techno. Every now and then a fog machine would pump up smoke and the strobes would sound.
The top floor was the "softer" techno, and it was populated with more touristy fare and english could be heard more than german, though that was the case in most of the bar.
In the end the dancing was fun, techno is the sort of thing anyone can dance to anyway they please and you wont ever be judged too harshly for it...and we left the club at 9 am, which for Berghain, is early. Some other friends of ours who happened to be there left at 2 pm.
Truth be told I'm not truly the clubbing type and though Berghain was an exciting and memorable experience, it wont be the type of thing I'll find myself missing too much, or suddenly craving, the way I will the theatres.
....
to be honest, I'm trying to figure out how to describe the next Pollesch show, but so much of it, so much of it went over not just my head, but a german friend of mine who understood a bit more than me, but not so much as to really let me know. Maybe one day I'll return and give Dikatorregattinen the airy mystique and justified review it deserves. But for now, I'll leave it to your imagination:
3 women dressed the same way. Two of them are the same person or dopplegangers of each other. We're not sure if its a famous opera singer or the wife of a Romanian dictator. The only male in the cast is dressed in a powder blue dictators uniform, but all the time his only lines are I want to be an actress! And I only get these few lines I want more lines! He plays the daughter of the 2? women.
Add to that, guns. And something involving mirrors. And a video camera, and a huge chandelier that doubles as a disco ball.
There. Thats all you get.
................
Well, with that ended what was my haupt (main) phase in berlin....the next few days were spent getting to know the city more closely, travelling to places I havent been to, seeing museums I should see, and really making sure I dont miss anything too unmissable.
Monday all the museums were closed, so I made my way to Mitte to explore a bit more of the interesting areas. I looked around the Nikolaiviertel which showed a bit of old berlin, and though it was old it was no less grandiose, replete with very formidable looking buildings and a modest avenues. It must have been quite the city then as well.
I passed the ruins of a small church, bombed out during the war. That is quite an interesting relic of berlin, since most of it has been completely rebuilt it is only really in churches where you see the pain of war - in these spaces that used to hold or claimed to hold God that opened violently with the hand of man now stand as empty containers of an absent god? Or is it that now they contain the divine more than ever, since in their incompleteness they retain some hidden element that had evaded them when they once had structure?
I kept on wandering and ended up in the back of an alexander platz shopping mall. I kept walking not really paying attention where I was going and somehow ended up in Friedrichshain. It was dull and depressing soviet style housing. A really interesting experience though seeing this part of Berlin, built up with unattractive GDR era architecture. Whose faded dreams of a different sort of grandeur now bear frightening reminders of the extremes of modernity. I crossed over these prisonlike avenues into Kreuzberg, and ended up incidentally in another bombed out church.
This was a particularly strong one since the angel that stayed atop, commanding a white hot angry gaze stared right at the sight of the old wall.
I ended up walking a bit more to this sort of built in reservoir and got to one of Kreuzberg's old centers, Oranien Strasse. It was lovely, large amounts of turkish immigrants and the smell of delicious food coupled with trendy bars and berliner yuppies.
I decided to keep my adventure going and trekked over to the other side of Kreuzberg to see the area around Bergman strasse. It was one of the most picturesque parts of Berlin, and that was very much true. The streets have an absolutely timeless feel, and for many one could even imagine Europe. The people were like Prenzlbergers but a bit "trendier", not as many tourists and many families. A lovely area bordered by Victoriapark, another breathtaking Belin park replete with a fake waterfall and a huge impressive green. Lovely.
I ended up again somehow in Schönberg, and bored of residential housing I went back home to the cafe across the street and wrote another scene of my play.
So much more to tell but UBU starts in 20 minutes and I must go!
Tschüss!
- J
Soooo
Darwin-win and Martin Loser Drag-King and Hygiene Auf Tauris
First of all Pollesch, WTF? Ok. Now I'm just confused. This piece was typical Volksbühne fare. Plenty of theory and completely incoherent text and then of course the usual theatrical madnesses. I've seen so much of it that by now it has become endearing. Quite the feat I must say. The stage is very much a Pollesch stage, what does that mean? There are the usual flat elements of a kitchen in fake paper and then of course a place for characters to smoke a cigarette and talk. Basically what we are seeing is the backstage of the other show. Diktatorregattinen I, which I saw the next day.
This piece, unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was about commericalization, and Cappucetto Rosso which was about theatre and the political edge, this piece was about Evolution, and Darwin and science.
The first moments of the piece we have one of the characters in a leatherjacket and oscar wilde on his shirt start talking really fast and lecturing to us. He gets more and more caught up in what he is saying until finally he bursts and just starts shifting the podium with more madness until it crashes and a piece of wood actually comes off. There is a bit of talking from the other characters but soon, instead a ballet. And we have beautiful dancing from two of th main characters, a man in what looks like a flight suit and a drag king in a ballet outfit, and another drag king in jogging pants and a muscle shirt. She is the one who takes out that dancing streamer thing, I dont know how to describe it theres a word for that thing that the dancer holds in their hand and its like a flying ribbon with them? You see it alot in the olympics.
Like el Perro Cubano, Pollesch takes advantage of the fact that we are staring right into an empty house. The theatre becomes almost like a forest, with some characters becoming animals, spoken to on camera, and some others become television reporters studying them, one other becomes a jaded character merely looking on. There is an incredible amount of versatility.
It gets exhausting sometimes articulating every single detail of these shows but some dont escape ones mind even if one tries. Pollesch's theatre hopefully averages one or two of thes emoments, and this piece certainly had them.
So we have the guy pretty much rattling on and on about evolution, when all of a sudden he takes an egg out to make a point. He cracks it and lets the white fall into the bowl and then lets the yolk dance a bit on his skin, as to make the point that the yolk itself is still alive. I dont know whether this was a rag on antiabortionists, or satirizing nature study, but what happened next was pure madness.
Basically every character took this idea to heart and began cracking eggs, removing the whites and playing with the yolk, until it unceremoniously ended up broken spread otu on their bodies. We had deliciously kitschy music to go along with this moment as the characters tried everything. One of the actors had his shirt off and was letting it dance on his belly, two others were trying to pass it from one body to the other, with varying results. The man who had it on his belly had somehow gotten it all the way to his eye, and we all gaped in awe and hilarity as he then attempted to get it off his eye and ended up spreading it all over his neck.
When it was over the characters were covered in dried yellow yoke and I had witnessed yet another challenge (is it really?) to the theatre.
Amogn other things the piece had was video (17-0?) and mics. Oh my oh me. There was a point where one of the characters was trying to convince a bunch of penguins on screen, to go the other way, to disobey their instincts.
Phew, it's exhausting to write so much, especially after a day of museums.
another image, woman dressed as man dresses herself up as this fabric sheeted angel, really beautiful moment actually.
The last image that bears mentioning is the last image of the piece, which amounted to this bizarre huge sort of thin cloth beast, that eventually devoured each one of the characters until they were all moving and squirming, getting through the door and coming towards us. Then the piece ended. Bravo, Pollesch. You crazy fucker.
....
Saturday night was Berghain. Now I couldn't feasibly go to Berlin without visiting this club, capital of debauchery in industrial Friedrichshain, right by the formidable Ostbanhof train station. The whole act of even getting in was a challenge. I was with a friend of mine who had already been there various times, so getting in for us was not as hard as for all the poor souls I would see every 5 minutes turned away. We waited for 40 minutes, which for Berghain is nothing. This is because we got there early, and by early I mean 200 am. Dont be the poor fool who makes the mistake of showing up at 4 because you will be in line for at least 2 hours.
The main man at the door, who wears some bizarre sort of jawring and stands as a hulking beast at the entrance of club-inferno is actually an incredibly established and well off artist. He technically does not need to be working the club, but continues to do so out of a sense of duty, his discerning taste keeping the lameos out and those who are apparently "cool" enough in. Whatever.
Well we got in and after that excitement passed my friend Ayman showed me all the workings of this place that is so debaucherous cameras are expressly forbidden and must be checked at the entrance.
Oh man, now this was techno central. The way up to the first dance floor is this sort of factory like stair, that when you reach the top you get to the huge darkly lit room, this building used to be a train station, with a serious soundsystem and hard techno. Every now and then a fog machine would pump up smoke and the strobes would sound.
The top floor was the "softer" techno, and it was populated with more touristy fare and english could be heard more than german, though that was the case in most of the bar.
In the end the dancing was fun, techno is the sort of thing anyone can dance to anyway they please and you wont ever be judged too harshly for it...and we left the club at 9 am, which for Berghain, is early. Some other friends of ours who happened to be there left at 2 pm.
Truth be told I'm not truly the clubbing type and though Berghain was an exciting and memorable experience, it wont be the type of thing I'll find myself missing too much, or suddenly craving, the way I will the theatres.
....
to be honest, I'm trying to figure out how to describe the next Pollesch show, but so much of it, so much of it went over not just my head, but a german friend of mine who understood a bit more than me, but not so much as to really let me know. Maybe one day I'll return and give Dikatorregattinen the airy mystique and justified review it deserves. But for now, I'll leave it to your imagination:
3 women dressed the same way. Two of them are the same person or dopplegangers of each other. We're not sure if its a famous opera singer or the wife of a Romanian dictator. The only male in the cast is dressed in a powder blue dictators uniform, but all the time his only lines are I want to be an actress! And I only get these few lines I want more lines! He plays the daughter of the 2? women.
Add to that, guns. And something involving mirrors. And a video camera, and a huge chandelier that doubles as a disco ball.
There. Thats all you get.
................
Well, with that ended what was my haupt (main) phase in berlin....the next few days were spent getting to know the city more closely, travelling to places I havent been to, seeing museums I should see, and really making sure I dont miss anything too unmissable.
Monday all the museums were closed, so I made my way to Mitte to explore a bit more of the interesting areas. I looked around the Nikolaiviertel which showed a bit of old berlin, and though it was old it was no less grandiose, replete with very formidable looking buildings and a modest avenues. It must have been quite the city then as well.
I passed the ruins of a small church, bombed out during the war. That is quite an interesting relic of berlin, since most of it has been completely rebuilt it is only really in churches where you see the pain of war - in these spaces that used to hold or claimed to hold God that opened violently with the hand of man now stand as empty containers of an absent god? Or is it that now they contain the divine more than ever, since in their incompleteness they retain some hidden element that had evaded them when they once had structure?
I kept on wandering and ended up in the back of an alexander platz shopping mall. I kept walking not really paying attention where I was going and somehow ended up in Friedrichshain. It was dull and depressing soviet style housing. A really interesting experience though seeing this part of Berlin, built up with unattractive GDR era architecture. Whose faded dreams of a different sort of grandeur now bear frightening reminders of the extremes of modernity. I crossed over these prisonlike avenues into Kreuzberg, and ended up incidentally in another bombed out church.
This was a particularly strong one since the angel that stayed atop, commanding a white hot angry gaze stared right at the sight of the old wall.
I ended up walking a bit more to this sort of built in reservoir and got to one of Kreuzberg's old centers, Oranien Strasse. It was lovely, large amounts of turkish immigrants and the smell of delicious food coupled with trendy bars and berliner yuppies.
I decided to keep my adventure going and trekked over to the other side of Kreuzberg to see the area around Bergman strasse. It was one of the most picturesque parts of Berlin, and that was very much true. The streets have an absolutely timeless feel, and for many one could even imagine Europe. The people were like Prenzlbergers but a bit "trendier", not as many tourists and many families. A lovely area bordered by Victoriapark, another breathtaking Belin park replete with a fake waterfall and a huge impressive green. Lovely.
I ended up again somehow in Schönberg, and bored of residential housing I went back home to the cafe across the street and wrote another scene of my play.
So much more to tell but UBU starts in 20 minutes and I must go!
Tschüss!
- J
Friday, July 4, 2008
The halfway point?
Could it be?
Could my time in Berlin be nearing an end? - two weeks and a bit more and then Avignon.
I don't want to leave, I feel I've gotten to know this city so well.
My language lessons are over and I can happily say I'm nearly A2 level...and I plan on taking some German at Williams (5th course, pass/fail, you know how it is)
Alright, so...I haven't been writing for a bit because I've sort of been taking a break, not seeing as many plays, well, thats a lie. I only didnt go to the theatre once this week (and I think I'll take a break again today), so I do have two plays to go over. I'll do that then...
Okay, so Polleschfest continued at Volksbühne with Cappucetto Rosso. Now I thought I was going to see Little Red Riding Hood done castorf style, who knows - wolves, nudity, grandmothers, I'm sure he would have thought up something. But no, this title I guess was some reference I for the life of me could not understand, but thats all well and good, since Pollesch offers us what could only be deemed as intensely postmodern, self-aware, critic-theatre.
So what was the play? From what me and my friend Mark (who speaks German far better than I do) could gather, the play was about an actress, albeit a reluctant one, who is rehearsing this play - and I believe the actress, Maria Tura, taken from To be or Not to Be, is an actress in Nazi occupied poland.
This is the frame that Pollesch uses, however the play itself is more of an exploration of the themes of representation through the theatrical medium and the ability for theatre to disguise and play with history and a history of itself. Or something like that.
the set is once again by Bert Neumann and it reminded of me of Berlin Alexanderplatz, in the sense that it was a very similar sort of trailer type house. The outside just had a chair with a directors book. The texture of the walls were very much Pollesch style with the fake textures on flat surfaces. This man certainly has his aesthetic.
Adding to this aesthetic is the screen to the right, which, along with a camerawoman and a stage manager on book, finishes Pollesch's aesthetic.
Unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was more of a musing with 3 muses, this play has more rigidly defined characters. We have Maria Tura, and then another actress who has no problems with whats going on, because she's also a Nazi. Then the director and his assistant, a woman with red hair and and a very stylish suit emblazoned with the Swastika.
Not unlike Castorf do we have these characters in a quasi theoretical quasi theatrical always self conscious stew. They go back and forth from talking to the camera to talking to us. And all very humorously. Sort of like a strange absurdist slapstick.
This piece again has both microphones and video!! Hoorah (15-0, I believe?)
The microphones here give the character the ability to pull another layer of theatrical tapestry, we have the 3 dimensionality of the aside taken to a 4th dimension with the mic, the character rises above the scene almost as omniscent narrator, we get the ability for personal thoughts, but also for power over all other characters, at least for that moment.
One word that the Volksbühne I feel has never (and will hopefully) never understand is sublety. If the theme is representation we are going to be told that over and over again. if the actress is mad chances are she will scream and throw something. If the actress is sad she will cry, or she will whine, or she will cry and whine so much her voice is literally like a taut violin bow slowly being pulled apart, being played as it breaks. I cant really describe it any other way.
If she is upset she will take an entire bottle of pills and wash it down with Johnnie Walker Red as another one of the actresses talks at us.
The theoretical parts that comprise the beginning of the show, all taking place inside the house and nearly invisible because of the video, were a bit frustrating - a) because I like watching theatre not film. And b) because I couldnt really understand anything. Im only up to really simple concepts in german and though I can usually follow along, if the discussion is already above berliner's heads theres no way Ill grasp even a slice. The audience was laughing though, so I guess it was still funny.
My favorite aspect of Pollesch is when he breaks out of his theoretical muck, literally a muck where characters talk at each other or to the camera and seem to balance issues larger than themselves - however the moments that most seem to resonate with me are when the music starts and all of a sudden a purely theatrical aesthetic returns.
Example!
Rita Pavone (remember Nueve Reinas?) starts playing, and all of a sudden we are treated to the most bizarre candid camera game/mentos commercial ever. Where characters are being filmed being slightly disturbed. Maybe they get bumped into, or get something spilled, but nothing so as to be that big of a deal. The way the characters react though is priceless, since the camera freezes on them, and then everyone comes out to see the frozen silly picture and eventually a little sort of cursor draws a few lines over their head, perhaps suggesting shock or something of the sort. A very WTF moment indeed.
Pollesch also loves to use music to set moods. We get the sad movie music, almost without any water we can imagine rain. We have the character walk up to the door, having just left. She knocks and the doorbell rings. This sort of confused moment, where genre and expectation and all these formal units, sort of become disjointed from themselves and become (literally) bells and whistles.
I am quite certain pollesch has read his baudrillard, and probbaly his lyotard and jameson too, since his work is the epitome of postmodernism. Superflat, a pop soup, and nothing essential but the essential work of critique.
Slapstick is also perfect for these sort of shows. Every now and then, Maria Tura would come onstage and see the actress with the swastika and scream " AH! EIn Nazi!" and run away. As if replicating the the mix of forced amnesia and reawakening that must be played in such a historically confusing site that is Berlin.
This is what I feel has been essential in my stay here in Berlin - I dont feel as if I have never seen these theatrical questions attempt to be answered back home. You see it in the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and plenty of experimental and underground theatres in the states. What I feel more than anything here though, is the attempt to provide at once the theoretical and aesthetic intellectual parsing, but also to entertain, to let us have fun.
The spectacle has been intact in nearly every show, every show is aware that half of its purpose is merely showbusiness, and so even for someone with little command of the language, or little understanding of postmodern or postdramatic theory, the shows give so much more, these moments that are fun, hilarious even, or just plain bizarre.
I feel like sometimes in the states I get what the directors want us to get, I understand the sort of theoretical push and respect those intentions, but all that respect doesnt keep me from getting bored and at once falling asleep.
Pulling theatre apart shouldn't be boring, it is an exciting act. It replicates that excitement that we all get from thanatos, the urge of destruction.
here is an example - back in the day me and my friend Matt would get so much more out of destroying our toys figures than merely playing with them - we would behead our action figures or freeze them, and then run hot wheels cars together and crash them. There is something innately entertaining about taking things apart. A sort of rush, a glee. this is a dangerous desire within all of us - and I only advocate for that sort of violence only on an aesthetic level. Gestural violence - cruelty on the stage.
In that way, pollesch's theatre flirts with cruelty. It keeps the actors out of reach of the audience, stripping us of the sight of people onstage . it moves the actors at one point into the booth which is right next to us (we are, like in el Perro Cubano, seated on the stage). It romanticizes what should be strange and stupid gestures by not merely staging them but putting them onscreen. The scrubbing of hands, the eating of cake.
It makes an actress come onstage and renounce acting. Renounce Nora, Hedda, all the Ibsen actors. She eats the cake and she quits.
the director asks her to please go on, but he himself is asking for line from the woman who is on book. So does the actress, they are all, in the end actors.
In Pollesch we are doubled towards infinity, like two mirrors staring each other right in the face. But those mirrors, which are onstage, also project their infinity, flattened, onscreen. But which non-end is less essential? Silly question to ask, no? But silly, in many ways, is the point.
......................
The next day we went to Badeschiff. I had no play that day, I didnt want to think about plays, or talk about plays, I was having a one-day vacation, ja?
It is a great idea. Literally meaning Bath-ship, it is a pool which is on a barge which is sunken on the spree. So you are literally river level, but you are in clean, pool water. Apart from being a bit crowded it was perfect. Me and Mark had a bit of an escapade getting there however. We mistakenly took Berlin hospitality for local wisdom and ended up walking 20 more minutes. The problem with such a "cool" city is things arent easily labeled. Everything is almost like a hidden treasure, you have to keep discovering it. Thats what trendy is all about, hiding. Once something is shown, it loses its essence, then anyone, even fat americans can go, and thats what Potsdamer Platz is for...shhhhhh.
I have to say, after waiting for a delayed S-bahn for 30 minutes and then walking that much after the Subway, the cold water of the Badeschiff was a fucking gift! We will have to go to the lake soon, but all I can say is ich liebe das Badeschiff.
.............
So the next day, I had my next play experience. I was really excited since it was the only Kleist I was seeing the whole time I'm here. And having written a paper two semesters ago on Kleist and Caspar David Friedrich (who I will be seein in das Museum so soooon) I was hankering for some German Romantic theater!!! Penthislea was the play, and what a play to do.
Unlike Prince of Homburg, this play does not end with trumpets and confusing happiness, it ends, literally torn apart, the world fragmented, but both causes of disorder neutralized. We have the boyish and arrogant Achilles, who is sweeter than we are led to think, and the girly, but fierce, and by fierce I mean fucking awesomeley fierce Penthislea who takes Achilles's resigned offer of love and out of this anger just rips him, literally, to pieces.
Fuck Paris and his puny arrow dipped in poison, this is the real deal. Drama that rips its subjects apart. No moderation, no sublety, just an angry-ass queen black with blood (actual stage direction = glorious) .
Reading the play beforehand (in English, mind you, I can barely read my german workbook let alone Kleist!!!), I noticed that so much of the play is percieved offstage. That is to say, unlike the role of a messenger in Greek tragedies, where the action is recounted to us in past-tense from some horrible event that has either jus happened or happened ages ago, the world of Kleist happens in the now. However we can only see it from observers eyes. So much of the events, especially in the beginning dictate stuff that is happening as it is being seen that is an especially interesting theatrical device, because it allows the audience to imagine the worst, but even moreso, because it allows the site of the action to be within the world of the audience itself. That is done easily. Have the characters that are speaking what is happening look out into the audience, what is nothing other than the fabric of the abyss for the characters onstage.
My favorite line is Penthislea, which I was glad to have seen quoted (in german) in the postcard of the show afterwards goes like this:
"...Küse, Bisse,
Das reimt sich, und wer recht von Herzen liebt,
Kann schon das eine für das andre greifen"
Basically, one is liable to get both kissing and biting confused in the haze of love.
I personally love Kleist and his characters caught up in the haze of existence, lost by the very intensity of the world they create, unaware of their savagery, while calmly discovering it is only the means to their end. Penthislea soon kills herself after these lines.
So the play. Good old Luk Perceval, who gave us Death of a Salesman now takes on Kleist.
Remember the play? OK, now forget it. This is basically nothing like it, and by that I mean Perceval basically takes the idea of Penthislea, the rawness and savagery of it, the existential angst, and takes these ideas, puts them in some sort of german blender and cuts the nastiest grimiest most brutal wurst out of them you could imagine.
This is a sausage of sheer madness.
How do we begin? Take a large wooden structure, made up of identical wooden planks, about 3 stories high, thin, like large sticks and have them all stacked next to each other in a circle. They are being held up by a sort of gizmo that keeps them from falling and destroying everything (thats important dont forget it)
Other than that, the stage is bare. The actors are in the dark, shit is about to go down.
Two of the actors grab some large poles, stick them into the holding structure and twise the sticks creating what seems to be a stake. So fucking ceremonious, so fucking intense, the lights come on. The ritual has begun. Penthislea is here.
The actors? Every single one of them is doused from head to toe with clay, that is, nasty, grey clay, that makes their eyes and mouths look bright pink, as if they were the most disturbing clown masks you ever saw. The men only wear shorts. The set is just that structure and then, bam hanging mics in a circle around the structure. An eerie light follows the mics. (yep no video, but we have mics, 16-0 I believe?)
The play takes a while to begin, and BAM the actors scream mercilessly the events of horror that Penthislea onslaughts onto the Greek armies, one man and then another saying the words, repeating them, desperately, one of them standing up, one of them on the floor. Clawing. Where are they looking? Out, thank goodness. Odysseus, in the background merely mumbles, with nearly no voice, into the mic. Chilling.
Penthislea is fucking nuts. She comes in running and starts chucking mics. She chucks the mics at the audience, throwing them right at us, the mics swing unceremoniously back and forth, they could have easily hit an actor. It is very disturbing to have stuff thrown at you. Castorf has spawned a horrible tradition (and by horrible I mean wonderful).
Perceval has done away with most of the text, it is a lot, to his credit (100plus pages of blank verse), so it isnt necessarily missed. He basically condenses it so we have angry Penthislea, stern Odysseus, crazy High Priestess, arrogant Achilles, and pleading amazon sisters and country men. The fucking high priestess basically for the first 30 minutes of the play just walks around in a circle and says nothing. Terrifying.
Heres the other thing about this play. I have never thought about the directional thrust of plays, because nearly every single play Ive seen has had a linear thrust. I mean, the space that is being used, is envisioned in linear moves. This play is 100% circular. There is so much goddamn running. The actors must be so tired. Running literally laps, and faster and so fast, Penthislea running and throwing mics. Men running in unison, creating a beat for the music.+
Oh, you thought there wouldn't be music? You thought wrong...theres one dude in the corner with a guitar making the weirdest fucking abstract guitar noise you could imagine. The music rises so high and so distorted at times you want to tell him to shut up, but its an oncoming storm, the play just exists, its there, its verse and everything just happens to you and you have to sit and take it.
The actress who played Hedda Gabler, Katharina Schüttler is back as Penthi and then Rafael Stachowiak takes on Achilles. Like Hedda, Schüttler plays Penthislea sort of girl like. The ripe violence however makes no question as to how she feels, and it goes from tantrum like playing, to fierce, unwavering anger, coupled with sexuality. Achilles never reaches those heights, he prefers to be an arrogant clod, jogging and playing while the others march, riling against fatherly odysseus.
Perceval luckily eschews the tacky declarations of love for what is really behind all that devotion. ANNNNGST. The sheer recklessness of existence, the sheer disregard for each other and othrs is what binds the two warriors together. The masterslavedialectic taken as a photo and then merely kept in its negative form. There is no hope in their love, just waiting, and the only moment of sex, the only moment of togetherness is a back embrace. Achilles grabbing Penthisela from behind, her body against his. She catches the mic, whole, in her mouth. We gasp. The moment lasts not for about 2 minutes in a 1:45 minute play. And yet for us that is enough, we get it, we get how we can be slaves to each other - not out of some desire for lilies, but for a desire to stop running, to stop running in circles, to pause the music, to hold a moment in our grasp like a fluttering microphone.
But soon it all collapses. Forces of power intervene, separation occurs. the final confrontation is a haze, as most of the play. Achilles is led off without being torn apart. We are shown merely the violence of men marching then sprinting in circles and the priestess and odyseeus talking but nobody being heard. Finally everyone faces the front. Penthislea is indicted, along with all of us.
She speaks, whispers into the microphone (one of the plusses of having a microphone, really), for about 5 minutes. A sort of condensation of the last 20 pages.
WHERES THE VIOLENCE? I ask. WHERES ALL THE KLEISTIAN BLOOD???
Wondering were I to be gypped the last moment of the play, shows me the most violent act I have probably ever witnessed on a stage.
The actors, now nearly facing us, turn away. The holding machine, holding all those large trunks of wood rises. The structure collapses. And by collapse I mean just fall. Imagine a set of popsicle sticks stacked together. Now make those popsicle sticks the size of brownstones and you have the idea.
Percevla doesnt need to kill anyone, he just needs to sacrifice the theatrical structure, just needs to break apart the theatre itself, to shows us that there is no more to be seen, the characters have disappeared, even the set, under the weight of war, has vanished.
A berliner studying medicine next to me said it was unlike anything she's ever seen. She asked me if I liked it. I didn't know what to say, I'll have to wait until tomorrow and think about it.
See above for my answer.
---------
Enjoy finding new and creative ways to express your patriotism on this most gag-inducing of holidays!!
I'll be taking a brief holiday myself today and maybe write some more of my play. Tomorrow and Sunday, Pollesch-fest continues!
Tschüss!
- J
Could my time in Berlin be nearing an end? - two weeks and a bit more and then Avignon.
I don't want to leave, I feel I've gotten to know this city so well.
My language lessons are over and I can happily say I'm nearly A2 level...and I plan on taking some German at Williams (5th course, pass/fail, you know how it is)
Alright, so...I haven't been writing for a bit because I've sort of been taking a break, not seeing as many plays, well, thats a lie. I only didnt go to the theatre once this week (and I think I'll take a break again today), so I do have two plays to go over. I'll do that then...
Okay, so Polleschfest continued at Volksbühne with Cappucetto Rosso. Now I thought I was going to see Little Red Riding Hood done castorf style, who knows - wolves, nudity, grandmothers, I'm sure he would have thought up something. But no, this title I guess was some reference I for the life of me could not understand, but thats all well and good, since Pollesch offers us what could only be deemed as intensely postmodern, self-aware, critic-theatre.
So what was the play? From what me and my friend Mark (who speaks German far better than I do) could gather, the play was about an actress, albeit a reluctant one, who is rehearsing this play - and I believe the actress, Maria Tura, taken from To be or Not to Be, is an actress in Nazi occupied poland.
This is the frame that Pollesch uses, however the play itself is more of an exploration of the themes of representation through the theatrical medium and the ability for theatre to disguise and play with history and a history of itself. Or something like that.
the set is once again by Bert Neumann and it reminded of me of Berlin Alexanderplatz, in the sense that it was a very similar sort of trailer type house. The outside just had a chair with a directors book. The texture of the walls were very much Pollesch style with the fake textures on flat surfaces. This man certainly has his aesthetic.
Adding to this aesthetic is the screen to the right, which, along with a camerawoman and a stage manager on book, finishes Pollesch's aesthetic.
Unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was more of a musing with 3 muses, this play has more rigidly defined characters. We have Maria Tura, and then another actress who has no problems with whats going on, because she's also a Nazi. Then the director and his assistant, a woman with red hair and and a very stylish suit emblazoned with the Swastika.
Not unlike Castorf do we have these characters in a quasi theoretical quasi theatrical always self conscious stew. They go back and forth from talking to the camera to talking to us. And all very humorously. Sort of like a strange absurdist slapstick.
This piece again has both microphones and video!! Hoorah (15-0, I believe?)
The microphones here give the character the ability to pull another layer of theatrical tapestry, we have the 3 dimensionality of the aside taken to a 4th dimension with the mic, the character rises above the scene almost as omniscent narrator, we get the ability for personal thoughts, but also for power over all other characters, at least for that moment.
One word that the Volksbühne I feel has never (and will hopefully) never understand is sublety. If the theme is representation we are going to be told that over and over again. if the actress is mad chances are she will scream and throw something. If the actress is sad she will cry, or she will whine, or she will cry and whine so much her voice is literally like a taut violin bow slowly being pulled apart, being played as it breaks. I cant really describe it any other way.
If she is upset she will take an entire bottle of pills and wash it down with Johnnie Walker Red as another one of the actresses talks at us.
The theoretical parts that comprise the beginning of the show, all taking place inside the house and nearly invisible because of the video, were a bit frustrating - a) because I like watching theatre not film. And b) because I couldnt really understand anything. Im only up to really simple concepts in german and though I can usually follow along, if the discussion is already above berliner's heads theres no way Ill grasp even a slice. The audience was laughing though, so I guess it was still funny.
My favorite aspect of Pollesch is when he breaks out of his theoretical muck, literally a muck where characters talk at each other or to the camera and seem to balance issues larger than themselves - however the moments that most seem to resonate with me are when the music starts and all of a sudden a purely theatrical aesthetic returns.
Example!
Rita Pavone (remember Nueve Reinas?) starts playing, and all of a sudden we are treated to the most bizarre candid camera game/mentos commercial ever. Where characters are being filmed being slightly disturbed. Maybe they get bumped into, or get something spilled, but nothing so as to be that big of a deal. The way the characters react though is priceless, since the camera freezes on them, and then everyone comes out to see the frozen silly picture and eventually a little sort of cursor draws a few lines over their head, perhaps suggesting shock or something of the sort. A very WTF moment indeed.
Pollesch also loves to use music to set moods. We get the sad movie music, almost without any water we can imagine rain. We have the character walk up to the door, having just left. She knocks and the doorbell rings. This sort of confused moment, where genre and expectation and all these formal units, sort of become disjointed from themselves and become (literally) bells and whistles.
I am quite certain pollesch has read his baudrillard, and probbaly his lyotard and jameson too, since his work is the epitome of postmodernism. Superflat, a pop soup, and nothing essential but the essential work of critique.
Slapstick is also perfect for these sort of shows. Every now and then, Maria Tura would come onstage and see the actress with the swastika and scream " AH! EIn Nazi!" and run away. As if replicating the the mix of forced amnesia and reawakening that must be played in such a historically confusing site that is Berlin.
This is what I feel has been essential in my stay here in Berlin - I dont feel as if I have never seen these theatrical questions attempt to be answered back home. You see it in the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and plenty of experimental and underground theatres in the states. What I feel more than anything here though, is the attempt to provide at once the theoretical and aesthetic intellectual parsing, but also to entertain, to let us have fun.
The spectacle has been intact in nearly every show, every show is aware that half of its purpose is merely showbusiness, and so even for someone with little command of the language, or little understanding of postmodern or postdramatic theory, the shows give so much more, these moments that are fun, hilarious even, or just plain bizarre.
I feel like sometimes in the states I get what the directors want us to get, I understand the sort of theoretical push and respect those intentions, but all that respect doesnt keep me from getting bored and at once falling asleep.
Pulling theatre apart shouldn't be boring, it is an exciting act. It replicates that excitement that we all get from thanatos, the urge of destruction.
here is an example - back in the day me and my friend Matt would get so much more out of destroying our toys figures than merely playing with them - we would behead our action figures or freeze them, and then run hot wheels cars together and crash them. There is something innately entertaining about taking things apart. A sort of rush, a glee. this is a dangerous desire within all of us - and I only advocate for that sort of violence only on an aesthetic level. Gestural violence - cruelty on the stage.
In that way, pollesch's theatre flirts with cruelty. It keeps the actors out of reach of the audience, stripping us of the sight of people onstage . it moves the actors at one point into the booth which is right next to us (we are, like in el Perro Cubano, seated on the stage). It romanticizes what should be strange and stupid gestures by not merely staging them but putting them onscreen. The scrubbing of hands, the eating of cake.
It makes an actress come onstage and renounce acting. Renounce Nora, Hedda, all the Ibsen actors. She eats the cake and she quits.
the director asks her to please go on, but he himself is asking for line from the woman who is on book. So does the actress, they are all, in the end actors.
In Pollesch we are doubled towards infinity, like two mirrors staring each other right in the face. But those mirrors, which are onstage, also project their infinity, flattened, onscreen. But which non-end is less essential? Silly question to ask, no? But silly, in many ways, is the point.
......................
The next day we went to Badeschiff. I had no play that day, I didnt want to think about plays, or talk about plays, I was having a one-day vacation, ja?
It is a great idea. Literally meaning Bath-ship, it is a pool which is on a barge which is sunken on the spree. So you are literally river level, but you are in clean, pool water. Apart from being a bit crowded it was perfect. Me and Mark had a bit of an escapade getting there however. We mistakenly took Berlin hospitality for local wisdom and ended up walking 20 more minutes. The problem with such a "cool" city is things arent easily labeled. Everything is almost like a hidden treasure, you have to keep discovering it. Thats what trendy is all about, hiding. Once something is shown, it loses its essence, then anyone, even fat americans can go, and thats what Potsdamer Platz is for...shhhhhh.
I have to say, after waiting for a delayed S-bahn for 30 minutes and then walking that much after the Subway, the cold water of the Badeschiff was a fucking gift! We will have to go to the lake soon, but all I can say is ich liebe das Badeschiff.
.............
So the next day, I had my next play experience. I was really excited since it was the only Kleist I was seeing the whole time I'm here. And having written a paper two semesters ago on Kleist and Caspar David Friedrich (who I will be seein in das Museum so soooon) I was hankering for some German Romantic theater!!! Penthislea was the play, and what a play to do.
Unlike Prince of Homburg, this play does not end with trumpets and confusing happiness, it ends, literally torn apart, the world fragmented, but both causes of disorder neutralized. We have the boyish and arrogant Achilles, who is sweeter than we are led to think, and the girly, but fierce, and by fierce I mean fucking awesomeley fierce Penthislea who takes Achilles's resigned offer of love and out of this anger just rips him, literally, to pieces.
Fuck Paris and his puny arrow dipped in poison, this is the real deal. Drama that rips its subjects apart. No moderation, no sublety, just an angry-ass queen black with blood (actual stage direction = glorious) .
Reading the play beforehand (in English, mind you, I can barely read my german workbook let alone Kleist!!!), I noticed that so much of the play is percieved offstage. That is to say, unlike the role of a messenger in Greek tragedies, where the action is recounted to us in past-tense from some horrible event that has either jus happened or happened ages ago, the world of Kleist happens in the now. However we can only see it from observers eyes. So much of the events, especially in the beginning dictate stuff that is happening as it is being seen that is an especially interesting theatrical device, because it allows the audience to imagine the worst, but even moreso, because it allows the site of the action to be within the world of the audience itself. That is done easily. Have the characters that are speaking what is happening look out into the audience, what is nothing other than the fabric of the abyss for the characters onstage.
My favorite line is Penthislea, which I was glad to have seen quoted (in german) in the postcard of the show afterwards goes like this:
"...Küse, Bisse,
Das reimt sich, und wer recht von Herzen liebt,
Kann schon das eine für das andre greifen"
Basically, one is liable to get both kissing and biting confused in the haze of love.
I personally love Kleist and his characters caught up in the haze of existence, lost by the very intensity of the world they create, unaware of their savagery, while calmly discovering it is only the means to their end. Penthislea soon kills herself after these lines.
So the play. Good old Luk Perceval, who gave us Death of a Salesman now takes on Kleist.
Remember the play? OK, now forget it. This is basically nothing like it, and by that I mean Perceval basically takes the idea of Penthislea, the rawness and savagery of it, the existential angst, and takes these ideas, puts them in some sort of german blender and cuts the nastiest grimiest most brutal wurst out of them you could imagine.
This is a sausage of sheer madness.
How do we begin? Take a large wooden structure, made up of identical wooden planks, about 3 stories high, thin, like large sticks and have them all stacked next to each other in a circle. They are being held up by a sort of gizmo that keeps them from falling and destroying everything (thats important dont forget it)
Other than that, the stage is bare. The actors are in the dark, shit is about to go down.
Two of the actors grab some large poles, stick them into the holding structure and twise the sticks creating what seems to be a stake. So fucking ceremonious, so fucking intense, the lights come on. The ritual has begun. Penthislea is here.
The actors? Every single one of them is doused from head to toe with clay, that is, nasty, grey clay, that makes their eyes and mouths look bright pink, as if they were the most disturbing clown masks you ever saw. The men only wear shorts. The set is just that structure and then, bam hanging mics in a circle around the structure. An eerie light follows the mics. (yep no video, but we have mics, 16-0 I believe?)
The play takes a while to begin, and BAM the actors scream mercilessly the events of horror that Penthislea onslaughts onto the Greek armies, one man and then another saying the words, repeating them, desperately, one of them standing up, one of them on the floor. Clawing. Where are they looking? Out, thank goodness. Odysseus, in the background merely mumbles, with nearly no voice, into the mic. Chilling.
Penthislea is fucking nuts. She comes in running and starts chucking mics. She chucks the mics at the audience, throwing them right at us, the mics swing unceremoniously back and forth, they could have easily hit an actor. It is very disturbing to have stuff thrown at you. Castorf has spawned a horrible tradition (and by horrible I mean wonderful).
Perceval has done away with most of the text, it is a lot, to his credit (100plus pages of blank verse), so it isnt necessarily missed. He basically condenses it so we have angry Penthislea, stern Odysseus, crazy High Priestess, arrogant Achilles, and pleading amazon sisters and country men. The fucking high priestess basically for the first 30 minutes of the play just walks around in a circle and says nothing. Terrifying.
Heres the other thing about this play. I have never thought about the directional thrust of plays, because nearly every single play Ive seen has had a linear thrust. I mean, the space that is being used, is envisioned in linear moves. This play is 100% circular. There is so much goddamn running. The actors must be so tired. Running literally laps, and faster and so fast, Penthislea running and throwing mics. Men running in unison, creating a beat for the music.+
Oh, you thought there wouldn't be music? You thought wrong...theres one dude in the corner with a guitar making the weirdest fucking abstract guitar noise you could imagine. The music rises so high and so distorted at times you want to tell him to shut up, but its an oncoming storm, the play just exists, its there, its verse and everything just happens to you and you have to sit and take it.
The actress who played Hedda Gabler, Katharina Schüttler is back as Penthi and then Rafael Stachowiak takes on Achilles. Like Hedda, Schüttler plays Penthislea sort of girl like. The ripe violence however makes no question as to how she feels, and it goes from tantrum like playing, to fierce, unwavering anger, coupled with sexuality. Achilles never reaches those heights, he prefers to be an arrogant clod, jogging and playing while the others march, riling against fatherly odysseus.
Perceval luckily eschews the tacky declarations of love for what is really behind all that devotion. ANNNNGST. The sheer recklessness of existence, the sheer disregard for each other and othrs is what binds the two warriors together. The masterslavedialectic taken as a photo and then merely kept in its negative form. There is no hope in their love, just waiting, and the only moment of sex, the only moment of togetherness is a back embrace. Achilles grabbing Penthisela from behind, her body against his. She catches the mic, whole, in her mouth. We gasp. The moment lasts not for about 2 minutes in a 1:45 minute play. And yet for us that is enough, we get it, we get how we can be slaves to each other - not out of some desire for lilies, but for a desire to stop running, to stop running in circles, to pause the music, to hold a moment in our grasp like a fluttering microphone.
But soon it all collapses. Forces of power intervene, separation occurs. the final confrontation is a haze, as most of the play. Achilles is led off without being torn apart. We are shown merely the violence of men marching then sprinting in circles and the priestess and odyseeus talking but nobody being heard. Finally everyone faces the front. Penthislea is indicted, along with all of us.
She speaks, whispers into the microphone (one of the plusses of having a microphone, really), for about 5 minutes. A sort of condensation of the last 20 pages.
WHERES THE VIOLENCE? I ask. WHERES ALL THE KLEISTIAN BLOOD???
Wondering were I to be gypped the last moment of the play, shows me the most violent act I have probably ever witnessed on a stage.
The actors, now nearly facing us, turn away. The holding machine, holding all those large trunks of wood rises. The structure collapses. And by collapse I mean just fall. Imagine a set of popsicle sticks stacked together. Now make those popsicle sticks the size of brownstones and you have the idea.
Percevla doesnt need to kill anyone, he just needs to sacrifice the theatrical structure, just needs to break apart the theatre itself, to shows us that there is no more to be seen, the characters have disappeared, even the set, under the weight of war, has vanished.
A berliner studying medicine next to me said it was unlike anything she's ever seen. She asked me if I liked it. I didn't know what to say, I'll have to wait until tomorrow and think about it.
See above for my answer.
---------
Enjoy finding new and creative ways to express your patriotism on this most gag-inducing of holidays!!
I'll be taking a brief holiday myself today and maybe write some more of my play. Tomorrow and Sunday, Pollesch-fest continues!
Tschüss!
- J
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Chicks in White Dresses Spout Donna Haraway and more...
Thats basically how I would sum up the play I saw last night. Pollesch's "Tod Eines Praktikanten" (death of a trainee or intern, roughly).
I was thinking, based on the title that I would be seeing some pseudo castorf fare. A deconstruction of Miller's classic text, and quite different from Perceval's version.
Well, I was wrong. I went to this show with my french friend, Blandine, who was curious about the theatre at the Volksbühne. I was curious as well, having heard lots about Pollesch. The woman sitting next to me explained that Castorf was thought to be repeating himself, and having seen only 3 castorf plays I can sort of see how that is the case, since his formula is pretty similar for all of them. That being said, I love the formula, so I dont care if he repeats himself. Pollesch was seen as Castorfs way to bringing younger audiences, and it definitely shows. If Castorf is the more traditional avant-garde, Pollesch is the younger protege, establishing himself as more of the ultrareal postmodern type. Rather than take classic texts or masterpieces and massacre them Pollesch chooses concepts, ideas, ways of thinking - yesterday's play was about commercialization, capitalism, and the way that everything has a price.
This was pretty obvious in the absolutely excellent set design of Bert Neumann who gave us these large flats with two sides of tarp, one side had a picture of a typical berlin shop - kastanien allee imbisses or fruit shops, or even a hotel facade. The other side had a price, for the tarps it was 477,51. But everything had a price, even the floor, the dresses of the actresses, the price was scribbled.
The play not only had a video camera, but a microphone and a women next to them following along with the lines. The screen was on the right hand side, and for many times in the show we could not see the actresses except on the camera.
It's really interesting how much the camera plays a role in this theatre, one could almost call this piece 'Flat' theatre, by the amount of flatness within a) the performance b) the use of screens to not just show the charatcers, but also set pieces. The characters themselves, 3 amazingly talented incredibly memorable actresses, a trio that has obviously done these shows many times and probably many shows as well as the trio (I think but I am not sure that these are the famous 3 that Pollesch has worked with since his days at Prater, a small theatre close to and affiliated with the Volksbuhne). The ladies were in somewhat wedding dresses with the prices also affixed in the same font. They had microphones and looked like some bizarre drugged out version of the white supremes. They would speak to the camera not playing necessarily any character and every character. Talking about the play, the designer, Wolfgang Tillman, Angela Merkel, Orlando Bloom, Sigourney Weaver, the Volksbuhne and the price of doing a show here, all sorts of things, without any real narrative thrust. Instead Pollesch alternates between extremely dense theoretical texts lifted from people like Baudrillard, Foucault and Donna Haraway, among others - and these beatuifully quirky, kitschy aesthetic moments that border each one.
The music choices are excellent, he veers from starting us off with somelate Belle and Sebastian in the beginning, to then some very cheesy Baroque music, and then eventually to some ELO and then something out of like a gameshow. I see this in many shows as well, ths use of a common song that keeps showing up, or keeps being looped. It gave the show a hazy quality.
Some of the first moments in the play are some of the best. Pollesch really plays wozh the the idea of Flat, flattened, nothing - when he has the characters try to grab the apples on the flat that are obviously, well....flat, they claw at the paper and cant do it. At a different point they come on with ladders and turn the tarps around so we see more set pieces. Eventually we get what looks like a street.
The ladies also have tatoos on their bodies with the silhouettes of Orlando Bloom with the word "fake" underneath. Angela Merkel with the words "Cool" underneath and an amoeba with the word "love" underneath. Interesting...
The characters veer from struggling in their flat world to returning backstage with their microphones in near whispers, there they are safe, they are not as worried and they can think and rattle off the very very dense text.
This is a play I really wish I knew a bit more german in, since I could get general simple conversations but when they went into really deep stuff my brain would just shut off. Donna Haraway's ideas on Objectivity (all I could grasp) seemed to dominate most of their discourse. And apes too. Having not read Donna Haraway I can't really offer any ideas to what the hell they were talking about.
Oh, there was the same two fucking white chairs in a corner of the stage. They were never used. I'm serious, those chairs are everywhere.
Pollesch seems to want to specialize in moments that seem to be coup de theatres, or places where the theatre reaches a space where it loses control. Examples.-..at the way sets are created are the nmere turning around of these larhge sheets. That really communicates the flat nature of the piece, but thats only the beginning.
There is a large fucking fan that just turns on every now and then literally blowing the characters off the stage. They hold on to themselves and to set pieces to keep from flying off. Books, feathers, dresses, everywhere. Pretty impressive, pretty loud. Not at all like the Big Love fan, I mean a big daddy fan.
The Actresses take turns rebelling against the set, hitting the fake set pieces, or trying to walk through the revolving doors of the fake hotel and just hitting flat wood. Enraged, at times they use the door affixed to one of the flats at other times they just go under the tarp. The fluidity of exits and entrances is also quite fascinating.
I am so excited to get back to williams to start thinking out these theatrical ideas on the stage myself, for now I am just a well, getting full of these creative masters literally doing whatever the fuck they want.
Example. Enraged actresses grab the books which were used to cover up a chalk outline, grab hockey sticks and start chucking the books at each other. Each one takes turns creating a goal by turning their dress upside down and leaning back creating the illusion of a net. Screams, rock, ELO, everything comes together.
The video says reclaiming the streets in some terirble scrawl, as they put books on the chalk outline of a man. That moment stayed with me.
My favorite moment? And mom, youll love this one. They start talking about James Bond and how Orlando Bloom is their best friend and what theyd do if they're millionaires, when the Octopussy (bond film) theme song comes up and they run up to the screen and start dancing on the screen, but so satirically, so faux, and what happens is you see the absolute absurdity of whats on the screen, Every now and then the Bond credits, which are the epitome of chauvinist and sexist fantasy, i.e. women and guns - the bond credits are switched back to shots of the theatre. Craggly, dusty, strong and architectural, a veritable deconstruction of a bond film opening. It was hilarious and beautifully done.
In the end I dont know what to say, I cant provide such a clear theatrical dissection as before a) because I didnt understand it all (and by that I mean I understood VERY little) but also b) because it does such a good job at skewering itself, and make its job to make you think up more questions than answering any for you. And thats as good a night of theatre as any.+
TONIGHT: Cappucetto Rosso. Pollesch again (this is kind of Pollesch week, another show tonight and two more on Sat and Sunday)
Tschüss!
- J
I was thinking, based on the title that I would be seeing some pseudo castorf fare. A deconstruction of Miller's classic text, and quite different from Perceval's version.
Well, I was wrong. I went to this show with my french friend, Blandine, who was curious about the theatre at the Volksbühne. I was curious as well, having heard lots about Pollesch. The woman sitting next to me explained that Castorf was thought to be repeating himself, and having seen only 3 castorf plays I can sort of see how that is the case, since his formula is pretty similar for all of them. That being said, I love the formula, so I dont care if he repeats himself. Pollesch was seen as Castorfs way to bringing younger audiences, and it definitely shows. If Castorf is the more traditional avant-garde, Pollesch is the younger protege, establishing himself as more of the ultrareal postmodern type. Rather than take classic texts or masterpieces and massacre them Pollesch chooses concepts, ideas, ways of thinking - yesterday's play was about commercialization, capitalism, and the way that everything has a price.
This was pretty obvious in the absolutely excellent set design of Bert Neumann who gave us these large flats with two sides of tarp, one side had a picture of a typical berlin shop - kastanien allee imbisses or fruit shops, or even a hotel facade. The other side had a price, for the tarps it was 477,51. But everything had a price, even the floor, the dresses of the actresses, the price was scribbled.
The play not only had a video camera, but a microphone and a women next to them following along with the lines. The screen was on the right hand side, and for many times in the show we could not see the actresses except on the camera.
It's really interesting how much the camera plays a role in this theatre, one could almost call this piece 'Flat' theatre, by the amount of flatness within a) the performance b) the use of screens to not just show the charatcers, but also set pieces. The characters themselves, 3 amazingly talented incredibly memorable actresses, a trio that has obviously done these shows many times and probably many shows as well as the trio (I think but I am not sure that these are the famous 3 that Pollesch has worked with since his days at Prater, a small theatre close to and affiliated with the Volksbuhne). The ladies were in somewhat wedding dresses with the prices also affixed in the same font. They had microphones and looked like some bizarre drugged out version of the white supremes. They would speak to the camera not playing necessarily any character and every character. Talking about the play, the designer, Wolfgang Tillman, Angela Merkel, Orlando Bloom, Sigourney Weaver, the Volksbuhne and the price of doing a show here, all sorts of things, without any real narrative thrust. Instead Pollesch alternates between extremely dense theoretical texts lifted from people like Baudrillard, Foucault and Donna Haraway, among others - and these beatuifully quirky, kitschy aesthetic moments that border each one.
The music choices are excellent, he veers from starting us off with somelate Belle and Sebastian in the beginning, to then some very cheesy Baroque music, and then eventually to some ELO and then something out of like a gameshow. I see this in many shows as well, ths use of a common song that keeps showing up, or keeps being looped. It gave the show a hazy quality.
Some of the first moments in the play are some of the best. Pollesch really plays wozh the the idea of Flat, flattened, nothing - when he has the characters try to grab the apples on the flat that are obviously, well....flat, they claw at the paper and cant do it. At a different point they come on with ladders and turn the tarps around so we see more set pieces. Eventually we get what looks like a street.
The ladies also have tatoos on their bodies with the silhouettes of Orlando Bloom with the word "fake" underneath. Angela Merkel with the words "Cool" underneath and an amoeba with the word "love" underneath. Interesting...
The characters veer from struggling in their flat world to returning backstage with their microphones in near whispers, there they are safe, they are not as worried and they can think and rattle off the very very dense text.
This is a play I really wish I knew a bit more german in, since I could get general simple conversations but when they went into really deep stuff my brain would just shut off. Donna Haraway's ideas on Objectivity (all I could grasp) seemed to dominate most of their discourse. And apes too. Having not read Donna Haraway I can't really offer any ideas to what the hell they were talking about.
Oh, there was the same two fucking white chairs in a corner of the stage. They were never used. I'm serious, those chairs are everywhere.
Pollesch seems to want to specialize in moments that seem to be coup de theatres, or places where the theatre reaches a space where it loses control. Examples.-..at the way sets are created are the nmere turning around of these larhge sheets. That really communicates the flat nature of the piece, but thats only the beginning.
There is a large fucking fan that just turns on every now and then literally blowing the characters off the stage. They hold on to themselves and to set pieces to keep from flying off. Books, feathers, dresses, everywhere. Pretty impressive, pretty loud. Not at all like the Big Love fan, I mean a big daddy fan.
The Actresses take turns rebelling against the set, hitting the fake set pieces, or trying to walk through the revolving doors of the fake hotel and just hitting flat wood. Enraged, at times they use the door affixed to one of the flats at other times they just go under the tarp. The fluidity of exits and entrances is also quite fascinating.
I am so excited to get back to williams to start thinking out these theatrical ideas on the stage myself, for now I am just a well, getting full of these creative masters literally doing whatever the fuck they want.
Example. Enraged actresses grab the books which were used to cover up a chalk outline, grab hockey sticks and start chucking the books at each other. Each one takes turns creating a goal by turning their dress upside down and leaning back creating the illusion of a net. Screams, rock, ELO, everything comes together.
The video says reclaiming the streets in some terirble scrawl, as they put books on the chalk outline of a man. That moment stayed with me.
My favorite moment? And mom, youll love this one. They start talking about James Bond and how Orlando Bloom is their best friend and what theyd do if they're millionaires, when the Octopussy (bond film) theme song comes up and they run up to the screen and start dancing on the screen, but so satirically, so faux, and what happens is you see the absolute absurdity of whats on the screen, Every now and then the Bond credits, which are the epitome of chauvinist and sexist fantasy, i.e. women and guns - the bond credits are switched back to shots of the theatre. Craggly, dusty, strong and architectural, a veritable deconstruction of a bond film opening. It was hilarious and beautifully done.
In the end I dont know what to say, I cant provide such a clear theatrical dissection as before a) because I didnt understand it all (and by that I mean I understood VERY little) but also b) because it does such a good job at skewering itself, and make its job to make you think up more questions than answering any for you. And thats as good a night of theatre as any.+
TONIGHT: Cappucetto Rosso. Pollesch again (this is kind of Pollesch week, another show tonight and two more on Sat and Sunday)
Tschüss!
- J
Monday, June 30, 2008
Bored at the Berliner, Dumbfounded at the Deutsches Theater and some Schwulfest in between (finaleeeeeeeeee)
Viva Espana amigos! But before we get to that, lots and lots of theatre to go over.
So, Thursday, I mistakenly miscalculated the times of one of my shows, and being the exhausted mess I was, I opted against going to my first Pollesch, and instead watched the Spain-Russia semifinal. It was quite the match, with spain dominating the whole time. I was with my friends and a group of Fernando's Spanish friends and we were certainly among the most vocal of Spanish fans. There was quite a funny cooincidence between the way Russians said Russia (Ruhseeah) and the name of Spain's marvelous goalkeeper Iker Casillas (Cahseeah), so when the Spaniards heard the Russians go Ruhseeah, they thought they were saying Casillas, so they'd respond likewise. Each side thought the other side was crazy.
Thursday was a calmer night, I opted to go to bed early since I knew that wouldn't be the case for the rest of the weekend...
Friday, I premiered the Berliner Ensemble to see Bertolt Brecht's version of Antigone...I was particularly interested in this piece since I had read this particular piece was a great inspiration for Heiner Müller to start adapting classic texts and led to the creation of Hamletmachine, which incidentally was on my bill the next day (have I stressed before how perfect this schedule is? It's as if the major berlin theaters knew what class I was taking).
Ok, so, Berliner Ensemble Antigone...
Um...
One Word?
Boooooorrrrrrrrrriiiiinnnngggggggg, and when it wasn't boring it was just plain silly.
The set was two crossed white planks, with a white background and a box in the back. A sort of minimalized version of what a Greek stage might have looked like if you were Le Corbusier. Or something like that.
Ok...so we enter and half the stage is visible the curtain is just a white tarp upon which projected (yes, projected. Plays with video or projection of some sort 12- plays without any multimedia 0 ) upon which projected we have ANTIGONE written in either Zorro handwriting or some Shakesperean scrawl.
I forgot to mention the cheesiest bit, upon the end of the right wood plank, you have a sword sticking out. Thank you TH White. I guess the scene designer was busy reading the 'Man Who Would be King' or watching the Disney adaptation. Ja. Schlecht.
That and the really cheesy fight music that kept going in the background of the absolutely gorgeous theatre, let me know that this was going to be painful. I was just glad it ran only a bit more than an hour. Though I can tell you already it was too long.
One note about the theatre. It is breathtakingly beautiful, but in an incredibly aristocratic way. It's hard to imagine Brecht's epic theatre happening in something that looks like it belongs in Versailles or something. But who knows, Brecht was a genius, he probably found some way to bond with the proletariat in such an obviously bourgeois space.
And the public was as bourgeois as they come. If they werent the obvious german tourists, they were old men and women in suits. The young people you see were most obviously theatre students, or were there with their school (those were the bored ones). Everything about the Berliner Ensemble screams "refined!". Even their programs are thin and fancy, not fashionable or chic like say the Schaubuhne or Gorki's, or artsy and pretentious like Deutsches Theater, or experimental and crazy and pamphlet-like like Volksbühne. These programs (which I decided not to purchase) were thin and genteellady-like, tall and with just a bit of text. As if I were reading off a menu at le cordon bleu. Blech.
You notice that I am spending lots of time speaking about other stuff other than the play. But thats only because there is really nothing much to say about the play.
Sophocles's antigone was my first introduction to greek tragedy. I remember reading it my second semester in Prep (Prep for Prep, that is) and it having a tremendous impact on me. I loved the character of Teireisias most of all, and his wisecracks to the noble Creon. The interesting thing about Antigone in the trilogy, rather than the other two (and in my opinion equally excellent but for different reasons) plays, is that in Antigone we have double-protagonists, each tragic characters for different reasons. Creon, whose job is to uphold the law of state, and then Antigone, whose job is to protect the will of the Gods and the morality of family. Both characters end up getting, for better or for worse, screwed over. And we end up with an interesting dichotomy and something to talk about over Sushi later (well, in Greek times there would be less talking and more hedonistic Bachhanalia, but times they change). I remember reading Anouilh's adaptation of Antigone and finding it interesting how much more sympathetic he makes Creon - putting his whims and his strictness as a way of justifying the will of his people and the security of his state after war. I never fancied Anouilh a neocon!
Wait, so Brecht's antigone. Ok. Well, I really hope Brecht didn't make these directorial choices because they were, how do you say, Crap.
Teireisias begins the play in typical Brechtian fashion by letting everyone know whats going down. he is an alright actor. Old, white shirt, yep, very traditional. So far so good.
Antigone is thankfully a bit less crap than everyone else, and her scene with Ismene is definitely passable. The role of duty as always comes in. Brecht's main job in adapting from the Holderlin translation is to make the text less flowery and the ideas more accessible. So accessible that someone with as little German as I could understand it passably. And by verstehen I mean...well, ein bisschen, ja? Ok Ok...
Creon must have taken the sword in the ground to heart, because he acted more like a disney villain than a Greek Statesman. Something tells me theres no Brecht note in the text that says "Creon must act with his ridiculous cape instead of making any real effort to commiunicate to the audience anything but cape". Yes, he only acted with his cape. When he was mad, he would flap his cape, and he was usually mad. If it were some glorious aesthetic flap, something Wilson like where you can go - eh, at least its pretty. But no, his cape flaps were messy, like some preschooler throwing a tantrum, and the cape was some horrible material between the Spartan capes in 300 and the ripped up canvasses of modern artists. Blech.
When he was mad he would sit in his chair and grumble. And Antigone? She would just smile. Her passionate defense and confidence in the right of her brothers revealed itself in a childish smile, that says to us, I know better than, I am doing this because I must, because I must defend the rights of my family and of tradition. It was more young comrade, than Antigone, but then again this might have been Brecht. But she was far too immature, but since Creon was equally immature you didnt know who to trust. The chorus was an old man and women, the elders of Thebes of course, but they were more clowns, the old lady half either senile or just very sick of everything. She was my favorite, but neither Chorus really was able to save us from what a vapid well of non-acting and half-theatre we witnessed. Scenes would go slowly and painfully, the stagings, ok, they were geometrically sound, but they left nothing to be desired. It was like watching Masterpiece theatre sword in the stone. Borrrring. The soldier and Hamon (sp?) played nearly identical roles, both of them dying in different moments, and not being very clear at all about why that is at all important to us, the audience. My next door neighbor was asleep have the time, and I'm sure she was enjoying herself far more than me.
Especially painful were the chances that they took. I usually like it when directors choose in the name of kitsch or ridiculousness, but these kitschy moments looked like John McCain trying to recite rap lyrics, or one of his aides claiming he is "aware" of the internet. Here we had some cheap Italian Opera and French lounge singing thrown in, just moments, as if our director was going - Hey, look at me, I can be avant-garde too! Hey! Over Here! Yooohooo.
Oh brother.
And the ending, oh brother the ending. First the soldier comes in dead. Antigone, crawls into the black coffin, poisoned by Hemlock. WTF. hemlock? Antigone = socrates? No. No way. No way Jose. Socrates would have come into this play, started fuckin questioning everyone, and soon everyone would be so confused as to what family is, what state is, what right is, that they'd all decided its better to just murder him and go grab some Eis or something.
She crawls into a black coffin and just before she does, we see a glimmer of desperation on her face and then, vanishes! (gag)
Then Hamon comes in with, a WHAT, a gun? Oh come on. It wasnt exactly historically accurate, but you cant have people in breast plates and tunics and then bring out a gun. Not if youre not good enough to keep me entertained. That just makes me mad. And then, he oh what he points the gun at Creon! Oh is he gonna shoot the fucker? Oh no, he shoots himself. How...hollywood.
There is a band of greeks, bass clarinet, trombone and sax, who play some sort of Nyman esque music, they're fine I guess. They got the most applause out of anyone.
Then Teireisias comes back after everyone is dead. Great. I've already given up on the play by then and so little attention is paid. Some old lady dressed in red comes onstage and also mourns. Ismene comes on and FINALLY pulls the sword from the stone, I mean floor and stabs herself. Hurrah.
Finally the play ends, after too much denouement and the silly creon collapsed in hi s chair with the sheet draped over him like a goddamn fort.
Mon dieu.
long night the next night. Mucho partying, standard fare in Berlin. A large factory like club called Tresor. Clubs in Berlin are very much like experiences. Theyre these isolated places that just have layers upon layers. Tresor is an old abandoned factory, which they left in many places intact. Two huge hazy dance floors where techno blares, on one of the top bars theres actually a window out to the rest of the space, you literally see for 200 meters just this hazy factory, completely empty. Totally surreal. The lower dance floor you must walk through a tunnel to get to (sorry about my grammar, the odd german phrasing is getting to me), this place is seriously out there. Back home at 7. Lovely to walk home in the bright daylight.
Saturdayyyy, Christopher Street Day!!
Berlin Gay Pride, it was fabulous. Me and my friends Becky and Steph got all dressed up for the occasion. We decided to cross cross dress, so Becks and Steph were the men and I was the lovely lady for the occasion. Steph's apartment had a piano, so it was nice to finally play a bit. I miss playing piano. When I get back that will be the first thing I touch (after I get into my home). Skirts and makeup were fun, but I'll take my trousers and loose fitting shirts anyday. Plus, having done makeup before (actor, remember?) I can't handle eyeliner without my eyes tearing up and making a fine mess of it. We got quite a few stares on the U Bahn and I was already regretting our choices, but when we got off on Potsdamer Platz, I realized I was probably dressed among the most conservatively.
The parade was wild, and long. Each part of the parade consisting of cars full of dancing half naked men and women (some gay but not all) and then paradeers in all sorts of costumes. So much music, so much alcohol being passed around so much debauchery, it was like one long party. They werent much for floats, or creative cars,but the costumes were amazing, from the lavish to the downright filthy to the so wrong, to the so funny, it was a healthy mix. Even with the rain pouring down on us the party was bumping. Different organizations handed out anything from Condoms (that was most of what they handed out) to lube, to energy bars, to candy, to bottles of water, and stickers, so many stickers. It was a great time. Apparently it was the largest pride party in the world. I can believe it, since the parade took nearly 2 and a half hours to pass through, with nearly 40 stations, each moving quite slowly.
Lovely. Though pictures will speak more than any of my descriptions
Afterwards, we changed, and I got ready for my 13th(!!!!) play in Berlin.
Hamletmachine von Heiner Müller, director Gottscheff...
phewww. Thats all I have to say after seeing nearly a play a day. 4 days (thats it) of rest so far. That means a theatre experience every night. And here they really are experiences.
Hamletmachine was no different. What a mindfuck of a piece already by Heiner Müller and what a quizzical production by Gottscheff, one of the most acclaimed of German directors after Castorf, Thalheimer (who regrettably I wont be able to see his version of 12th night) and Ostermeier.
The stage design here is usually flawless and this was no exception. Completely empty stage except for these 10 horizontal coffin-like rectangular holes. 5 on each side. They were lit at different points of these plays, and these holes led to the austerity of the piece.
It's easy to think of Hamletmachine as any director's litmus test. It is exceptionally confusing with stage directions that verge on the impossible and text that wavers from complete madness to absolute political pain.
Gottscheff's decision to cast himself is an interesting one, and he dominates the stage for most of it.
First we have a much younger actor in red speak the first paragraph or so. He does it with nearly a smile on his face. He looks very plain and boring and his eneunciation is perfect. He speaks into a microphone (no cameras in this show, but yes microphone. 13- 0 )and as he does so, his voice begins repeating itself in the different speakers, creating a disembodied ocean of sound. Go sound design!
This was an interesting choice for Hamlet, the piece in Gottscheff's hands is almost like a requiem. The repeating voices continuing even almost as Hamlet comes offstage. We have Gottscheff's powerful figure and terrifying visage (he is an old ugly man, to say the least) and as he stands we have the curtains dramatically rise up from behind him, looking as if a sea of black is coming in from outside. It is an incredibly powerful moment and gave us all chills. The actors were all frontlit from now on so with each figure you have a terrifying spectral shadow behind them. Hamletmachine for Gottscheff is about ghosts, the ghosts of idealism, the ghosts of shakespeare, the ghosts of the murdered father, but 10 holes in the ground that Gottscheff at times speaks to, seem to represent more than just the father, but all the characters, even himself, perhaps even the mass graves that bear the 20th century's trademark.
Gottscheff is a bad actor, we all know that (by that I mean he makes it quite clear to us). He speaks slowly and obviously, but part of that makes me think he does it on purpose. He wants to show us himself, his bad acting self, to complete the vulnerable move of Hamletmachine, he never rips up Müller's portrait like it says to do in the text, but the behavior of Gottscheff, the sort of revelation of a weak and almost pathetic seeming dictator is the theatrical equivalent of that. It is almost painful to watch. He speaks so slowly and painfully as if he were reciting back to a schoolmarm. He speaks right at us, wanting us to get every single word. Every german word is shown in its weakest state, not in its powerful angry tempestous haze, but its broken syllabic pathetic nature. verstehen becomes feh-shteh-en, that slow, vielleicht, fiel-eichhh-t. Achhhh It makes me shiver. He talks right into the empty holes that now glow. It goes on for too long however, we get the idea and his tone doesn't change. Shame though, it was quite a good first moment.
And then Ofelia. Ok, so I knew what to expect. Müller gives Ofelia what I believe to be the best lines in the play, the most strong, the most violent, the most fetid lines. And the actress was the opposite, she was this cute short blonde german girl, couldnm't be too old probably in her late 20's in an adorable yellow dress. She would smile sweetly at the audience, a smirk perhaps, but still sweet. A microphone (13-0) comes down to her, except it stays quite high so she must crane her neck completely upwards.
And then.....all hell breaks loose. That girl had Cerberus locked inside her or something. She groans and screams and says her lines in such a low completely evil growl that I feel the room shake. She screams, but it is not the scream of a hollywood damsel in distress or the bloodcurdle of a ripe teenage sacrifice in a slasher film, it is the scream of medea it is the scream of lady macb, it is the scream of the banshee ripping off her flesh. There is a different quality to a scream like that. The blood curdle is smooth, as if you were doing a glissando on a piano. This scream is dirty, you can literally feel the muscles grating, the tissue trembling, you can feel the schmutz and the mucus and the fatigue, you can imagine a nail going through rusty strings, a violin with a broken bow being ferociously rapped. She screams IMMMEEERRRR (to herself away from the mic) and then speaks again, this Immer is a scream but it is held in as if her own organs were revolting. She manages the feat of making Heiner Müller's stage directions useless as you can see those images performed in the mere words themselves, ripped apart. The most terrifying thing? She ends this feat, thsi feat of horror that no applause follows, just shocked silence, and then merely smiles, curtsies and leaves.
Gottscheff goes on, reaching the famed, I am not hamlet I am an actor line and suddenly you dont really care. You see him reading now, the words off the text, but xou cant communicate, this girl has exorcised you from theatre. You sit in your chair, numb.
There are voiceovers in english (when Müller indicates) that seem recited by Jimmy Stewart. They are funny, but I am still in blunt trauma shock.
Hamletmachine became Hamletcoffin became Hamletwtf became Hamletexorcism.
Theres a bit more. Gottscheff sits back down in the audience (they all originally came from the audience as well), and the curtain comes down, revealing a stage again. Hamlet pops up again from a trap onstage. Gets real mad. Then sits with Gottscheff.
Last image, smiling Ofelia comes on, silent scream. BLACKOUT.
Chilling.
-----------------------------
Saturday night one more party. This was the CSD party, in Berlin the best clubs tend to be gay clubs, and on gay night this was no different. A hefty fee to a high rise in Alexanderplatz led to a kickin dance floor with a drag queen dj playing pop. Loads and loads of shirtless men dancing with men in various stages of making out. There were all sorts of people, but that dominated the night. I didnt see as much of the opposite, not many girls with girls. It was a mixed dance floor though, old young gay straight bi black white latino asian. It was a great mix every one just dancing and feeling the music. When we wanted to take a break, a rooftop bar (drinks are too expensive to even mention, so I didnt have any) where we watched the dawn, and walked back home with our tired legs.
SUnday night the Euromeisterschaft FINALE!! We went to Brandenburger Tor where there were over a million people. We found a good spot. I was a bit freaked, my Spanish friend was moreso, and seeing a dearth of spanish flags (there were a few brave souls) decided to see the match in a more welcome venue. Something in my veins always worries me when there are so many germans grouped together. Probably too much History Channel. It was incredible though, German flags everywhere, people chanting and screamign different soccer hymns. People passing by with cartons of beer nearly on the minute.
We waited for so goddamn long standing up. But it was a unique experience. Too bad Germany lost. Spain played better and I was (secretly) rooting for Spain though my German flag strapped to my bag was there only for protection (jk).
Germans may be rude and certainly aggressive when it comes to fußball, but it never got too out of hand. Theyre perfectly willing (if not more) to pick a fight with one of their own than a foreigner. As a woman I met at the game told me, Berliners treat everyone equally as bad. It wasnt that bad though, the game was dissapointing, but it was alright. Spain totally deserved to win, and I was glad they did. Even if it meant no party in Berlin that night. We got home safe and all, and we had quite the walk across unter den linden. Throngs of angry fans still chanting, or people walking back. The streets were closed and it was pretty great to see all those people marching on the historic square.
All in all an interesting, must-do experience. But I prefer a Theaterstuck to a Fußballspiel anyday (unlee it's argentina or boca hehe)
well thats all for now (long entry I know). Tonight Pollesch! (finally!!)
Tschüss!
- J
So, Thursday, I mistakenly miscalculated the times of one of my shows, and being the exhausted mess I was, I opted against going to my first Pollesch, and instead watched the Spain-Russia semifinal. It was quite the match, with spain dominating the whole time. I was with my friends and a group of Fernando's Spanish friends and we were certainly among the most vocal of Spanish fans. There was quite a funny cooincidence between the way Russians said Russia (Ruhseeah) and the name of Spain's marvelous goalkeeper Iker Casillas (Cahseeah), so when the Spaniards heard the Russians go Ruhseeah, they thought they were saying Casillas, so they'd respond likewise. Each side thought the other side was crazy.
Thursday was a calmer night, I opted to go to bed early since I knew that wouldn't be the case for the rest of the weekend...
Friday, I premiered the Berliner Ensemble to see Bertolt Brecht's version of Antigone...I was particularly interested in this piece since I had read this particular piece was a great inspiration for Heiner Müller to start adapting classic texts and led to the creation of Hamletmachine, which incidentally was on my bill the next day (have I stressed before how perfect this schedule is? It's as if the major berlin theaters knew what class I was taking).
Ok, so, Berliner Ensemble Antigone...
Um...
One Word?
Boooooorrrrrrrrrriiiiinnnngggggggg, and when it wasn't boring it was just plain silly.
The set was two crossed white planks, with a white background and a box in the back. A sort of minimalized version of what a Greek stage might have looked like if you were Le Corbusier. Or something like that.
Ok...so we enter and half the stage is visible the curtain is just a white tarp upon which projected (yes, projected. Plays with video or projection of some sort 12- plays without any multimedia 0 ) upon which projected we have ANTIGONE written in either Zorro handwriting or some Shakesperean scrawl.
I forgot to mention the cheesiest bit, upon the end of the right wood plank, you have a sword sticking out. Thank you TH White. I guess the scene designer was busy reading the 'Man Who Would be King' or watching the Disney adaptation. Ja. Schlecht.
That and the really cheesy fight music that kept going in the background of the absolutely gorgeous theatre, let me know that this was going to be painful. I was just glad it ran only a bit more than an hour. Though I can tell you already it was too long.
One note about the theatre. It is breathtakingly beautiful, but in an incredibly aristocratic way. It's hard to imagine Brecht's epic theatre happening in something that looks like it belongs in Versailles or something. But who knows, Brecht was a genius, he probably found some way to bond with the proletariat in such an obviously bourgeois space.
And the public was as bourgeois as they come. If they werent the obvious german tourists, they were old men and women in suits. The young people you see were most obviously theatre students, or were there with their school (those were the bored ones). Everything about the Berliner Ensemble screams "refined!". Even their programs are thin and fancy, not fashionable or chic like say the Schaubuhne or Gorki's, or artsy and pretentious like Deutsches Theater, or experimental and crazy and pamphlet-like like Volksbühne. These programs (which I decided not to purchase) were thin and genteellady-like, tall and with just a bit of text. As if I were reading off a menu at le cordon bleu. Blech.
You notice that I am spending lots of time speaking about other stuff other than the play. But thats only because there is really nothing much to say about the play.
Sophocles's antigone was my first introduction to greek tragedy. I remember reading it my second semester in Prep (Prep for Prep, that is) and it having a tremendous impact on me. I loved the character of Teireisias most of all, and his wisecracks to the noble Creon. The interesting thing about Antigone in the trilogy, rather than the other two (and in my opinion equally excellent but for different reasons) plays, is that in Antigone we have double-protagonists, each tragic characters for different reasons. Creon, whose job is to uphold the law of state, and then Antigone, whose job is to protect the will of the Gods and the morality of family. Both characters end up getting, for better or for worse, screwed over. And we end up with an interesting dichotomy and something to talk about over Sushi later (well, in Greek times there would be less talking and more hedonistic Bachhanalia, but times they change). I remember reading Anouilh's adaptation of Antigone and finding it interesting how much more sympathetic he makes Creon - putting his whims and his strictness as a way of justifying the will of his people and the security of his state after war. I never fancied Anouilh a neocon!
Wait, so Brecht's antigone. Ok. Well, I really hope Brecht didn't make these directorial choices because they were, how do you say, Crap.
Teireisias begins the play in typical Brechtian fashion by letting everyone know whats going down. he is an alright actor. Old, white shirt, yep, very traditional. So far so good.
Antigone is thankfully a bit less crap than everyone else, and her scene with Ismene is definitely passable. The role of duty as always comes in. Brecht's main job in adapting from the Holderlin translation is to make the text less flowery and the ideas more accessible. So accessible that someone with as little German as I could understand it passably. And by verstehen I mean...well, ein bisschen, ja? Ok Ok...
Creon must have taken the sword in the ground to heart, because he acted more like a disney villain than a Greek Statesman. Something tells me theres no Brecht note in the text that says "Creon must act with his ridiculous cape instead of making any real effort to commiunicate to the audience anything but cape". Yes, he only acted with his cape. When he was mad, he would flap his cape, and he was usually mad. If it were some glorious aesthetic flap, something Wilson like where you can go - eh, at least its pretty. But no, his cape flaps were messy, like some preschooler throwing a tantrum, and the cape was some horrible material between the Spartan capes in 300 and the ripped up canvasses of modern artists. Blech.
When he was mad he would sit in his chair and grumble. And Antigone? She would just smile. Her passionate defense and confidence in the right of her brothers revealed itself in a childish smile, that says to us, I know better than, I am doing this because I must, because I must defend the rights of my family and of tradition. It was more young comrade, than Antigone, but then again this might have been Brecht. But she was far too immature, but since Creon was equally immature you didnt know who to trust. The chorus was an old man and women, the elders of Thebes of course, but they were more clowns, the old lady half either senile or just very sick of everything. She was my favorite, but neither Chorus really was able to save us from what a vapid well of non-acting and half-theatre we witnessed. Scenes would go slowly and painfully, the stagings, ok, they were geometrically sound, but they left nothing to be desired. It was like watching Masterpiece theatre sword in the stone. Borrrring. The soldier and Hamon (sp?) played nearly identical roles, both of them dying in different moments, and not being very clear at all about why that is at all important to us, the audience. My next door neighbor was asleep have the time, and I'm sure she was enjoying herself far more than me.
Especially painful were the chances that they took. I usually like it when directors choose in the name of kitsch or ridiculousness, but these kitschy moments looked like John McCain trying to recite rap lyrics, or one of his aides claiming he is "aware" of the internet. Here we had some cheap Italian Opera and French lounge singing thrown in, just moments, as if our director was going - Hey, look at me, I can be avant-garde too! Hey! Over Here! Yooohooo.
Oh brother.
And the ending, oh brother the ending. First the soldier comes in dead. Antigone, crawls into the black coffin, poisoned by Hemlock. WTF. hemlock? Antigone = socrates? No. No way. No way Jose. Socrates would have come into this play, started fuckin questioning everyone, and soon everyone would be so confused as to what family is, what state is, what right is, that they'd all decided its better to just murder him and go grab some Eis or something.
She crawls into a black coffin and just before she does, we see a glimmer of desperation on her face and then, vanishes! (gag)
Then Hamon comes in with, a WHAT, a gun? Oh come on. It wasnt exactly historically accurate, but you cant have people in breast plates and tunics and then bring out a gun. Not if youre not good enough to keep me entertained. That just makes me mad. And then, he oh what he points the gun at Creon! Oh is he gonna shoot the fucker? Oh no, he shoots himself. How...hollywood.
There is a band of greeks, bass clarinet, trombone and sax, who play some sort of Nyman esque music, they're fine I guess. They got the most applause out of anyone.
Then Teireisias comes back after everyone is dead. Great. I've already given up on the play by then and so little attention is paid. Some old lady dressed in red comes onstage and also mourns. Ismene comes on and FINALLY pulls the sword from the stone, I mean floor and stabs herself. Hurrah.
Finally the play ends, after too much denouement and the silly creon collapsed in hi s chair with the sheet draped over him like a goddamn fort.
Mon dieu.
long night the next night. Mucho partying, standard fare in Berlin. A large factory like club called Tresor. Clubs in Berlin are very much like experiences. Theyre these isolated places that just have layers upon layers. Tresor is an old abandoned factory, which they left in many places intact. Two huge hazy dance floors where techno blares, on one of the top bars theres actually a window out to the rest of the space, you literally see for 200 meters just this hazy factory, completely empty. Totally surreal. The lower dance floor you must walk through a tunnel to get to (sorry about my grammar, the odd german phrasing is getting to me), this place is seriously out there. Back home at 7. Lovely to walk home in the bright daylight.
Saturdayyyy, Christopher Street Day!!
Berlin Gay Pride, it was fabulous. Me and my friends Becky and Steph got all dressed up for the occasion. We decided to cross cross dress, so Becks and Steph were the men and I was the lovely lady for the occasion. Steph's apartment had a piano, so it was nice to finally play a bit. I miss playing piano. When I get back that will be the first thing I touch (after I get into my home). Skirts and makeup were fun, but I'll take my trousers and loose fitting shirts anyday. Plus, having done makeup before (actor, remember?) I can't handle eyeliner without my eyes tearing up and making a fine mess of it. We got quite a few stares on the U Bahn and I was already regretting our choices, but when we got off on Potsdamer Platz, I realized I was probably dressed among the most conservatively.
The parade was wild, and long. Each part of the parade consisting of cars full of dancing half naked men and women (some gay but not all) and then paradeers in all sorts of costumes. So much music, so much alcohol being passed around so much debauchery, it was like one long party. They werent much for floats, or creative cars,but the costumes were amazing, from the lavish to the downright filthy to the so wrong, to the so funny, it was a healthy mix. Even with the rain pouring down on us the party was bumping. Different organizations handed out anything from Condoms (that was most of what they handed out) to lube, to energy bars, to candy, to bottles of water, and stickers, so many stickers. It was a great time. Apparently it was the largest pride party in the world. I can believe it, since the parade took nearly 2 and a half hours to pass through, with nearly 40 stations, each moving quite slowly.
Lovely. Though pictures will speak more than any of my descriptions
Afterwards, we changed, and I got ready for my 13th(!!!!) play in Berlin.
Hamletmachine von Heiner Müller, director Gottscheff...
phewww. Thats all I have to say after seeing nearly a play a day. 4 days (thats it) of rest so far. That means a theatre experience every night. And here they really are experiences.
Hamletmachine was no different. What a mindfuck of a piece already by Heiner Müller and what a quizzical production by Gottscheff, one of the most acclaimed of German directors after Castorf, Thalheimer (who regrettably I wont be able to see his version of 12th night) and Ostermeier.
The stage design here is usually flawless and this was no exception. Completely empty stage except for these 10 horizontal coffin-like rectangular holes. 5 on each side. They were lit at different points of these plays, and these holes led to the austerity of the piece.
It's easy to think of Hamletmachine as any director's litmus test. It is exceptionally confusing with stage directions that verge on the impossible and text that wavers from complete madness to absolute political pain.
Gottscheff's decision to cast himself is an interesting one, and he dominates the stage for most of it.
First we have a much younger actor in red speak the first paragraph or so. He does it with nearly a smile on his face. He looks very plain and boring and his eneunciation is perfect. He speaks into a microphone (no cameras in this show, but yes microphone. 13- 0 )and as he does so, his voice begins repeating itself in the different speakers, creating a disembodied ocean of sound. Go sound design!
This was an interesting choice for Hamlet, the piece in Gottscheff's hands is almost like a requiem. The repeating voices continuing even almost as Hamlet comes offstage. We have Gottscheff's powerful figure and terrifying visage (he is an old ugly man, to say the least) and as he stands we have the curtains dramatically rise up from behind him, looking as if a sea of black is coming in from outside. It is an incredibly powerful moment and gave us all chills. The actors were all frontlit from now on so with each figure you have a terrifying spectral shadow behind them. Hamletmachine for Gottscheff is about ghosts, the ghosts of idealism, the ghosts of shakespeare, the ghosts of the murdered father, but 10 holes in the ground that Gottscheff at times speaks to, seem to represent more than just the father, but all the characters, even himself, perhaps even the mass graves that bear the 20th century's trademark.
Gottscheff is a bad actor, we all know that (by that I mean he makes it quite clear to us). He speaks slowly and obviously, but part of that makes me think he does it on purpose. He wants to show us himself, his bad acting self, to complete the vulnerable move of Hamletmachine, he never rips up Müller's portrait like it says to do in the text, but the behavior of Gottscheff, the sort of revelation of a weak and almost pathetic seeming dictator is the theatrical equivalent of that. It is almost painful to watch. He speaks so slowly and painfully as if he were reciting back to a schoolmarm. He speaks right at us, wanting us to get every single word. Every german word is shown in its weakest state, not in its powerful angry tempestous haze, but its broken syllabic pathetic nature. verstehen becomes feh-shteh-en, that slow, vielleicht, fiel-eichhh-t. Achhhh It makes me shiver. He talks right into the empty holes that now glow. It goes on for too long however, we get the idea and his tone doesn't change. Shame though, it was quite a good first moment.
And then Ofelia. Ok, so I knew what to expect. Müller gives Ofelia what I believe to be the best lines in the play, the most strong, the most violent, the most fetid lines. And the actress was the opposite, she was this cute short blonde german girl, couldnm't be too old probably in her late 20's in an adorable yellow dress. She would smile sweetly at the audience, a smirk perhaps, but still sweet. A microphone (13-0) comes down to her, except it stays quite high so she must crane her neck completely upwards.
And then.....all hell breaks loose. That girl had Cerberus locked inside her or something. She groans and screams and says her lines in such a low completely evil growl that I feel the room shake. She screams, but it is not the scream of a hollywood damsel in distress or the bloodcurdle of a ripe teenage sacrifice in a slasher film, it is the scream of medea it is the scream of lady macb, it is the scream of the banshee ripping off her flesh. There is a different quality to a scream like that. The blood curdle is smooth, as if you were doing a glissando on a piano. This scream is dirty, you can literally feel the muscles grating, the tissue trembling, you can feel the schmutz and the mucus and the fatigue, you can imagine a nail going through rusty strings, a violin with a broken bow being ferociously rapped. She screams IMMMEEERRRR (to herself away from the mic) and then speaks again, this Immer is a scream but it is held in as if her own organs were revolting. She manages the feat of making Heiner Müller's stage directions useless as you can see those images performed in the mere words themselves, ripped apart. The most terrifying thing? She ends this feat, thsi feat of horror that no applause follows, just shocked silence, and then merely smiles, curtsies and leaves.
Gottscheff goes on, reaching the famed, I am not hamlet I am an actor line and suddenly you dont really care. You see him reading now, the words off the text, but xou cant communicate, this girl has exorcised you from theatre. You sit in your chair, numb.
There are voiceovers in english (when Müller indicates) that seem recited by Jimmy Stewart. They are funny, but I am still in blunt trauma shock.
Hamletmachine became Hamletcoffin became Hamletwtf became Hamletexorcism.
Theres a bit more. Gottscheff sits back down in the audience (they all originally came from the audience as well), and the curtain comes down, revealing a stage again. Hamlet pops up again from a trap onstage. Gets real mad. Then sits with Gottscheff.
Last image, smiling Ofelia comes on, silent scream. BLACKOUT.
Chilling.
-----------------------------
Saturday night one more party. This was the CSD party, in Berlin the best clubs tend to be gay clubs, and on gay night this was no different. A hefty fee to a high rise in Alexanderplatz led to a kickin dance floor with a drag queen dj playing pop. Loads and loads of shirtless men dancing with men in various stages of making out. There were all sorts of people, but that dominated the night. I didnt see as much of the opposite, not many girls with girls. It was a mixed dance floor though, old young gay straight bi black white latino asian. It was a great mix every one just dancing and feeling the music. When we wanted to take a break, a rooftop bar (drinks are too expensive to even mention, so I didnt have any) where we watched the dawn, and walked back home with our tired legs.
SUnday night the Euromeisterschaft FINALE!! We went to Brandenburger Tor where there were over a million people. We found a good spot. I was a bit freaked, my Spanish friend was moreso, and seeing a dearth of spanish flags (there were a few brave souls) decided to see the match in a more welcome venue. Something in my veins always worries me when there are so many germans grouped together. Probably too much History Channel. It was incredible though, German flags everywhere, people chanting and screamign different soccer hymns. People passing by with cartons of beer nearly on the minute.
We waited for so goddamn long standing up. But it was a unique experience. Too bad Germany lost. Spain played better and I was (secretly) rooting for Spain though my German flag strapped to my bag was there only for protection (jk).
Germans may be rude and certainly aggressive when it comes to fußball, but it never got too out of hand. Theyre perfectly willing (if not more) to pick a fight with one of their own than a foreigner. As a woman I met at the game told me, Berliners treat everyone equally as bad. It wasnt that bad though, the game was dissapointing, but it was alright. Spain totally deserved to win, and I was glad they did. Even if it meant no party in Berlin that night. We got home safe and all, and we had quite the walk across unter den linden. Throngs of angry fans still chanting, or people walking back. The streets were closed and it was pretty great to see all those people marching on the historic square.
All in all an interesting, must-do experience. But I prefer a Theaterstuck to a Fußballspiel anyday (unlee it's argentina or boca hehe)
well thats all for now (long entry I know). Tonight Pollesch! (finally!!)
Tschüss!
- J
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Fuck off Castorf!
No, not really. I saw my 3rd castorf play yesterday and his newest one (premiered last feb.) I have to say that for its running time, and its relatively somber atmosphere it was almost like Frank's idea of a chamber play. Strindberg would be proud...
The play, Fuck off Amerika, is based off the Edouard Limonow novel of the same name. Limonow, unlike the literary masters that Castorf usually chooses to massacre, is a living Russian dissident. He is not that well known in Germany either, prompting many to go "who is Limonow" when the play was announced. This was also a sort of anticlimactic move when the Volksbühne claimed to be doing Fuck off Goethe! Which, in some ways I guess Castorfs entire career encompasses that sort of philosophy.
The play then, is very much a Castorf work, with a cast of characters (many actors whom I recognized from the other two plays) alternating between political monologues, feats of strength and disgusting acts, and of course the mandatory sex simulated orgy with clothes on being videotaped and projected on the set, you know, vintage castorf.
The set is a pretty fantastic elevated white cross from distinguished German artist Johnathan Meese. Some critics dismissed it as too simple, but I found it elegant and effective. The main character of the piece is the same actor as from Berlin Alexanderplatz, Max Hopp. All of Castorfs actors have a tremendous acting ability, but also the necessary charisma to hold an audience's attention. I remember just waiting in Mauser for the actors in Castorf's production to come back, since even their presence onstage was a welcome rescue from the boredom of Stuart's personalityless dancers.
The play, sigh, what can I say, people running back and forth for no reaosn, sex, a submachine antiaircraft gun bought onstage and fired (with caps, of course, I hope). A ten minute monologue delivered in absolute screams. And all this with text culled from Limonow, Walt Whitman, Marx, Marxist Theorists, and pop culture. Castorf filled this in with some expressionistic piano music, as well as cocktail ballads, and sympathy for the devil, bob dylan and all of the above.
There was also a blender, which was used in a very cute scene, where one of the characters proceeds to blend a delicious shake featuring anything he can get his hands on, including the cardboard top of his rotten cheese, a whole avocado, and a whole bunch of fruits including a melon he just karate chopped. He then gets offended when no one wants to drink it. In the end they do, standing in front of the audience and drinking.
Oh Castorf. Castorf Castorf Castorf. In some way, I already anticipated the play, it was like being invited into a wholly original theatrical space, where of course my deutsch was lacking, but I still felt comfortable. It was as if I was in a space where the only language was theatrical language, and the actors themselves conscious of it, at times struggle, and at times merely sit around trying to figure out what else to do, when there are no music., plots or cues to guide them.
I dont know how much Castorf will find himself into my work now. There are I guess many viewpoints (though god do I hate that word) that I may touch upon. Volume, speed, the necessity for structural integrity. Aristotles head would have exploded. Basically, it just showed me that theatre is something far more quietly funny and disgusting and sort of ennervinhg than one usually sees. Theres such elitism associated with it, even the great absurdist c,omedies,. theres a degree of sanctity for the statues and masterpieces that we vise and revise. But even when Artaud cried no more masterpieces it was to save the greatest masterpiece of all, the ming vase of theatre that castorf has unceremoniously used as a chamber pot, and thank goodness.
Afterwards I ran from palce to place catching the rest of Germany Turkey. Tension was high, Berlin is 40% turkish, its largest minority by far. But it was a nail biter till the very end. Germany beat Turkey at its own game.
I was having a good conversation with my friend Becky, who studied film theory in college and is an aspiring documentarian on the merits (and demerits of theatre). She brought up some interesting points that I will be sure to think about as I keep this project on.
a) of cours,e the amount of elitism...and the way that even though you can do the play for different people each time, you get different products. Unlike in film, one reproduces the experience exactly each time. I see how this comment can go both was, since in film you have a work rthat doesnt consciously reflect its structure, since it belongs to another one.
b) the way in which documentary film actually encompasses something real, real facts, real things, where in theatre it all seems so makebelieve. Theres no freedom in that (levinas might agree, though I'm not sure).
Basically what I've been thinking about theatre, the one thing that really makes it an art form that deserves paying attention to, is the amount of exposure of the audience. The elemnt of danger, of the audience members putting themselves up against, not merely the experience, but the art itself, since the art is the experience.
I will briefly give an example and then leave you.
If, god unwilling, theres a fire in the movie theatre, or the projector breaks, or you have a heart attack while watching the film, or a mosquito bites your hand, or a column collapses or brings the house down when youre in an art gallery, (or vice versa), that does not, in many ways affect the work itself. The locus of artistic experience of a painting or a film lies in the film itself, and therefore the experience of artistically experiencing said painting or film, does not itself contain the substantial quality of the art. That is to say, even though contingency and god help us, danger may factor into our experience, it does not effect the art itself. However, in theatre, art IS experience. So anything that happens during the performance itself, becomes the work, and is also the content of the art.
I was in ABC No Rio a few years ago with my mother and we were watching this very experiemental show which basically just involved a bunch of twenty somethings smoking cloves in an apartment and talking about life. Halfway through a drunk man came in and completely changed the show - what was the content of the art then? Was it the play that was written? Was it the time spent in rehearsal getting it perfect? No, the experience, albeit in perfect, albeit exposed to contingency, suspended between metaphysics and reality, comprised the artistic content. That is for me, what is so beautiful and so dangerous about theatre. It is fragile, not because it threatens not to become art, but because it threatens to become its own thing, to become not what you want, to come against your expectation. And in many ways, it has the capability of violating your experience, your privacy, it is confrontation, it is exposure, and for that reason it has, I believe the greatest promise of political praxis within it.
Whoa, started with a simple convo and ended up in revolution...ah well, Castorf wouldn't mind (nor would limonow for that matter). Rene Pollesch tonight.
Tschüss!
- J
The play, Fuck off Amerika, is based off the Edouard Limonow novel of the same name. Limonow, unlike the literary masters that Castorf usually chooses to massacre, is a living Russian dissident. He is not that well known in Germany either, prompting many to go "who is Limonow" when the play was announced. This was also a sort of anticlimactic move when the Volksbühne claimed to be doing Fuck off Goethe! Which, in some ways I guess Castorfs entire career encompasses that sort of philosophy.
The play then, is very much a Castorf work, with a cast of characters (many actors whom I recognized from the other two plays) alternating between political monologues, feats of strength and disgusting acts, and of course the mandatory sex simulated orgy with clothes on being videotaped and projected on the set, you know, vintage castorf.
The set is a pretty fantastic elevated white cross from distinguished German artist Johnathan Meese. Some critics dismissed it as too simple, but I found it elegant and effective. The main character of the piece is the same actor as from Berlin Alexanderplatz, Max Hopp. All of Castorfs actors have a tremendous acting ability, but also the necessary charisma to hold an audience's attention. I remember just waiting in Mauser for the actors in Castorf's production to come back, since even their presence onstage was a welcome rescue from the boredom of Stuart's personalityless dancers.
The play, sigh, what can I say, people running back and forth for no reaosn, sex, a submachine antiaircraft gun bought onstage and fired (with caps, of course, I hope). A ten minute monologue delivered in absolute screams. And all this with text culled from Limonow, Walt Whitman, Marx, Marxist Theorists, and pop culture. Castorf filled this in with some expressionistic piano music, as well as cocktail ballads, and sympathy for the devil, bob dylan and all of the above.
There was also a blender, which was used in a very cute scene, where one of the characters proceeds to blend a delicious shake featuring anything he can get his hands on, including the cardboard top of his rotten cheese, a whole avocado, and a whole bunch of fruits including a melon he just karate chopped. He then gets offended when no one wants to drink it. In the end they do, standing in front of the audience and drinking.
Oh Castorf. Castorf Castorf Castorf. In some way, I already anticipated the play, it was like being invited into a wholly original theatrical space, where of course my deutsch was lacking, but I still felt comfortable. It was as if I was in a space where the only language was theatrical language, and the actors themselves conscious of it, at times struggle, and at times merely sit around trying to figure out what else to do, when there are no music., plots or cues to guide them.
I dont know how much Castorf will find himself into my work now. There are I guess many viewpoints (though god do I hate that word) that I may touch upon. Volume, speed, the necessity for structural integrity. Aristotles head would have exploded. Basically, it just showed me that theatre is something far more quietly funny and disgusting and sort of ennervinhg than one usually sees. Theres such elitism associated with it, even the great absurdist c,omedies,. theres a degree of sanctity for the statues and masterpieces that we vise and revise. But even when Artaud cried no more masterpieces it was to save the greatest masterpiece of all, the ming vase of theatre that castorf has unceremoniously used as a chamber pot, and thank goodness.
Afterwards I ran from palce to place catching the rest of Germany Turkey. Tension was high, Berlin is 40% turkish, its largest minority by far. But it was a nail biter till the very end. Germany beat Turkey at its own game.
I was having a good conversation with my friend Becky, who studied film theory in college and is an aspiring documentarian on the merits (and demerits of theatre). She brought up some interesting points that I will be sure to think about as I keep this project on.
a) of cours,e the amount of elitism...and the way that even though you can do the play for different people each time, you get different products. Unlike in film, one reproduces the experience exactly each time. I see how this comment can go both was, since in film you have a work rthat doesnt consciously reflect its structure, since it belongs to another one.
b) the way in which documentary film actually encompasses something real, real facts, real things, where in theatre it all seems so makebelieve. Theres no freedom in that (levinas might agree, though I'm not sure).
Basically what I've been thinking about theatre, the one thing that really makes it an art form that deserves paying attention to, is the amount of exposure of the audience. The elemnt of danger, of the audience members putting themselves up against, not merely the experience, but the art itself, since the art is the experience.
I will briefly give an example and then leave you.
If, god unwilling, theres a fire in the movie theatre, or the projector breaks, or you have a heart attack while watching the film, or a mosquito bites your hand, or a column collapses or brings the house down when youre in an art gallery, (or vice versa), that does not, in many ways affect the work itself. The locus of artistic experience of a painting or a film lies in the film itself, and therefore the experience of artistically experiencing said painting or film, does not itself contain the substantial quality of the art. That is to say, even though contingency and god help us, danger may factor into our experience, it does not effect the art itself. However, in theatre, art IS experience. So anything that happens during the performance itself, becomes the work, and is also the content of the art.
I was in ABC No Rio a few years ago with my mother and we were watching this very experiemental show which basically just involved a bunch of twenty somethings smoking cloves in an apartment and talking about life. Halfway through a drunk man came in and completely changed the show - what was the content of the art then? Was it the play that was written? Was it the time spent in rehearsal getting it perfect? No, the experience, albeit in perfect, albeit exposed to contingency, suspended between metaphysics and reality, comprised the artistic content. That is for me, what is so beautiful and so dangerous about theatre. It is fragile, not because it threatens not to become art, but because it threatens to become its own thing, to become not what you want, to come against your expectation. And in many ways, it has the capability of violating your experience, your privacy, it is confrontation, it is exposure, and for that reason it has, I believe the greatest promise of political praxis within it.
Whoa, started with a simple convo and ended up in revolution...ah well, Castorf wouldn't mind (nor would limonow for that matter). Rene Pollesch tonight.
Tschüss!
- J
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Two Plays and the Research Continues
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