First, a few words on the Volksbühne (from my notes): a lingering gray mass of expressionistic concrete. The white tiles projected and balanced atop the fouyer like it was Hollywood or something. It is truly mythical the way it stands alone on Rosa Luxemburg Platz. The statue that bears its logo right in front of it, the symbol of working man, the revolution, a wheel with legs. Movement. Inside you feel a hint of gothic nostalgia. It is not glossy and pervasive, or done up in fake glamour and a reminder of how much money youre paying, as i feel in most Broadway theatres. It is not red bright carpets and chandeliers and bright shiny wood and aching white columns and all fortune and flourescence. No, not at all. The reds are burgundy instead and the wood is old and smelly. The room has a delightful heaviness to it. And then the stage, something out of BAM something out of the old movie theatres, something totally apart, a place where youd expect old Shakespeare retreads back in the states. But oh no! Not in the least! Large epic, but welcoming. I felt more at home here than in the more west german chicer Schaubühne. I felt comofrtable in my felt seat as the show began. No curtains, just a man running onstage.#
Berlin Alexanderplatz: Julian, meet Frank Castorf. German madman, genius? Probably? Original? Painfully so. Out of his mind? Probably. Amazing? What do you think... from my notes, which were a nonstop maze of descriptions and confusion: "I was only 60 or so pages into Döblin's masterwork when I first encountered Castorf. It wouldnt have mattered if I was 0 or 600 since this play has, for better or for worse, forced me to rethink entirely everything I once thought about theatre. Franz Castrof is the equivalent of someone taking out your favoritest toy in the whole wide world, pissing on it, lighting it on fire and then convincing you that now it was more beautiful than ever before. And you buying it. Hook line and sinker.
To take Döblin's masterwork, a mythical account of gritty Weimar Berlin, an essential part of all Berliner's identity and make the setting what seems to be a cheap american-style soviet david lynch in lost highway style motel with NOTHING at all to do with Berlin (except maybe the language) and russian hookers...takes some guts. To make it FIVE HOURS LONG with only ONE 20 minute intermission TWO AND A HALF HOURS IN, takes a madman. To interperse this with 10 minute monologues screamed at an intolerable pitch, a fucking CAR BURSTING OUT OF A FUCKING HOUSE and then just fucking driving around for the hell of it, and then at some point change its tire because oh it just ran over a fucking table and actually broke a tire. To bring a stove onstage douse it in kerosene light it on fire and start cooking some franks, and then of course, to throw the stove, enraged onto the floor, onto the wet floor because the stage is wet and incredibly slippery the actors spend all their time slippign on it, to then have a half crazed prostitute character then start groaning and screaming and throwing these sopping wet and at the same time JUST COOKED frankfurters into the audience at willy nily, well it takes a word I dont have yet in my lexicon, maybe it's in german since there are so many goddamned words in that language.
Oh, and I left out the constant amounts of nudity, the breaking of various items, film noir quotations, random spurts of music from the theme music to lost highway to rammstein to big star to the music from underground (just like you mom!) and then a beatuiful rotating set but not like ostermeíers. This set looked cheap on purpose except for the light display that looked like sa^rah holzer had just given up writing words and just decided to make it nice and red, kidn of like an amusement park or an abandoned circus somewhere on teh new jersey strip mall highway. Naked running man, half dressed women in anything from a makeshift housewife costume that reveals absolutely everything to large gawdy fake fur coats, to mens clothes to men naked in womens clothes and hiugh heels to the drinking of about 300 different types of liquor, real of nor real probably 30 packs of ciigarettes, 5 people left during the first half and when i returned agfter intermission half the house was gone. WHAT HAPPENED. WHAT HAVE I JUST WITNESSED, I ask myself, perplexed but endlessly amused so amused i didnt need to pee or fall asleep the entire show) I have come to the conclusion that theatre is now either completely dead and this play a walking disgusting trangressive zombie corpse feeding off of its own excess (thanks Bataille) or a beautifully disgusting newborn baby, spewing shit blood vomit and pissing everywhere...I know it's both. And it's a good place to start."
Needless to say this has been an amazing four days. I am thankful my father offered to pay for German lessons since I am falling in love with this city more and more each day. today Germany Austria and the Euro heats up....
Tschüss!
- J
oh and amy, you were totally right.
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