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
Monday, June 30, 2008
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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Monday, June 23, 2008
Platz, Parks, Salesmen and Kids
Greetings!
Well, the end of my second (is it really only my second?) weekend in Berlin and it was quite busy, I must say.
I had a sleepy morning Saturday, waking up pretty late and having a delicious Frühstuck where I ended up sharing a table with a young attractive couple from Frankfurt. They were visiting Berlin as well (the woman was on assignment from her consulting work in Frankfurt and the gentleman was her boyfriend visint her). She had similar impressions of Berlin to mine - she liked frankfurt but felt that the city was quite rich and fancy and not at all varied and especially culturally varied as Berlin. nightlife was chic and expensive, and it is true that in Berlin you get all sorts, really.
My breakfast consisted of three fried eggs on top of some bread with a slice of ham. It was delicious, and the best breakfast Ive had yet.
That afternoon I went to Gorki theatre for their Jung: rebellion und melancholie, festival. (jung = young)
It was quite crazy, all of the outside of the otherwise stern and royal looking Gorki theater was covered in people wearing graffiti stained white workers shirts cars turned on their side and painted, and various conceptual "stations". It basically looked like what young performance artists who had a bit more money, would do if they had to make a tourist friendly fairground attraction.
I quickly hurried into one of the shows, not really knowing whihc one - and ended up in what was the theatre's youth group performance. The audiemnce was mostly friends and parent sos I felt a bit strange not really understanding much. Unlike other plays I was seeing, I really had no knowledge or had read none of this so I was pretty much lost except for bits and pieces. The plot revolved aroud a series of skits featuring a bear from a utopia and the children, who wanted to show him the error of his ways. What startled me is that for such a young group the theatre was exceptionally poltiical. The only set pieces consisted of cardboard boxes which had on one side pasted important political (and not so important) figures. Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Homer Simpson...I cant really say much else about this really. It was an itneresting show, and beared quite a lot of resemblance to the type of small scale revue shows ive done, the one difference being its political content.
The next show I was to see was the one I originally came for: Als Wir Traumten (all our dreams) directed by the artistic director of Gorki's, Armin Petras.
Once again, this was a relatively new play by a youngish playwright so my impressions are very much sketches and impressions.
Petras certainly has a style, though. I'd place him halfway between Castorf und Ostermeier. He is willing to embrace kitsch and not take himself so seriously, but manages to also create breathtakingly beautiful theatrical moments. The play revolved around a group of girl-rebels in Leipzig, I believe. The only male character in the play plays different characters in drag. One is the old aunt, and another old character Im not too sure who it is. The storyline centered around Dani, a young member of the group - the play was, Im not sure, but the director managed some very itneresting choices, and his staging certainly had its proper aesthetic.
The set was simple, this, the Gorki's studio was also quite small, like PS 122 sort of.
Set consisted of a grey wall with different sections (the wall later broked and became a sort of barstand) und a bed on the right ha nd side.
There are many different wonderful aesthetica images in the play that I will merely list instead of placing into a plot that I have no idea about.
- Little greenback from reservoir dogs played over and over and over again.
- the women, all in black jeans and leather jackets screaming and slamming 2 x 4s over and over on the ground.
- A balloon in a box, extreme tension and then bam! Someone pops it. Not so bad though.
- A faux boxing match while a blind girl (actual blind girl) sits in a box with a foam cat. Dani, who is supposed to be young is fed ice cream which is merely a wet sponge, by having it be rubbed on her face, first wet, then dry.
- All of the women have a faux paper cut head. They then begin drawing in red pen on the head, and hang them up.
- Another head, on the wall, women spit red stomato juice on it.
- Referenceto a bus, all of a sudden, the fog machine begins and everyone starts being chased around with a for machine.
- Another song played over and over again, rape me, by nirvana. Subsequent headbanging ensues.
- At one point the leader of the pack comes onstage and drinks an entire pint of beer in front of us, keeping eye contact and not stopping.
- Women in mustaches.
- A mock funeral. Blood on the wall, woman in a suit below her a box with a male figure inside. The other characters appear with different kinds of puppets. They proceed to cry and act with the puppets.
An interesting experience to say the least. It was a good show...i think.
The night was nice. First I get lost with bad directions from my friend, ending up at the edge of Prenzlberg when I had to be in Mitte. That was annoying, but I managed to catch most of the Netherlands Russia game. I met up with my friends who had just seen their friends flatmate in a show. The show sounded cool, and the flatmate was another Berlin actor, Dietmar.
Dietmar was very charismatic, a long german face and a serious nose, as well as one of the deep entertaining german accents. His baseball cap was forgivable. He reiterated that its not easzy for actors in berlin because so many people want to be actors. it is true, that when you are in berlin you are in a place that really takes its theatre seriously. We were in a sorts of cast party for the show, but me and my friend fernando hadnt seen it so we were feelin a bit awkward. It was fine thouhg, dietmar told me about his favorite Pollesch show at the volksbühne (which i will be seeing on July 1st= We eventually left them and went to this americanized club called Zapata. Bad music, but out back there was a beach bar and we hung out there. There we met up with my german friend I had met at the deutsches theater Julia, and she introduced us to all of her friends who were also actors.
I learned a bit more abou tthe theatricla tradition here. In Germany, to be an actor you cant just go to auditions without having gone to school first. You first present your degree and your roles (actors usually have 4 roles that they are exceptional at, from different time periods, so like a Shakespeare, a Goethe, maybe a Goldoni or Moliere and a contemporary one, or Brecht). Then they review your credentials and only then do you get an audition. its very much like an industry, no unions, but you do need a graduate degree. Talent is the first step, then comes the discipline of having the physical and responsible and disciplined aspect. The training at their school is mostly stanislavky with a bit of strasberg.
I hung out there for a while, but got too sleepy and headed back when I could see the daylight.
Sunday was a delighful brunch with my GLS friends, and then we all headed to Tiergarten. Tiergarten is Berlins answer to central park, something I noticed though is it is much more foresty. I entered from the Brandenburg gate (yeah it was nice, glorious, blah blah= and I felt as if I had entered a forest. It is quite a beautiful park, full of places to just sit and relax, which is what we did. We played some fußball and frisbee, and I had a well deserved nap.
We then went to potsdamer platz to grab some pasta, good, not so teuer, and we managed to see Potsdam Platz. Eh. Very breahtaking architecture, but it all felt so modern and clean and boring. Lots of tourists.
Then, I went to Schaubühne for Death of a Salesman.
director luk perceval
Ok. The set for this piece is absolutely incredible. A couch, television und a nother sort of comforter couch on the side. A fat german looking man in his underwear watching tv, which is pointed away from us, An old lady folding clothes in the chair next to him. Its like all in the family all over again. Oh, and did I forget to mention that behgind them are about 100 odd potted plants creatinga veritable domestic forest? Yeah, that too.
This was arthur miller, schaubühne style. Willy Loman was reduced to a grumbling pathetc fat guy in front of a television, his sons Biff and Happy. Biff a fat mess, also in his underwear. Happy a young over cheery over talkative maess, also in his underwear. Every now and then the characters appear from the woods behind them. This creates the eerie effect ofthe trees moving before you actually see a character. Perceval stages the ntire play in the living room.
There is definitely a lot of freedom with the text. The play is short 1:40, and Perceval really just tries to capture glimpses of each other parts of the play. The role of the Woman is made super hyper, a hand appearing from behind the sofa massaging and reaching down to his pants revealing a woman wearing next to nothing who then wears nothing, rubbing her large breasts on his head, and then her crotch (much to the amusement of some 20 odd spanish students who found this shocking). This was all consistent with percevals style, not ver subtle and exceptionally brutal at times. Loman is mostly reduced to grumbles and staring straight at the television but when we explodes we see the complete and utter nothing he has become.
perceval like richter is also a media conscious director, and the use of the television is exceptional. We never see whats on tv, we only hear it. Richter culls material from German sitcoms, game shows, phone sex ads and newscasts. The same expression of nothing on the characters faces.
The pace can go from extremely hectic and entertaining, to incredibly dull however. And many scenes between the brothers and Millie especially lag.
The beauty of the staging in my opinion however, is that it creates the dream consciousness state so perfectly. A well dressed yung man symbolizing either young willy or death is always present, hidden in the plants, while the young boss is consantly videotaping willy, and looks as if he's culled straight from one of the samples german game shows.
The use of the set and the staging also creates the appearance of watching some weird sort of wildlife. the wildlife of human nature, exposed to its seething core. Perceval doesnt seem to be much of an optimist. this is the most pathetic version of death of s alesman but not for making willy a sort of optimistic mess. This willy is too dead to be optimistic. It merely shows a human nature that has given up on meaning. Happys monologues have been cut in a way that they go on forever and have no meaning. Biff is merely restricted to mostly just cursing everyone out, Schesse Scheisse Scheisse fick dich fick dich fick dich! (seriously that is basically half of his lines)
Although I have to hand it to Perceval, he created some incredibly original theatrical expreinces for me. The coup de grace has to be the very end when Biff comes in having found the pipe. He breaks down, MAJORLY. He had struggled for words in most of the play, resorting to merely cursing them out. Now he cant stop. It goes on for nearly 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Without stopping. Without breathing. 10 minutes at 11 (the volume, that is), he screams so hard and so fast that spit falls from his mouth, chucking spittle foaming on the cushions but he doesnt stop. He keep s screaming so much he has to go into the woods, throw up or at least try to, and then come back and keep going keep going and all that time you have an audience that is either laughing, or transfixed (the spanish kids were laughing. I figured they wanted to be watching their team beat italy, but ah well). Finally he goes into the woods, throwing up again, and only silence follows. Th death of willy was fast. Merely following the man dressed in a suit (as death) and then lying down on the sofa and dying. But that was just a tacked on ending. Perceval coul have ended it with Willy on the sofa. He was already dead anyway.
...
I celebrated spains win over italy in the pouring rain. Jumping to abut 5 different bars, one lost service because of the rain, one closed, and finally watching spains win, thank goodness over an italy that i was sic of watching win by playing boring ugly defensive football. Spain russia will be amatch to watch.
Tonight I have M at the Maxim Gorki Theater - the director, Stefan Pucher is a media specialist, so Im quite interested in this production. Apparently Gorki theater was rated the the third best theater by german critics and itnellectuals, (talia in hamburg first, and deutsches theater second). Im actually going with some american friends so this should be fun.
See you all later for another update!
Bis morgen (probably=
- J
p.s. rip g. carlin
-
Well, the end of my second (is it really only my second?) weekend in Berlin and it was quite busy, I must say.
I had a sleepy morning Saturday, waking up pretty late and having a delicious Frühstuck where I ended up sharing a table with a young attractive couple from Frankfurt. They were visiting Berlin as well (the woman was on assignment from her consulting work in Frankfurt and the gentleman was her boyfriend visint her). She had similar impressions of Berlin to mine - she liked frankfurt but felt that the city was quite rich and fancy and not at all varied and especially culturally varied as Berlin. nightlife was chic and expensive, and it is true that in Berlin you get all sorts, really.
My breakfast consisted of three fried eggs on top of some bread with a slice of ham. It was delicious, and the best breakfast Ive had yet.
That afternoon I went to Gorki theatre for their Jung: rebellion und melancholie, festival. (jung = young)
It was quite crazy, all of the outside of the otherwise stern and royal looking Gorki theater was covered in people wearing graffiti stained white workers shirts cars turned on their side and painted, and various conceptual "stations". It basically looked like what young performance artists who had a bit more money, would do if they had to make a tourist friendly fairground attraction.
I quickly hurried into one of the shows, not really knowing whihc one - and ended up in what was the theatre's youth group performance. The audiemnce was mostly friends and parent sos I felt a bit strange not really understanding much. Unlike other plays I was seeing, I really had no knowledge or had read none of this so I was pretty much lost except for bits and pieces. The plot revolved aroud a series of skits featuring a bear from a utopia and the children, who wanted to show him the error of his ways. What startled me is that for such a young group the theatre was exceptionally poltiical. The only set pieces consisted of cardboard boxes which had on one side pasted important political (and not so important) figures. Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Homer Simpson...I cant really say much else about this really. It was an itneresting show, and beared quite a lot of resemblance to the type of small scale revue shows ive done, the one difference being its political content.
The next show I was to see was the one I originally came for: Als Wir Traumten (all our dreams) directed by the artistic director of Gorki's, Armin Petras.
Once again, this was a relatively new play by a youngish playwright so my impressions are very much sketches and impressions.
Petras certainly has a style, though. I'd place him halfway between Castorf und Ostermeier. He is willing to embrace kitsch and not take himself so seriously, but manages to also create breathtakingly beautiful theatrical moments. The play revolved around a group of girl-rebels in Leipzig, I believe. The only male character in the play plays different characters in drag. One is the old aunt, and another old character Im not too sure who it is. The storyline centered around Dani, a young member of the group - the play was, Im not sure, but the director managed some very itneresting choices, and his staging certainly had its proper aesthetic.
The set was simple, this, the Gorki's studio was also quite small, like PS 122 sort of.
Set consisted of a grey wall with different sections (the wall later broked and became a sort of barstand) und a bed on the right ha nd side.
There are many different wonderful aesthetica images in the play that I will merely list instead of placing into a plot that I have no idea about.
- Little greenback from reservoir dogs played over and over and over again.
- the women, all in black jeans and leather jackets screaming and slamming 2 x 4s over and over on the ground.
- A balloon in a box, extreme tension and then bam! Someone pops it. Not so bad though.
- A faux boxing match while a blind girl (actual blind girl) sits in a box with a foam cat. Dani, who is supposed to be young is fed ice cream which is merely a wet sponge, by having it be rubbed on her face, first wet, then dry.
- All of the women have a faux paper cut head. They then begin drawing in red pen on the head, and hang them up.
- Another head, on the wall, women spit red stomato juice on it.
- Referenceto a bus, all of a sudden, the fog machine begins and everyone starts being chased around with a for machine.
- Another song played over and over again, rape me, by nirvana. Subsequent headbanging ensues.
- At one point the leader of the pack comes onstage and drinks an entire pint of beer in front of us, keeping eye contact and not stopping.
- Women in mustaches.
- A mock funeral. Blood on the wall, woman in a suit below her a box with a male figure inside. The other characters appear with different kinds of puppets. They proceed to cry and act with the puppets.
An interesting experience to say the least. It was a good show...i think.
The night was nice. First I get lost with bad directions from my friend, ending up at the edge of Prenzlberg when I had to be in Mitte. That was annoying, but I managed to catch most of the Netherlands Russia game. I met up with my friends who had just seen their friends flatmate in a show. The show sounded cool, and the flatmate was another Berlin actor, Dietmar.
Dietmar was very charismatic, a long german face and a serious nose, as well as one of the deep entertaining german accents. His baseball cap was forgivable. He reiterated that its not easzy for actors in berlin because so many people want to be actors. it is true, that when you are in berlin you are in a place that really takes its theatre seriously. We were in a sorts of cast party for the show, but me and my friend fernando hadnt seen it so we were feelin a bit awkward. It was fine thouhg, dietmar told me about his favorite Pollesch show at the volksbühne (which i will be seeing on July 1st= We eventually left them and went to this americanized club called Zapata. Bad music, but out back there was a beach bar and we hung out there. There we met up with my german friend I had met at the deutsches theater Julia, and she introduced us to all of her friends who were also actors.
I learned a bit more abou tthe theatricla tradition here. In Germany, to be an actor you cant just go to auditions without having gone to school first. You first present your degree and your roles (actors usually have 4 roles that they are exceptional at, from different time periods, so like a Shakespeare, a Goethe, maybe a Goldoni or Moliere and a contemporary one, or Brecht). Then they review your credentials and only then do you get an audition. its very much like an industry, no unions, but you do need a graduate degree. Talent is the first step, then comes the discipline of having the physical and responsible and disciplined aspect. The training at their school is mostly stanislavky with a bit of strasberg.
I hung out there for a while, but got too sleepy and headed back when I could see the daylight.
Sunday was a delighful brunch with my GLS friends, and then we all headed to Tiergarten. Tiergarten is Berlins answer to central park, something I noticed though is it is much more foresty. I entered from the Brandenburg gate (yeah it was nice, glorious, blah blah= and I felt as if I had entered a forest. It is quite a beautiful park, full of places to just sit and relax, which is what we did. We played some fußball and frisbee, and I had a well deserved nap.
We then went to potsdamer platz to grab some pasta, good, not so teuer, and we managed to see Potsdam Platz. Eh. Very breahtaking architecture, but it all felt so modern and clean and boring. Lots of tourists.
Then, I went to Schaubühne for Death of a Salesman.
director luk perceval
Ok. The set for this piece is absolutely incredible. A couch, television und a nother sort of comforter couch on the side. A fat german looking man in his underwear watching tv, which is pointed away from us, An old lady folding clothes in the chair next to him. Its like all in the family all over again. Oh, and did I forget to mention that behgind them are about 100 odd potted plants creatinga veritable domestic forest? Yeah, that too.
This was arthur miller, schaubühne style. Willy Loman was reduced to a grumbling pathetc fat guy in front of a television, his sons Biff and Happy. Biff a fat mess, also in his underwear. Happy a young over cheery over talkative maess, also in his underwear. Every now and then the characters appear from the woods behind them. This creates the eerie effect ofthe trees moving before you actually see a character. Perceval stages the ntire play in the living room.
There is definitely a lot of freedom with the text. The play is short 1:40, and Perceval really just tries to capture glimpses of each other parts of the play. The role of the Woman is made super hyper, a hand appearing from behind the sofa massaging and reaching down to his pants revealing a woman wearing next to nothing who then wears nothing, rubbing her large breasts on his head, and then her crotch (much to the amusement of some 20 odd spanish students who found this shocking). This was all consistent with percevals style, not ver subtle and exceptionally brutal at times. Loman is mostly reduced to grumbles and staring straight at the television but when we explodes we see the complete and utter nothing he has become.
perceval like richter is also a media conscious director, and the use of the television is exceptional. We never see whats on tv, we only hear it. Richter culls material from German sitcoms, game shows, phone sex ads and newscasts. The same expression of nothing on the characters faces.
The pace can go from extremely hectic and entertaining, to incredibly dull however. And many scenes between the brothers and Millie especially lag.
The beauty of the staging in my opinion however, is that it creates the dream consciousness state so perfectly. A well dressed yung man symbolizing either young willy or death is always present, hidden in the plants, while the young boss is consantly videotaping willy, and looks as if he's culled straight from one of the samples german game shows.
The use of the set and the staging also creates the appearance of watching some weird sort of wildlife. the wildlife of human nature, exposed to its seething core. Perceval doesnt seem to be much of an optimist. this is the most pathetic version of death of s alesman but not for making willy a sort of optimistic mess. This willy is too dead to be optimistic. It merely shows a human nature that has given up on meaning. Happys monologues have been cut in a way that they go on forever and have no meaning. Biff is merely restricted to mostly just cursing everyone out, Schesse Scheisse Scheisse fick dich fick dich fick dich! (seriously that is basically half of his lines)
Although I have to hand it to Perceval, he created some incredibly original theatrical expreinces for me. The coup de grace has to be the very end when Biff comes in having found the pipe. He breaks down, MAJORLY. He had struggled for words in most of the play, resorting to merely cursing them out. Now he cant stop. It goes on for nearly 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Without stopping. Without breathing. 10 minutes at 11 (the volume, that is), he screams so hard and so fast that spit falls from his mouth, chucking spittle foaming on the cushions but he doesnt stop. He keep s screaming so much he has to go into the woods, throw up or at least try to, and then come back and keep going keep going and all that time you have an audience that is either laughing, or transfixed (the spanish kids were laughing. I figured they wanted to be watching their team beat italy, but ah well). Finally he goes into the woods, throwing up again, and only silence follows. Th death of willy was fast. Merely following the man dressed in a suit (as death) and then lying down on the sofa and dying. But that was just a tacked on ending. Perceval coul have ended it with Willy on the sofa. He was already dead anyway.
...
I celebrated spains win over italy in the pouring rain. Jumping to abut 5 different bars, one lost service because of the rain, one closed, and finally watching spains win, thank goodness over an italy that i was sic of watching win by playing boring ugly defensive football. Spain russia will be amatch to watch.
Tonight I have M at the Maxim Gorki Theater - the director, Stefan Pucher is a media specialist, so Im quite interested in this production. Apparently Gorki theater was rated the the third best theater by german critics and itnellectuals, (talia in hamburg first, and deutsches theater second). Im actually going with some american friends so this should be fun.
See you all later for another update!
Bis morgen (probably=
- J
p.s. rip g. carlin
-
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Brecht, Parks, Volksbühne TURKIYEEEE
When last we left me, I was heading off to the beautiful Mauerpark in Prenzlauer Berg.
This park is the old site of the wall (the name literally means Wall Park). Not a pretty park by any stretch of the imagination, the grass is dry and ruddy, but it is a park with plenty and plenty of character, a bunch of swings line the top of the hill and the walls are coated with graffiti.
It was a nice relaxing hour or so in the park, something that I really needed, I feel sometimes I'm running from place to place, from play to play and this was a nice break, a much needed sigh of relief from what is already such an intense experience.
We relaxed, played on the swings, played frisbee with marie's boyfriend. I invented a version of monkey in the middle featuring frisbee that was quite awesome.
I wrote a sleepy entry to you all and then I went to get ready for my night at the Volksbühne.
Here's the thing about the Volksbühne:
all theatre, in the end is about experience. It is a slice of your life - as anything is - but in some ways you feel more in control in a museum, ti is a way of sharing your experience without fully losing yourself. But theatre is an experience that requires a sort of risk. I have been formulating a theory about this that I need to work on a bit more before I post. It'll show up here soon, it needs some mulling over, ja.
The Volksbühne though understands this I feel better than any other theatre ive been to. The second you enter the theate your experience begins. The second you enter the fucking theatre room your experience is thrust out in front of you. How, you say? Well for one the stage fucking penetrates into the audience. It looks like the cylone rollercoaster was fucking just built on top of a stage. People are seated in those same damn white plastic chairs (seriously, these chairs are everywhere. Chair stores in Berlin must really lack variety). I swear the next pla y I do will have tons of those chairs. A huge projection screen across the cyc, and then another projection screen on a plastered screen by the proscenium stage right. Anyway, heres another thing about the volksbühne. I feel I can write traditional reviews for these other shows, but for the Volksbühne, something different happens. For Castorf I just scribble down his theatrical ideas like a madman.
I feel like the theatre gods have been unnecessarily kind to me. Why, you ask? Because I have the ability to not only witness amazing german renditions of classic shows, but because these classic shows are the same shows I encoutnered in my independent study. It's as if someone in theaterheaven read my project proposal and managed to perfectly integrate this experience.
That being said, and having just seen Endgame, I ahd the privilege to see Frank Castorf do what may now be among my favorite plays and one of the best examples of fucking perfect political theatre: "The Measures Taken". However, the play was coupled with Müller's Mauser und had the collaboration of Meg Stuart...oh Meg, what hast thou done?? (I'll get to that in a moment).
For now, my notes on Castorf: this is a sample of what I scribbled in my notes (4 full pages of rants and laudations and anger)<.
first of all, the show begins. The characters are atop this bizarre platform. It seems to be qutie Brechtian, the characters are basically setting up the action.
Then, this shit happens and I become fucked with for the first time in a while.Or since, you know, last time I fuckin saw Castorf.
Firstly, you hear musicians warming up as you enter, maybe a couple of tubas, a trombone and you think, oh nice...live score. Second, the audience is sparsely seated, a group of foreign speaking people all around me - I believe they hailed from some scandinavian country. They were good accomplices to be around since their enjoyment mimicked mine. Wait, so the theatre is half empty right, oh except both the last rows are fucking full. Full of people dressed for a night of theatre, theyre fairly old, and the first thing I think is, "Wow, maybe these are the patrons of the theatre, they look like the same damn rich elite I see on Broadway,".
I forget about them, as the play has begun and castorfs characters in characterisitc fashion begin arguing. An older man, 3 young men and a woman who I recognize from Berlin Alexanderplatz, they are remarkable actors, for reasons I will go in soon.
So the show begins and the orchestra swellls and then WHAT THE FUCK, the entire back row BOOMS in fucking operatic fashion. OH NO HE DIDNT.
The fucking volksbühne became a brechtian weillian opera house full of these bizarre peoplei n the back row singing to us.
A man with a video camera is filming the actors, their faces become projected on the stage. Oh fuck that, more multimedia crap (sorry I was just my mother for a second) i think, but I dont seem to mind it all that much. Oh fuck but the orchestra and the fucking chorus is singing. And then I think - oh my god, castorf you sonofabitch, you didnt just make the CONTROL CHORUS an ACTUAL CHORUS.
I think I died right then and there. And then he had to go farther, the characters painted their faces different colors, different masks, dont you know? And of course he had to satirize the fact that they were in oriental mukden by having their characters speak in the loudest pitches, over orientalizing the situation. Kitschy bastard.
So, you think Brecht what do you think? Political theatre, check. Epic theatre? Fucking check (did you see the chorus?) what else...ah alienation...
well Castorf, in typical fashion, not one for sublety, uses the camera brilliantly. Firstly, the show is performed for both sides of the stage, since there is a whole other amoutn of seats on the other side, so half the time we see them performing for us, and half the time for them, thats when the video camera comes in, providing all these movie style closeups. Live television, of whats actually also happening. But unlike Hamlets rendition of the Wooster Group (see what i did there) I wasnt angry or bored to tears, Castorf fucking knows how to entertain. And that shit is crucial.
Sorry Im cursing so much, intense theatrical experiences do that to me, ah well.
So yeah, back to alienation. What does he do with the actors? Oh, they leave the theatre, but the camera follows them, as they go in the lobby, the fouyer, where we were just having drinks. Little by little I see Castorf grabbing the seams of my theatrical conventions and pulling them off me as if they were old umbilical chords I didn't even know I had. With each step Castorf comes closer to me either breaking into tears for happiness or angrily shouting the entire text of "an actor prepares" at the top of my lungs, in english of course.
So the camera then follows them as they come in and out of the theatre, and he pulls tighter and tighter on the chords. When does it snap? when they go outside. out. fucking. side. And go into a bar, and check the croatia turkiye game which is going on, scream at each other, run into people and do people give them the craziest stares..
thats it. alienation is done. Castorf has just killed alienation, by fulfilling these promises he kills them, he fulfills them by killing them. The chorus at this point also makes their way into the theatre, the house, the fouyer, the bathroom? Thank god, no. And then all the time they are singing.
The control chorus of course has its Koryphaios, a beautiful blonde singer who makes such terrifyingly expressive faces as she sings about arbeit und freiheit und revoluzionen.
The play is kind of kept intact. We have the rice, ´we have the merchant, who is enticed by the female character. But it is so ridiuclous so over the top. The seductive revolutionary jacks off the chopsticks and feeds the rice, which is popcorn to the older merchant which is merely the old man wearing a fatsuit. The man turns to speak, he is faraway onstage so we cant see him, only on video, the second he opens his mouth a female opera siger' voice comes on, what? What the fuck? Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
Sigh, I'm nearly breaking out a sweat trying to describe it all, from now on bullet points:
- questioning the coolies -
- do you know the plight of the bourgeoisie
- no
- freedom
- no
- the rights of workers
- no
- bertolt brecht?
- no.
- throughout the play these maoist communist pictures done in stalin soviet realism are projected in the background (at other times we see the face of the conductor/composer conducting, Hans Eisler), interspersed amog their pictures ar the characters, who move every now and then.
- oh fucker made it snow. Like hardcore. So much snow.
- Is that weed i smell? WTF, were the actors just smoking weed in the lobby?
- the closeups are so hollywood, the actors know it and their faces freeze in these moments of agony. Also very passion of joan of arc.
- posting hunger on the walls
- the policeman questions the audience.
- the guns have no blanks, they just make a haunting clicking sound.
at different points: everyone becomes monkeys, everyone starts dancing, the female character starts doing a fake striptease (making as if shes taking off her clothes, but only miming it), the men line up behind her, doing the same, but poorly.
Orchestra rises up from the rafters. Part 1 ends and the maintenance men com ina and for about 10 minutes take it apart. One person leaves.
then mauser starts. mauser sucked.
the characters who were so damn moved before sit around a table and talk, maybe if i understood it it would be interesting, not as bad as the fucking TERRIBLE choreorgaphy of meg stuart and the fucking terrible music.
Bass plays. Again, and again, and fucking again. People look like theyre in pain, they are from all different parts of the globe. Spanish, American, German and two french. We know this because they speak into a microphone. I am angriest at the american, I have a sneaking suspicion she is meg stuart. I think this because this looks like the conceptual crap ive seen in new york avant garde before. I am BORED.
the dancing is basically people looking like theyre in pain, and acting very sad about it, and slowly and badly doing bad things to each other. It looks lazy, and everytime castorfs actors come back it is a happy moment.
I ate all my gummi bears. I was sad. Measures taken was quite possibly the best time ive had in a theatre, mauser ranks among the worst.
but thank you castorf, thank you volksbühne, I'll see you on Wednesday
later, Turkiye won on penalties. We were in Schönberg, I was simultaneously in the gayest neighborhood and one of the most turkish ones. It was madness. People shot fireworks out of guns only 10 feet away from us. Everyone was turkish it seemed, cars could not stop honking people jumped out of cars, it was a beautiful moment. And you could feel the space of the city enter into a dangerous liminality, it was absolute intensity.
We walked along the kudamm, the heart of berlins shopping distrcit. the street was closed, people walked on the street and the sidewalk, no cars. Just red shirts turkish flags, it was an intense moment. Berlin is 40% turkish and I feel all 100% of them were out.
Most surreal moment? The bombed out church that stays lit up on the kudamm surrounded by celebrating Berliners. Red everywhere. I dont know why but something about that moment really stuck with me.
Later on the way home I tried something ive never been able to do, roll my rs.
I succeeded, almost. I'm almost there.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Tschüss!
- J
This park is the old site of the wall (the name literally means Wall Park). Not a pretty park by any stretch of the imagination, the grass is dry and ruddy, but it is a park with plenty and plenty of character, a bunch of swings line the top of the hill and the walls are coated with graffiti.
It was a nice relaxing hour or so in the park, something that I really needed, I feel sometimes I'm running from place to place, from play to play and this was a nice break, a much needed sigh of relief from what is already such an intense experience.
We relaxed, played on the swings, played frisbee with marie's boyfriend. I invented a version of monkey in the middle featuring frisbee that was quite awesome.
I wrote a sleepy entry to you all and then I went to get ready for my night at the Volksbühne.
Here's the thing about the Volksbühne:
all theatre, in the end is about experience. It is a slice of your life - as anything is - but in some ways you feel more in control in a museum, ti is a way of sharing your experience without fully losing yourself. But theatre is an experience that requires a sort of risk. I have been formulating a theory about this that I need to work on a bit more before I post. It'll show up here soon, it needs some mulling over, ja.
The Volksbühne though understands this I feel better than any other theatre ive been to. The second you enter the theate your experience begins. The second you enter the fucking theatre room your experience is thrust out in front of you. How, you say? Well for one the stage fucking penetrates into the audience. It looks like the cylone rollercoaster was fucking just built on top of a stage. People are seated in those same damn white plastic chairs (seriously, these chairs are everywhere. Chair stores in Berlin must really lack variety). I swear the next pla y I do will have tons of those chairs. A huge projection screen across the cyc, and then another projection screen on a plastered screen by the proscenium stage right. Anyway, heres another thing about the volksbühne. I feel I can write traditional reviews for these other shows, but for the Volksbühne, something different happens. For Castorf I just scribble down his theatrical ideas like a madman.
I feel like the theatre gods have been unnecessarily kind to me. Why, you ask? Because I have the ability to not only witness amazing german renditions of classic shows, but because these classic shows are the same shows I encoutnered in my independent study. It's as if someone in theaterheaven read my project proposal and managed to perfectly integrate this experience.
That being said, and having just seen Endgame, I ahd the privilege to see Frank Castorf do what may now be among my favorite plays and one of the best examples of fucking perfect political theatre: "The Measures Taken". However, the play was coupled with Müller's Mauser und had the collaboration of Meg Stuart...oh Meg, what hast thou done?? (I'll get to that in a moment).
For now, my notes on Castorf: this is a sample of what I scribbled in my notes (4 full pages of rants and laudations and anger)<.
first of all, the show begins. The characters are atop this bizarre platform. It seems to be qutie Brechtian, the characters are basically setting up the action.
Then, this shit happens and I become fucked with for the first time in a while.Or since, you know, last time I fuckin saw Castorf.
Firstly, you hear musicians warming up as you enter, maybe a couple of tubas, a trombone and you think, oh nice...live score. Second, the audience is sparsely seated, a group of foreign speaking people all around me - I believe they hailed from some scandinavian country. They were good accomplices to be around since their enjoyment mimicked mine. Wait, so the theatre is half empty right, oh except both the last rows are fucking full. Full of people dressed for a night of theatre, theyre fairly old, and the first thing I think is, "Wow, maybe these are the patrons of the theatre, they look like the same damn rich elite I see on Broadway,".
I forget about them, as the play has begun and castorfs characters in characterisitc fashion begin arguing. An older man, 3 young men and a woman who I recognize from Berlin Alexanderplatz, they are remarkable actors, for reasons I will go in soon.
So the show begins and the orchestra swellls and then WHAT THE FUCK, the entire back row BOOMS in fucking operatic fashion. OH NO HE DIDNT.
The fucking volksbühne became a brechtian weillian opera house full of these bizarre peoplei n the back row singing to us.
A man with a video camera is filming the actors, their faces become projected on the stage. Oh fuck that, more multimedia crap (sorry I was just my mother for a second) i think, but I dont seem to mind it all that much. Oh fuck but the orchestra and the fucking chorus is singing. And then I think - oh my god, castorf you sonofabitch, you didnt just make the CONTROL CHORUS an ACTUAL CHORUS.
I think I died right then and there. And then he had to go farther, the characters painted their faces different colors, different masks, dont you know? And of course he had to satirize the fact that they were in oriental mukden by having their characters speak in the loudest pitches, over orientalizing the situation. Kitschy bastard.
So, you think Brecht what do you think? Political theatre, check. Epic theatre? Fucking check (did you see the chorus?) what else...ah alienation...
well Castorf, in typical fashion, not one for sublety, uses the camera brilliantly. Firstly, the show is performed for both sides of the stage, since there is a whole other amoutn of seats on the other side, so half the time we see them performing for us, and half the time for them, thats when the video camera comes in, providing all these movie style closeups. Live television, of whats actually also happening. But unlike Hamlets rendition of the Wooster Group (see what i did there) I wasnt angry or bored to tears, Castorf fucking knows how to entertain. And that shit is crucial.
Sorry Im cursing so much, intense theatrical experiences do that to me, ah well.
So yeah, back to alienation. What does he do with the actors? Oh, they leave the theatre, but the camera follows them, as they go in the lobby, the fouyer, where we were just having drinks. Little by little I see Castorf grabbing the seams of my theatrical conventions and pulling them off me as if they were old umbilical chords I didn't even know I had. With each step Castorf comes closer to me either breaking into tears for happiness or angrily shouting the entire text of "an actor prepares" at the top of my lungs, in english of course.
So the camera then follows them as they come in and out of the theatre, and he pulls tighter and tighter on the chords. When does it snap? when they go outside. out. fucking. side. And go into a bar, and check the croatia turkiye game which is going on, scream at each other, run into people and do people give them the craziest stares..
thats it. alienation is done. Castorf has just killed alienation, by fulfilling these promises he kills them, he fulfills them by killing them. The chorus at this point also makes their way into the theatre, the house, the fouyer, the bathroom? Thank god, no. And then all the time they are singing.
The control chorus of course has its Koryphaios, a beautiful blonde singer who makes such terrifyingly expressive faces as she sings about arbeit und freiheit und revoluzionen.
The play is kind of kept intact. We have the rice, ´we have the merchant, who is enticed by the female character. But it is so ridiuclous so over the top. The seductive revolutionary jacks off the chopsticks and feeds the rice, which is popcorn to the older merchant which is merely the old man wearing a fatsuit. The man turns to speak, he is faraway onstage so we cant see him, only on video, the second he opens his mouth a female opera siger' voice comes on, what? What the fuck? Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
Sigh, I'm nearly breaking out a sweat trying to describe it all, from now on bullet points:
- questioning the coolies -
- do you know the plight of the bourgeoisie
- no
- freedom
- no
- the rights of workers
- no
- bertolt brecht?
- no.
- throughout the play these maoist communist pictures done in stalin soviet realism are projected in the background (at other times we see the face of the conductor/composer conducting, Hans Eisler), interspersed amog their pictures ar the characters, who move every now and then.
- oh fucker made it snow. Like hardcore. So much snow.
- Is that weed i smell? WTF, were the actors just smoking weed in the lobby?
- the closeups are so hollywood, the actors know it and their faces freeze in these moments of agony. Also very passion of joan of arc.
- posting hunger on the walls
- the policeman questions the audience.
- the guns have no blanks, they just make a haunting clicking sound.
at different points: everyone becomes monkeys, everyone starts dancing, the female character starts doing a fake striptease (making as if shes taking off her clothes, but only miming it), the men line up behind her, doing the same, but poorly.
Orchestra rises up from the rafters. Part 1 ends and the maintenance men com ina and for about 10 minutes take it apart. One person leaves.
then mauser starts. mauser sucked.
the characters who were so damn moved before sit around a table and talk, maybe if i understood it it would be interesting, not as bad as the fucking TERRIBLE choreorgaphy of meg stuart and the fucking terrible music.
Bass plays. Again, and again, and fucking again. People look like theyre in pain, they are from all different parts of the globe. Spanish, American, German and two french. We know this because they speak into a microphone. I am angriest at the american, I have a sneaking suspicion she is meg stuart. I think this because this looks like the conceptual crap ive seen in new york avant garde before. I am BORED.
the dancing is basically people looking like theyre in pain, and acting very sad about it, and slowly and badly doing bad things to each other. It looks lazy, and everytime castorfs actors come back it is a happy moment.
I ate all my gummi bears. I was sad. Measures taken was quite possibly the best time ive had in a theatre, mauser ranks among the worst.
but thank you castorf, thank you volksbühne, I'll see you on Wednesday
later, Turkiye won on penalties. We were in Schönberg, I was simultaneously in the gayest neighborhood and one of the most turkish ones. It was madness. People shot fireworks out of guns only 10 feet away from us. Everyone was turkish it seemed, cars could not stop honking people jumped out of cars, it was a beautiful moment. And you could feel the space of the city enter into a dangerous liminality, it was absolute intensity.
We walked along the kudamm, the heart of berlins shopping distrcit. the street was closed, people walked on the street and the sidewalk, no cars. Just red shirts turkish flags, it was an intense moment. Berlin is 40% turkish and I feel all 100% of them were out.
Most surreal moment? The bombed out church that stays lit up on the kudamm surrounded by celebrating Berliners. Red everywhere. I dont know why but something about that moment really stuck with me.
Later on the way home I tried something ive never been able to do, roll my rs.
I succeeded, almost. I'm almost there.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Tschüss!
- J
Friday, June 20, 2008
first week (sleepy)
Can't believe it but I've only been here a week. It seems that another parallel lifetime has at the same time begun here, my world is different and the person I am becoming is not too different persay, only an expression of me that I've never been able to fully express thus....okay....too deep. Moving on.
I'm so tired but I have a long day ahead of me, and I'm gonna try to keep this briefer but I have a feeling that won't be possible.
We begin early after language class as I head over by myself walking down first kastanien alle, torstraße und friedrichstraße. The destination is Deutsches Theater. The show, is Endspiel (Endgame). I was particularly excited because I had just gone over Endgame with Amy, and the discussion as well as the play left me with a burning desire to see it performed. Who cares if it was in german!
I got to the Theater wayy early. The theatre itself is beautiful. I noticed something quite different about the aura of these berlin theatres. They are large, imposing structures, and all have a very distinct aura of their own. In New York City you see a theatre like that and you expect the worst. I know my most engaging theatrical experiences come from going to small downtown off broadway underground theatres. Being around old stuffy rich people and overactive teenage girls from long island while people sing at me is not my idea of art (horrible generalization, I know, but this is the feeling i get from most mainstream theatre, i.e. broadway. Blame it on my mother whose rampant hatred far exceeds my own disgust).
Anyway. The theatres in Berlin are spread all over the place, and their location says a lot about them. The Berliner Ensemble, once the heart of Brecht's greatest works and moments, is now literally 30 feet away from a tourist trap called "Bertolt Brecht's Restaurant" while an advertisement for boat tours in Berlin are only 10 more feet away. The plaza felt very brechtian. It is where I saw my first sleeping homeless person in Berlin, right across from Brecht's simple statue. I put my arm around the statue, and did as I promised to david and took a photograph. I walked aorund abit more. Mitte in this area is very very European, reminding me of the best of florence or paris. Very well put together,almost too touristy. Berlin still has a considerable more amount of grit, and thats why I love it.
The process for buying a ticket was easy enough. I have come up with a pretty exciting process for my "research" whenever I go see a play. I make sure to show up early so I can see all sorts of people arrive. I get a table at the cafe and drink my coffee. The ambience of Deutsches Theater reminded me of Schaubühne. Volksbühne is definitely more out there in terms of its idea, more ridiculous, more avant-garde, more awesome. This is very refined, more refined than Schaubühne but advertising a similar amount of intensity, certainly. The cafe however is ludicrously overpriced. The schaubühne's prices were modest and mild, here however you could feel even a small coffee eat a hole in your wallet.
Side note, the coffee is absolutely horrible. Syrupy, heavy and sort of cloying, like a nasty little sticky thing stuck to your foot. And the milk and cream dont make it any better. Ah well, it's affordable I guess, except at Deutsches Theater. My advice? A small little cafe that has concerts, the owner makes a mean lasagna, affordable too. mmmm
I relaxed in the park as I reread endgame, and drifted off to sleep, beckett does that to me sometimes. Maybe all that talk of nothing. Anyway, I made my way to the theater and saw all sorts of people. Every now and then I think I hear english and perk up, and realize no...more deutsch. Although my deutsch is getting much better. The group of people I see are young people and then very old people and then very smart looking people, I dont know how to describe it - theyre the type of people who you know have read heidegger but dont like to talk about it. Like the antihipster perhaps. Berlin has tons of them. They are all very german and have stern faces and dress tastefully and love to sit in cafes and talk to their friends about all sorts of things. Everything is done very calmly though, except soccer, but that comes later.
Endgame: Directed by Jan Bosse
First of all, Jan Bosse, how dare you get rid of Nagg, Nell, the dog, and anything requiring props! You killed off my two favorite characters before Beckett had a chance to. That was shameful of you, you should be ashamed. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Second of all, I forgive you, because your actors are quite inspiring. And you managed to do something original to a 50 year old play.
Yes. Endgame is officially a 50 year old man. Published in 1958, it seems strange that a play whose job was to put an official end to theatre (but dont all plays really do that, or at least try?) has lasted this long.
The first moment was a moment of sheer brilliance. You enter intpo the absolutely beatufiul and spic and span small theatre, a place where you might have seen mozart sonatas or quaint arias. And you see a plank of wood that raises itself on a rake, oh and a blinding white light pointed straight at you. YOu shield your eyes, but soon you give up, and soon youre staring straight at the white light, like seeing right into a flashlight. The light slowly raises intself, and as it done so you see all the löight in the room fade as well, until BAM, you see two characters, Clov and Hamm, staring at the theatre, and you waiting for the spots in your eyes to clear before you really see them.
First of all, Hamm is wearing a shiny sequined silver suit. Clov is wearing what looks like an orange mumu. Second of all they are standing on a plank of wood that looks like several doors glued together. Third of all, they spend most of the time looking out, this I like.
I lost track of the beginning and sort of dozed off, but towards the end, the actors really began hitting their stride. The actor playing clov has a devastating physical repetoire of body language. From winding himself up as the alarm clock. to faux sitting next to Hamm on an invisble chair, the actor displayed an absolutely excellent sense of himslef and the character. Their relationship was flawless.
The fact that there is no set, and Bosse haves them staring at the stage for long moments means that the play really tries to hammer the idea of the play being about the theatre itself. Some moments are exceptionally effective. Clov taking ham on piggy back so he can see what the wind outside feels like the repetition of phrses over and ove until they lose all sense of meaning (If they had any meaningt to begin with.
Not surprisingly I had the most trouble seeing Beckett, who is a master of word play, but also a master of none-meaning, in german. I just saw two mne on a stage stsaring for most of the first half, which while an interesting concept, just bore me.
All in all, the show hits its points. Not too sure whzat all the choices were, but feel the director was generous to give us an endgame that had a very clear end, after all it was game night.
The bar in the theatre was showing the game on a projectpor and a bunch of people were watching anhd goin crazy as germany vanquished portugal.
In other news I finally met two germans! Actresses studying at a private acting school. They gave me quite na interesting perspective.
They told me that the majority of people who go to these theatres are theatre people und intellectuals ( a class of people who read these plays and follow these directors). The fact that they keep these theatres consistently full tells me, a) lots of actors in berlin b) lots of intellectuals, c) both - I think it's C.
They were interested about new york but had no interest going there and not crazy abbout the united states in general, I wasn't aboiut tpo argue with them, as I think I may like Berlin more than NY myself. Theatre is extremely competitive in Berlin for actors, but in that same way it also has such a strong traditionm that actors are given top notch training.
The acting training is all Stanislavsky and some Adler. Then danc,e stage combat, physical training, all sorts - what surprises me is that isnt too different from an american conservatory, but the work itself is RIDICULOUSLY different. Perhaps this is the fault of the regie (director)
It was quite nice to talk with them, as it gives me more perspective on my project, and two new friends.
So tred, I am falling asleep as I speak to you. I must bid you all, adieu, and youll hear from me probably at the end of this weekend!
Tschuss!
- J
sleepy entry but needed to get somethin down...there will be more soon, I've been thinkin a lot about theatre, and some concrete ideas will soon be introduced.
I'm so tired but I have a long day ahead of me, and I'm gonna try to keep this briefer but I have a feeling that won't be possible.
We begin early after language class as I head over by myself walking down first kastanien alle, torstraße und friedrichstraße. The destination is Deutsches Theater. The show, is Endspiel (Endgame). I was particularly excited because I had just gone over Endgame with Amy, and the discussion as well as the play left me with a burning desire to see it performed. Who cares if it was in german!
I got to the Theater wayy early. The theatre itself is beautiful. I noticed something quite different about the aura of these berlin theatres. They are large, imposing structures, and all have a very distinct aura of their own. In New York City you see a theatre like that and you expect the worst. I know my most engaging theatrical experiences come from going to small downtown off broadway underground theatres. Being around old stuffy rich people and overactive teenage girls from long island while people sing at me is not my idea of art (horrible generalization, I know, but this is the feeling i get from most mainstream theatre, i.e. broadway. Blame it on my mother whose rampant hatred far exceeds my own disgust).
Anyway. The theatres in Berlin are spread all over the place, and their location says a lot about them. The Berliner Ensemble, once the heart of Brecht's greatest works and moments, is now literally 30 feet away from a tourist trap called "Bertolt Brecht's Restaurant" while an advertisement for boat tours in Berlin are only 10 more feet away. The plaza felt very brechtian. It is where I saw my first sleeping homeless person in Berlin, right across from Brecht's simple statue. I put my arm around the statue, and did as I promised to david and took a photograph. I walked aorund abit more. Mitte in this area is very very European, reminding me of the best of florence or paris. Very well put together,almost too touristy. Berlin still has a considerable more amount of grit, and thats why I love it.
The process for buying a ticket was easy enough. I have come up with a pretty exciting process for my "research" whenever I go see a play. I make sure to show up early so I can see all sorts of people arrive. I get a table at the cafe and drink my coffee. The ambience of Deutsches Theater reminded me of Schaubühne. Volksbühne is definitely more out there in terms of its idea, more ridiculous, more avant-garde, more awesome. This is very refined, more refined than Schaubühne but advertising a similar amount of intensity, certainly. The cafe however is ludicrously overpriced. The schaubühne's prices were modest and mild, here however you could feel even a small coffee eat a hole in your wallet.
Side note, the coffee is absolutely horrible. Syrupy, heavy and sort of cloying, like a nasty little sticky thing stuck to your foot. And the milk and cream dont make it any better. Ah well, it's affordable I guess, except at Deutsches Theater. My advice? A small little cafe that has concerts, the owner makes a mean lasagna, affordable too. mmmm
I relaxed in the park as I reread endgame, and drifted off to sleep, beckett does that to me sometimes. Maybe all that talk of nothing. Anyway, I made my way to the theater and saw all sorts of people. Every now and then I think I hear english and perk up, and realize no...more deutsch. Although my deutsch is getting much better. The group of people I see are young people and then very old people and then very smart looking people, I dont know how to describe it - theyre the type of people who you know have read heidegger but dont like to talk about it. Like the antihipster perhaps. Berlin has tons of them. They are all very german and have stern faces and dress tastefully and love to sit in cafes and talk to their friends about all sorts of things. Everything is done very calmly though, except soccer, but that comes later.
Endgame: Directed by Jan Bosse
First of all, Jan Bosse, how dare you get rid of Nagg, Nell, the dog, and anything requiring props! You killed off my two favorite characters before Beckett had a chance to. That was shameful of you, you should be ashamed. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Second of all, I forgive you, because your actors are quite inspiring. And you managed to do something original to a 50 year old play.
Yes. Endgame is officially a 50 year old man. Published in 1958, it seems strange that a play whose job was to put an official end to theatre (but dont all plays really do that, or at least try?) has lasted this long.
The first moment was a moment of sheer brilliance. You enter intpo the absolutely beatufiul and spic and span small theatre, a place where you might have seen mozart sonatas or quaint arias. And you see a plank of wood that raises itself on a rake, oh and a blinding white light pointed straight at you. YOu shield your eyes, but soon you give up, and soon youre staring straight at the white light, like seeing right into a flashlight. The light slowly raises intself, and as it done so you see all the löight in the room fade as well, until BAM, you see two characters, Clov and Hamm, staring at the theatre, and you waiting for the spots in your eyes to clear before you really see them.
First of all, Hamm is wearing a shiny sequined silver suit. Clov is wearing what looks like an orange mumu. Second of all they are standing on a plank of wood that looks like several doors glued together. Third of all, they spend most of the time looking out, this I like.
I lost track of the beginning and sort of dozed off, but towards the end, the actors really began hitting their stride. The actor playing clov has a devastating physical repetoire of body language. From winding himself up as the alarm clock. to faux sitting next to Hamm on an invisble chair, the actor displayed an absolutely excellent sense of himslef and the character. Their relationship was flawless.
The fact that there is no set, and Bosse haves them staring at the stage for long moments means that the play really tries to hammer the idea of the play being about the theatre itself. Some moments are exceptionally effective. Clov taking ham on piggy back so he can see what the wind outside feels like the repetition of phrses over and ove until they lose all sense of meaning (If they had any meaningt to begin with.
Not surprisingly I had the most trouble seeing Beckett, who is a master of word play, but also a master of none-meaning, in german. I just saw two mne on a stage stsaring for most of the first half, which while an interesting concept, just bore me.
All in all, the show hits its points. Not too sure whzat all the choices were, but feel the director was generous to give us an endgame that had a very clear end, after all it was game night.
The bar in the theatre was showing the game on a projectpor and a bunch of people were watching anhd goin crazy as germany vanquished portugal.
In other news I finally met two germans! Actresses studying at a private acting school. They gave me quite na interesting perspective.
They told me that the majority of people who go to these theatres are theatre people und intellectuals ( a class of people who read these plays and follow these directors). The fact that they keep these theatres consistently full tells me, a) lots of actors in berlin b) lots of intellectuals, c) both - I think it's C.
They were interested about new york but had no interest going there and not crazy abbout the united states in general, I wasn't aboiut tpo argue with them, as I think I may like Berlin more than NY myself. Theatre is extremely competitive in Berlin for actors, but in that same way it also has such a strong traditionm that actors are given top notch training.
The acting training is all Stanislavsky and some Adler. Then danc,e stage combat, physical training, all sorts - what surprises me is that isnt too different from an american conservatory, but the work itself is RIDICULOUSLY different. Perhaps this is the fault of the regie (director)
It was quite nice to talk with them, as it gives me more perspective on my project, and two new friends.
So tred, I am falling asleep as I speak to you. I must bid you all, adieu, and youll hear from me probably at the end of this weekend!
Tschuss!
- J
sleepy entry but needed to get somethin down...there will be more soon, I've been thinkin a lot about theatre, and some concrete ideas will soon be introduced.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Chekhov Doused in Water at the Schaubühne
Okay, I've had my Bockwurst mit Brötchen ( a delicious sausage with a bit of mustard and bread on the side) and my Milchkaffee so I think I'm just about ready to begin my next entry.
I've been settling into Berlin finally, the thrill being still a thrill but also the fact that hey, I'm living here for nearly a month, and in a country you dont't know in a language you don't speak in a flat by yourself, well that's a long time. Thankfully my first worries are gone - my biggest fear, an english speaker stranded in a country full of people who I don't know, lonely days walking by myself, well that didn't happen thank god, in place I've met many interesting people, most of them travelers, and have been able to thankfully share my experiences with these people and vice versa.
Yesterday I returned to the Schaubühne to see Falk Richter's version (which he also translated) of the Seagull. I've been thinking a lot about the grant recently, trying to see what I can make into my proejct, figure out how best to conduct my research. I've been far too intimidated to go and interview people right after shows - and I also feel in a way that I'm not ready for that just yet. I am at a stage where I myself am being introduced to such new and different things it seems the experience itself is rich enough. Just seeing how people work, how the theatres work, how people behave as they wait in line, who the audience members are (lots of young people, old people all sorts really, but lots of young people) what they're wearing what they're reading, what drinks they're having - when you dont have anything else to do all these details become as rich as the show you are about to see in an hour. You also feel self-conscious, as if you take part in these ceremonies in some different way, some other behavior that you have learnt from going to plays in the US for so much time.
I was lucky enough for 8 euros to get a front row center seat. Actually literally almost ON the stage. That was a far cry from my first seat in Hedda, which was the last row in the middle.
Chekhov, the Seagull (dir. Falk Richter)
First the set. Now if there's one things germans know, it is how to choose a design team. Katrin Hoffkan manages to turn Chekhov's innocuous country house backyards into what looks to be a floor and walls made out of ping pong tables. It manages to create both an abstract world to Chekhov that evokes the games between characters as a game. It becomes especially effective when Richter stages the actors far apart, creating the illusion of two players. The choice of having large scenic walls on each side also helps take us from the realism of the situation and puts us squarely in the playing field, so to speak. The stage spills out a bit into a small fouyer in the center (incidentally where I was seated), where two lawnchairs (incidentally the same from berlin alexanderplatz, and incidentally at one point they were always thrown around. I guessed that would happen since they looked quite billig (cheap) I swear from now on whenever I see those innocuous white chairs I will assume that at some point they will be tossed unceremoniously somehwere on stage in a moment of divine tension)
The other aspect of the stage that warrants merit is the white structure that plays at once the role of the backyard stage, Kostya's studio and the inside of the house. The lights were able to really play with both the offgreen ping pong set and the white structure which for every act break would move towards the audience (something apparently the schaubühne loves to do, rotate or move around sets).
Lastly a large white screen lies behind everything, projecting at different times, clouds, the sky, static, water, but nothing too distracting, working as a setpiece rather than (as I sometimes feel in certain Wooster group productions) a costar.
I came up with a little ingenious plan for the play - since Chekhov ranks among my favorite playwrights and his language is so devilishly easy to mangle in overwrought naturalism (thank you stanislavsky) I really wanted to make sure I grasped more of what the characters were saying. Thankfully because of the german lessons I was able to catch key words and phrases and follow along with my english buch, it was a great operation and the 2 hours flew by as I knew exactly what was going on, and loving it.
Now, for the play! First of all, let me say I was worried for thsi Chekhov piece. I don't know why but it seems that people leave such respect for Chekhov that his pieces feel almost like funeral ceremonies. Dread is so conspicuous and so it seems that along with Ibsen you get the really unfair stigma that naturalism is boring, miserable and unncecessarily intellectual.
Thankfully Richter does away with that, offering characters that have quite a bit of what Lecoq would call 'the ridiculous', without compromising their status as human beings. In many ways I would also called this Chekhov 'spelled out', the characters aren't buried under layers of measured pathos, we have the archetypes that Chekhov is sneakily using (or it seems so in such nuanced crap that passes for theatre nowadays) really just splattered onto the ping pong table set, and I for one couldn't be happier. Masha (Jule Böwe) is now a cokehead, miserable looking, young but looks much older. Konstantin (or Kostya as he is called through the entire production) is gallant, handsome and a bit vain, a tortured artist of course, but more than that, a very confused individual. The choice of Trigorin was to cast someone who I first had my doubts about, Andre Jung first comes in as a complete and utter drunk, saying little. But soon, his character turns into the slimy rich faux thinker that Trigorin is. In Jung's depiction you see a patheticism along with a sort of veiled misogyny that comes from someone who will never be better than Turgenev. The doctor, Dorn is also quite well cast in the measured but intense personage of Sylvester Groth - Dorn in my opinion is Chekhov's voice, someone who has compassion for the Symbolists - Chekhov himself was a fan of Maeterlinck and would oft ask the Moscow theatre to put on his producitons instead of the usual traditional fare.
Nina, playted by Yvon Jansen, gave us what I expected - Chekhov's pretty but uninteresting female protagonists that people always seem to fal for.
The standout performance by far has to be Sylvana Krappatsch in the role of Arkadina. Looking like a less exotic Isabella Rosselini with her hair done way up and in tight designer jogging sweatpants, she is the very figure of Chekhov of course projected into our views. Stanislavsky would throw her out of the theatre immediately. Her performance is the very idea of overacting, but the way in which she allows that overacted persona into her character is something quite impressive. She repeats words over and over, delighting over the sound her voice makes, she makes these large expressive faces, as if all the years of acting have blurred the person she is and the person she performs as. She was, to put it more bluntly, emminently watchable, the very essence of what makes a theatircal character.
I must say I enjoyed Richters production more than Ostermeiers Hedda Gabler, there was a sort of unhinged character to the show that left the unexpected in the room. Ostermeier's Hedda Gabler though more polished, gave me the feeling of something staler, perhaps more aesthetically gripping and more nuanced, but in the end, not as fun.
Richter takes the fact that the Seagull is a comedy (Chekhov called it so, and only named one of his major plays a 'drama') and goes all the way, really finding the patheticism in Chekhov's characters and taking it overboard.
If anything Richter anticipates the difficulties of chekhov today, what was pathetic then, isnt enough now - people have become all about their performances, and the misery that the characters evoke is grasped and exaggerated. There is a desire for exagerration that rather than stifle Chekhov allows the ability for compassion to be stretched and forces the audience in a moment to associate with these people on a ping pong stage, even for just a second. Most of the time though, you're just cracking up.
It seems as if Richter, raised in a newer generation, has grown up with just as much 3 stooges as Goethe, just as much rock and roll as Shakespeare. Slapstick abounds. A recurring theme in the play is people getting doused in buckets of water. I'm not kidding this happens about 5 times in the show. Even in Act 4 when the darkest part of the play, perhaps any Chekhov play makes its way, Richter doesnt hesitate to douse Arkadina in water.
The best scene in my opinion, is what Richter did with the beginning of act 2 where Arkadina arrogantly states how much more attractive she is than Masha who is a mess. Though Richter took out the Maupassant quotation, as he has removed most references, for more contemporary ones, tzhe characters read asex manual instead of Maupassant, Geneva turns into Bangkok, it seems that everything that is exotic is reexoticized everything that is subtle is plastered. And so the competition reaches such a point that Arkadina demonstrates her superiority by standing on her head, challenging Masha to do the same. Masha is an absolute failure and continues trying, only pulling of the first step, and looking in a yoga position as Arkadina proceeds to break down. Her facial muscles contort, she stays still then moves fast then still again, slams on the door, makes faces, so many faces, making her face into nearly a mask with her mouth held wide open. It was a marvelous demonstration of acting, at the same time that it shows a mother's madness, and at the same time paralleling a similar breakdown her son has in the beginning of act 1- that moment also notable, where he criticizes his mother, was so technically impressive that it won a round of applause.
My only criticism is the end. Richter eschews the lotto game, which really throws away such a necessary 'boring' aspect to his charactzer's lives, and then proceeds to let Kostya kill himself right after the conversation with Nina. For me, a waste, since it unceremoniously presents the death of the hero in front of us, without any of the irony and tension of the doctor seeing the body and proceeding to lie to the mother. A small criticism for what is I believe, Chekhov done one of the few ways I believe he still can be done.
The play itself is remarkable - he flirts with Symbolism while providing us with parody and completely massacres the old theatre guard, as long as those writers who turn their craft into a job. Konstantins reclamations for a new form may refer to symbolism, but the true craft in Chekhov is all in form. The way that the plays are constructed resist tradition - Chekhov begins with the Seagull, probably his most plot-driven play, but continues onward with plays that become less and less about plot, and more about character and form. Perhaps it also has to do with a change in vision - Trigorin's declamations that he is not a landscape painter that he cant merely live in nature, feel resistant to Chekhov's new landscape, a place in the country where people merely live out their problems without reaching towards the glory of moral settings, or intense action....
of course what to do now with a play that is mostly about symbolism and the need for new forms when about 100 new forms followed, and of course art has become about repeating yourself as much as it has become about creating.
If anything, we can only rescue Chekhov by pushing his patheticism to those mercantile extremes, by making his characters into products - already what they have become in our eyes, and using that patheticism, until we reach the breaking point, between actor/product and actor/human. Richters play was really all about the media - the variety of mediums that we use to distract ourselves and in return give ourselves meaning. The use of performance (Arkadina), the sanctity of art (konstantin), love (trigorin nina masha konstantin), richter turns the engraved medal that nina gives to trigorin into a photo - their relationship is after all, only about images. Her image of his fame, and his image of her youthfullness.
What does the seagull give us? Flying for one, freedom, water - there is however a symbolist element to that concept that may have escaped our generaiton. A seagull will always be seagull and never be a seagull. That is to say, what we call a seagull is already a symbol. Now when we go to the beach we will think of Chekhov, but will we do that vice versa?
Perhaps it is my postmodern mindset but when I see plays from this period, I always see the strangest similarities. A wild duck and a seagull. Both get shot or shot at. Both are symbols of weak female characters. Both inevitably sacrifice themselves - and what are we left with? In Ibsen we are left with a favor to continue our lives, no matter what charades they may be. In Chekhov we are given the stern words of the doctor. The bodies must be hidden, the family must go back to the city, and live must continu,e but not in the country.
Country houses in a city like Berlin or New York, belong only to Chekhov and Ibsen now though - we are awash in a world the Symbolist's couldn't have imagined. A world where stagnation takes the form of hyperreality, and rather than no movement, as Maeterlinck or Craig may have wanted it is the stillness of endless hyperspeed, the silence of noise.
And what about theatre then? Actors must now fight against their representations rather than represent them. The stage is the combat zone. Buckets of water, I must say, sort of also do the trick.
This was a bit more philosophical of an entry, but then again, these are the questions I should really be parsing with - my 'research' if you will.
Tschüss!
- J
I've been settling into Berlin finally, the thrill being still a thrill but also the fact that hey, I'm living here for nearly a month, and in a country you dont't know in a language you don't speak in a flat by yourself, well that's a long time. Thankfully my first worries are gone - my biggest fear, an english speaker stranded in a country full of people who I don't know, lonely days walking by myself, well that didn't happen thank god, in place I've met many interesting people, most of them travelers, and have been able to thankfully share my experiences with these people and vice versa.
Yesterday I returned to the Schaubühne to see Falk Richter's version (which he also translated) of the Seagull. I've been thinking a lot about the grant recently, trying to see what I can make into my proejct, figure out how best to conduct my research. I've been far too intimidated to go and interview people right after shows - and I also feel in a way that I'm not ready for that just yet. I am at a stage where I myself am being introduced to such new and different things it seems the experience itself is rich enough. Just seeing how people work, how the theatres work, how people behave as they wait in line, who the audience members are (lots of young people, old people all sorts really, but lots of young people) what they're wearing what they're reading, what drinks they're having - when you dont have anything else to do all these details become as rich as the show you are about to see in an hour. You also feel self-conscious, as if you take part in these ceremonies in some different way, some other behavior that you have learnt from going to plays in the US for so much time.
I was lucky enough for 8 euros to get a front row center seat. Actually literally almost ON the stage. That was a far cry from my first seat in Hedda, which was the last row in the middle.
Chekhov, the Seagull (dir. Falk Richter)
First the set. Now if there's one things germans know, it is how to choose a design team. Katrin Hoffkan manages to turn Chekhov's innocuous country house backyards into what looks to be a floor and walls made out of ping pong tables. It manages to create both an abstract world to Chekhov that evokes the games between characters as a game. It becomes especially effective when Richter stages the actors far apart, creating the illusion of two players. The choice of having large scenic walls on each side also helps take us from the realism of the situation and puts us squarely in the playing field, so to speak. The stage spills out a bit into a small fouyer in the center (incidentally where I was seated), where two lawnchairs (incidentally the same from berlin alexanderplatz, and incidentally at one point they were always thrown around. I guessed that would happen since they looked quite billig (cheap) I swear from now on whenever I see those innocuous white chairs I will assume that at some point they will be tossed unceremoniously somehwere on stage in a moment of divine tension)
The other aspect of the stage that warrants merit is the white structure that plays at once the role of the backyard stage, Kostya's studio and the inside of the house. The lights were able to really play with both the offgreen ping pong set and the white structure which for every act break would move towards the audience (something apparently the schaubühne loves to do, rotate or move around sets).
Lastly a large white screen lies behind everything, projecting at different times, clouds, the sky, static, water, but nothing too distracting, working as a setpiece rather than (as I sometimes feel in certain Wooster group productions) a costar.
I came up with a little ingenious plan for the play - since Chekhov ranks among my favorite playwrights and his language is so devilishly easy to mangle in overwrought naturalism (thank you stanislavsky) I really wanted to make sure I grasped more of what the characters were saying. Thankfully because of the german lessons I was able to catch key words and phrases and follow along with my english buch, it was a great operation and the 2 hours flew by as I knew exactly what was going on, and loving it.
Now, for the play! First of all, let me say I was worried for thsi Chekhov piece. I don't know why but it seems that people leave such respect for Chekhov that his pieces feel almost like funeral ceremonies. Dread is so conspicuous and so it seems that along with Ibsen you get the really unfair stigma that naturalism is boring, miserable and unncecessarily intellectual.
Thankfully Richter does away with that, offering characters that have quite a bit of what Lecoq would call 'the ridiculous', without compromising their status as human beings. In many ways I would also called this Chekhov 'spelled out', the characters aren't buried under layers of measured pathos, we have the archetypes that Chekhov is sneakily using (or it seems so in such nuanced crap that passes for theatre nowadays) really just splattered onto the ping pong table set, and I for one couldn't be happier. Masha (Jule Böwe) is now a cokehead, miserable looking, young but looks much older. Konstantin (or Kostya as he is called through the entire production) is gallant, handsome and a bit vain, a tortured artist of course, but more than that, a very confused individual. The choice of Trigorin was to cast someone who I first had my doubts about, Andre Jung first comes in as a complete and utter drunk, saying little. But soon, his character turns into the slimy rich faux thinker that Trigorin is. In Jung's depiction you see a patheticism along with a sort of veiled misogyny that comes from someone who will never be better than Turgenev. The doctor, Dorn is also quite well cast in the measured but intense personage of Sylvester Groth - Dorn in my opinion is Chekhov's voice, someone who has compassion for the Symbolists - Chekhov himself was a fan of Maeterlinck and would oft ask the Moscow theatre to put on his producitons instead of the usual traditional fare.
Nina, playted by Yvon Jansen, gave us what I expected - Chekhov's pretty but uninteresting female protagonists that people always seem to fal for.
The standout performance by far has to be Sylvana Krappatsch in the role of Arkadina. Looking like a less exotic Isabella Rosselini with her hair done way up and in tight designer jogging sweatpants, she is the very figure of Chekhov of course projected into our views. Stanislavsky would throw her out of the theatre immediately. Her performance is the very idea of overacting, but the way in which she allows that overacted persona into her character is something quite impressive. She repeats words over and over, delighting over the sound her voice makes, she makes these large expressive faces, as if all the years of acting have blurred the person she is and the person she performs as. She was, to put it more bluntly, emminently watchable, the very essence of what makes a theatircal character.
I must say I enjoyed Richters production more than Ostermeiers Hedda Gabler, there was a sort of unhinged character to the show that left the unexpected in the room. Ostermeier's Hedda Gabler though more polished, gave me the feeling of something staler, perhaps more aesthetically gripping and more nuanced, but in the end, not as fun.
Richter takes the fact that the Seagull is a comedy (Chekhov called it so, and only named one of his major plays a 'drama') and goes all the way, really finding the patheticism in Chekhov's characters and taking it overboard.
If anything Richter anticipates the difficulties of chekhov today, what was pathetic then, isnt enough now - people have become all about their performances, and the misery that the characters evoke is grasped and exaggerated. There is a desire for exagerration that rather than stifle Chekhov allows the ability for compassion to be stretched and forces the audience in a moment to associate with these people on a ping pong stage, even for just a second. Most of the time though, you're just cracking up.
It seems as if Richter, raised in a newer generation, has grown up with just as much 3 stooges as Goethe, just as much rock and roll as Shakespeare. Slapstick abounds. A recurring theme in the play is people getting doused in buckets of water. I'm not kidding this happens about 5 times in the show. Even in Act 4 when the darkest part of the play, perhaps any Chekhov play makes its way, Richter doesnt hesitate to douse Arkadina in water.
The best scene in my opinion, is what Richter did with the beginning of act 2 where Arkadina arrogantly states how much more attractive she is than Masha who is a mess. Though Richter took out the Maupassant quotation, as he has removed most references, for more contemporary ones, tzhe characters read asex manual instead of Maupassant, Geneva turns into Bangkok, it seems that everything that is exotic is reexoticized everything that is subtle is plastered. And so the competition reaches such a point that Arkadina demonstrates her superiority by standing on her head, challenging Masha to do the same. Masha is an absolute failure and continues trying, only pulling of the first step, and looking in a yoga position as Arkadina proceeds to break down. Her facial muscles contort, she stays still then moves fast then still again, slams on the door, makes faces, so many faces, making her face into nearly a mask with her mouth held wide open. It was a marvelous demonstration of acting, at the same time that it shows a mother's madness, and at the same time paralleling a similar breakdown her son has in the beginning of act 1- that moment also notable, where he criticizes his mother, was so technically impressive that it won a round of applause.
My only criticism is the end. Richter eschews the lotto game, which really throws away such a necessary 'boring' aspect to his charactzer's lives, and then proceeds to let Kostya kill himself right after the conversation with Nina. For me, a waste, since it unceremoniously presents the death of the hero in front of us, without any of the irony and tension of the doctor seeing the body and proceeding to lie to the mother. A small criticism for what is I believe, Chekhov done one of the few ways I believe he still can be done.
The play itself is remarkable - he flirts with Symbolism while providing us with parody and completely massacres the old theatre guard, as long as those writers who turn their craft into a job. Konstantins reclamations for a new form may refer to symbolism, but the true craft in Chekhov is all in form. The way that the plays are constructed resist tradition - Chekhov begins with the Seagull, probably his most plot-driven play, but continues onward with plays that become less and less about plot, and more about character and form. Perhaps it also has to do with a change in vision - Trigorin's declamations that he is not a landscape painter that he cant merely live in nature, feel resistant to Chekhov's new landscape, a place in the country where people merely live out their problems without reaching towards the glory of moral settings, or intense action....
of course what to do now with a play that is mostly about symbolism and the need for new forms when about 100 new forms followed, and of course art has become about repeating yourself as much as it has become about creating.
If anything, we can only rescue Chekhov by pushing his patheticism to those mercantile extremes, by making his characters into products - already what they have become in our eyes, and using that patheticism, until we reach the breaking point, between actor/product and actor/human. Richters play was really all about the media - the variety of mediums that we use to distract ourselves and in return give ourselves meaning. The use of performance (Arkadina), the sanctity of art (konstantin), love (trigorin nina masha konstantin), richter turns the engraved medal that nina gives to trigorin into a photo - their relationship is after all, only about images. Her image of his fame, and his image of her youthfullness.
What does the seagull give us? Flying for one, freedom, water - there is however a symbolist element to that concept that may have escaped our generaiton. A seagull will always be seagull and never be a seagull. That is to say, what we call a seagull is already a symbol. Now when we go to the beach we will think of Chekhov, but will we do that vice versa?
Perhaps it is my postmodern mindset but when I see plays from this period, I always see the strangest similarities. A wild duck and a seagull. Both get shot or shot at. Both are symbols of weak female characters. Both inevitably sacrifice themselves - and what are we left with? In Ibsen we are left with a favor to continue our lives, no matter what charades they may be. In Chekhov we are given the stern words of the doctor. The bodies must be hidden, the family must go back to the city, and live must continu,e but not in the country.
Country houses in a city like Berlin or New York, belong only to Chekhov and Ibsen now though - we are awash in a world the Symbolist's couldn't have imagined. A world where stagnation takes the form of hyperreality, and rather than no movement, as Maeterlinck or Craig may have wanted it is the stillness of endless hyperspeed, the silence of noise.
And what about theatre then? Actors must now fight against their representations rather than represent them. The stage is the combat zone. Buckets of water, I must say, sort of also do the trick.
This was a bit more philosophical of an entry, but then again, these are the questions I should really be parsing with - my 'research' if you will.
Tschüss!
- J
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The First Bratwurst
Today was the second day of GLS - the language school my parents were so kind to give me money for while I was here. I find that the seeds of what this project "is" are somehow getting slowly sown as I write these updates. I am preparing for my theaterfest which will be nearly 12 straight productions one day after the other.
GLS is a nice break from all of that, and really gets me into german. The professors speak nearly no english and sort of talk at you and you have to figure out real quick what theyre telling you and answer those questions. Rosetta actually helped me skip about drei wochen (3 weeks) of classes, so I might even be able to upgrade to A2. My classmates are all roughly my age and from all over the world. Two girls are from England, a 20 year old pilot from Dubai, a Spanish flight attendant, a belgian student, and theyre all quite fun and a good group to go to class with. Making friends in Berlin is far easier than I thought. That evening me and my new friend Becky decided to catch the epic Germany Austria game, we tried a few venues but they were all packed with fervent soccer fans. Finally we found a place in Mauerpark (spelling it wrong probably) which is the old site of the wall that has now become a very pretty park, though I always feel such a strong energy around the area where the wall usedto stand. Berlin can be a very powerful place.
the highlight of the match was the bratwurst.
That is to say, the match was borrrrrring. Germany played terribly but thankfully got away with an amazing free kick by michael ballack. The place was packed though and the screams were epic when the goal was scored.
I had my first Bratwurst - delicious german fried sausage, it was lukewarm on the inside but extremely filling, on the side i had pommes frittes and a hefeweissen (wheat beer) to wash it all down. What a delight. A few other GLS friends joined us, and then me and the pilot from Dubai, Aynman went back to GLS for what is calle stammtisch. Basically everyone gets together and socializes at the center until 23;30 or so at which point they move to this hip cafe in Mitte called kaffee burger until, Im not kidding you, four or five in the morning. And remember this is a monday.
I met many different people at the gathering, let me see - Maria a swiss girl who had lived a year or so in Riverdale (random I know), then a Kansan business school student in South Carolina, a bunch of Colorodeans from the Air Force School - I became good friends with a crazy Swedish girl named Sofia (though she made us call her So-fila) and a Danish girl who had spent quite some time in London. We discussed my love of Kierkegaard and Sofila's absolute disdain from Strindberg, not because of his work or his misogyny, she didnt seem to have a problem with that, rather all these people who claim to read Strindberg and dont understand anything. Marie meanwhile expounded on her love of Beck and her time spent in nearly 20 countries, including a brief year in Luxembourg (her parents work for the EU). Her commentary on Luxembourg? 'Everything is small'.
Who else, Leo, a brazilian who Maria claimed spoke like an argentine, which was a lie, but was quite charming and was about to begin a masters in history of ideas in Humboldt and had to get up to a level C2 (which is native speaker level) in about a year. A spanish girl who was about to begin her doctorate in linguistics in England in a matter of months. Another one whose only memory I can recall now is a fan that she would wave around and walk around with provocatively. A surreal night indeed, but a lovely one. I mostly talked with my scandinavian friends, while the played california dreaming, it's raining men, shout, dancing queen, choice 80s hits and even early 90s hip hop. Eclectic fare indeed.
The amount of people was almost overwhelming, I soaked it all in, going from place to place, I spoke about 4 languages in constant rotation, my broken french with the swiss, my spanish with all the latinamericans and brazilians and spaniards, my english with most europeans, and my deutsch with the rest. It was exhilarating and the conversations and dancing and partying went on until about 430 when I was walking home, wondering where the night went, certainly not expecting to be getting to know my neighborhood at 53 am on a tuesday. Old people in carts went from house to house, dropping letters.
Sun rises early in berlin. At 4 it is already light out. It is one of my favorite times to be in a city. Everything exists held up in time it seems, before the city breathes, you can see its structures purely as structures, its facades without th emovement, the purposes behind them. it is surreal as no cars are in the street and you only find every now and then young people walking back as well, probably having similar nights as you. I approach my street and it seems different in this light. These are the moments I came for, these moments when one really takes the city personally, where one starts to bond with it not merely in the haze of tourism but the individual finding his way. What made me happiest about the monday was discovering the varieties of experiences that brought these individuals to berlin, and though they came as individuals, as I did, they also found friends and built experiences. As I find myself doing the same, I also find myself really looking forward to my personal mission here - I feel so drawn to this place, as if I want to return for longer, as if I want to learn and speak the language and go into a theatre and understand every word. So much so that I may be adding german to my schedule next year.
In other news I bought my (very) expensive tickets to Avignon today, I have Bartis, Ostermeier's hamlet and thsi other french director that seemed highly freoand I am nearly up to my theatrebudget but not quite. The theatre in berlin thankfully is fährpreis (but I wouldnt call it billig since it is high quality, not to be confused, eh).
The next step will be my theaterfest, and meeting germans, which will requirea bit more time an d abit more deutsch. But so far this experience has been invaluable. I am keeping a theatre log to keep the shows from meshing into one. I feel i have gotten so much from going to the theatre, I will have plenty to think about, and plenty to start working on.
I havent written anything creative yet, that comes in the time after the storm. I am figuring after theaterfest. The ideas are festering in my head. I am trying to thin k of what content this project i have will contain. I want to crystallize for people exactly what about the theatre I am looking at is so essential, and why it is missing in the states - i want to think about why the theatre I am seeing makes me feel the way I do. And what this theatre tells me about Berlin -
for now, I am reclaiming myself as an individual in a city I am just beginning to know but already learning to love.
Tschüss!
- J
p.s. go roumania!!
GLS is a nice break from all of that, and really gets me into german. The professors speak nearly no english and sort of talk at you and you have to figure out real quick what theyre telling you and answer those questions. Rosetta actually helped me skip about drei wochen (3 weeks) of classes, so I might even be able to upgrade to A2. My classmates are all roughly my age and from all over the world. Two girls are from England, a 20 year old pilot from Dubai, a Spanish flight attendant, a belgian student, and theyre all quite fun and a good group to go to class with. Making friends in Berlin is far easier than I thought. That evening me and my new friend Becky decided to catch the epic Germany Austria game, we tried a few venues but they were all packed with fervent soccer fans. Finally we found a place in Mauerpark (spelling it wrong probably) which is the old site of the wall that has now become a very pretty park, though I always feel such a strong energy around the area where the wall usedto stand. Berlin can be a very powerful place.
the highlight of the match was the bratwurst.
That is to say, the match was borrrrrring. Germany played terribly but thankfully got away with an amazing free kick by michael ballack. The place was packed though and the screams were epic when the goal was scored.
I had my first Bratwurst - delicious german fried sausage, it was lukewarm on the inside but extremely filling, on the side i had pommes frittes and a hefeweissen (wheat beer) to wash it all down. What a delight. A few other GLS friends joined us, and then me and the pilot from Dubai, Aynman went back to GLS for what is calle stammtisch. Basically everyone gets together and socializes at the center until 23;30 or so at which point they move to this hip cafe in Mitte called kaffee burger until, Im not kidding you, four or five in the morning. And remember this is a monday.
I met many different people at the gathering, let me see - Maria a swiss girl who had lived a year or so in Riverdale (random I know), then a Kansan business school student in South Carolina, a bunch of Colorodeans from the Air Force School - I became good friends with a crazy Swedish girl named Sofia (though she made us call her So-fila) and a Danish girl who had spent quite some time in London. We discussed my love of Kierkegaard and Sofila's absolute disdain from Strindberg, not because of his work or his misogyny, she didnt seem to have a problem with that, rather all these people who claim to read Strindberg and dont understand anything. Marie meanwhile expounded on her love of Beck and her time spent in nearly 20 countries, including a brief year in Luxembourg (her parents work for the EU). Her commentary on Luxembourg? 'Everything is small'.
Who else, Leo, a brazilian who Maria claimed spoke like an argentine, which was a lie, but was quite charming and was about to begin a masters in history of ideas in Humboldt and had to get up to a level C2 (which is native speaker level) in about a year. A spanish girl who was about to begin her doctorate in linguistics in England in a matter of months. Another one whose only memory I can recall now is a fan that she would wave around and walk around with provocatively. A surreal night indeed, but a lovely one. I mostly talked with my scandinavian friends, while the played california dreaming, it's raining men, shout, dancing queen, choice 80s hits and even early 90s hip hop. Eclectic fare indeed.
The amount of people was almost overwhelming, I soaked it all in, going from place to place, I spoke about 4 languages in constant rotation, my broken french with the swiss, my spanish with all the latinamericans and brazilians and spaniards, my english with most europeans, and my deutsch with the rest. It was exhilarating and the conversations and dancing and partying went on until about 430 when I was walking home, wondering where the night went, certainly not expecting to be getting to know my neighborhood at 53 am on a tuesday. Old people in carts went from house to house, dropping letters.
Sun rises early in berlin. At 4 it is already light out. It is one of my favorite times to be in a city. Everything exists held up in time it seems, before the city breathes, you can see its structures purely as structures, its facades without th emovement, the purposes behind them. it is surreal as no cars are in the street and you only find every now and then young people walking back as well, probably having similar nights as you. I approach my street and it seems different in this light. These are the moments I came for, these moments when one really takes the city personally, where one starts to bond with it not merely in the haze of tourism but the individual finding his way. What made me happiest about the monday was discovering the varieties of experiences that brought these individuals to berlin, and though they came as individuals, as I did, they also found friends and built experiences. As I find myself doing the same, I also find myself really looking forward to my personal mission here - I feel so drawn to this place, as if I want to return for longer, as if I want to learn and speak the language and go into a theatre and understand every word. So much so that I may be adding german to my schedule next year.
In other news I bought my (very) expensive tickets to Avignon today, I have Bartis, Ostermeier's hamlet and thsi other french director that seemed highly freoand I am nearly up to my theatrebudget but not quite. The theatre in berlin thankfully is fährpreis (but I wouldnt call it billig since it is high quality, not to be confused, eh).
The next step will be my theaterfest, and meeting germans, which will requirea bit more time an d abit more deutsch. But so far this experience has been invaluable. I am keeping a theatre log to keep the shows from meshing into one. I feel i have gotten so much from going to the theatre, I will have plenty to think about, and plenty to start working on.
I havent written anything creative yet, that comes in the time after the storm. I am figuring after theaterfest. The ideas are festering in my head. I am trying to thin k of what content this project i have will contain. I want to crystallize for people exactly what about the theatre I am looking at is so essential, and why it is missing in the states - i want to think about why the theatre I am seeing makes me feel the way I do. And what this theatre tells me about Berlin -
for now, I am reclaiming myself as an individual in a city I am just beginning to know but already learning to love.
Tschüss!
- J
p.s. go roumania!!
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