Thats basically how I would sum up the play I saw last night. Pollesch's "Tod Eines Praktikanten" (death of a trainee or intern, roughly).
I was thinking, based on the title that I would be seeing some pseudo castorf fare. A deconstruction of Miller's classic text, and quite different from Perceval's version.
Well, I was wrong. I went to this show with my french friend, Blandine, who was curious about the theatre at the Volksbühne. I was curious as well, having heard lots about Pollesch. The woman sitting next to me explained that Castorf was thought to be repeating himself, and having seen only 3 castorf plays I can sort of see how that is the case, since his formula is pretty similar for all of them. That being said, I love the formula, so I dont care if he repeats himself. Pollesch was seen as Castorfs way to bringing younger audiences, and it definitely shows. If Castorf is the more traditional avant-garde, Pollesch is the younger protege, establishing himself as more of the ultrareal postmodern type. Rather than take classic texts or masterpieces and massacre them Pollesch chooses concepts, ideas, ways of thinking - yesterday's play was about commercialization, capitalism, and the way that everything has a price.
This was pretty obvious in the absolutely excellent set design of Bert Neumann who gave us these large flats with two sides of tarp, one side had a picture of a typical berlin shop - kastanien allee imbisses or fruit shops, or even a hotel facade. The other side had a price, for the tarps it was 477,51. But everything had a price, even the floor, the dresses of the actresses, the price was scribbled.
The play not only had a video camera, but a microphone and a women next to them following along with the lines. The screen was on the right hand side, and for many times in the show we could not see the actresses except on the camera.
It's really interesting how much the camera plays a role in this theatre, one could almost call this piece 'Flat' theatre, by the amount of flatness within a) the performance b) the use of screens to not just show the charatcers, but also set pieces. The characters themselves, 3 amazingly talented incredibly memorable actresses, a trio that has obviously done these shows many times and probably many shows as well as the trio (I think but I am not sure that these are the famous 3 that Pollesch has worked with since his days at Prater, a small theatre close to and affiliated with the Volksbuhne). The ladies were in somewhat wedding dresses with the prices also affixed in the same font. They had microphones and looked like some bizarre drugged out version of the white supremes. They would speak to the camera not playing necessarily any character and every character. Talking about the play, the designer, Wolfgang Tillman, Angela Merkel, Orlando Bloom, Sigourney Weaver, the Volksbuhne and the price of doing a show here, all sorts of things, without any real narrative thrust. Instead Pollesch alternates between extremely dense theoretical texts lifted from people like Baudrillard, Foucault and Donna Haraway, among others - and these beatuifully quirky, kitschy aesthetic moments that border each one.
The music choices are excellent, he veers from starting us off with somelate Belle and Sebastian in the beginning, to then some very cheesy Baroque music, and then eventually to some ELO and then something out of like a gameshow. I see this in many shows as well, ths use of a common song that keeps showing up, or keeps being looped. It gave the show a hazy quality.
Some of the first moments in the play are some of the best. Pollesch really plays wozh the the idea of Flat, flattened, nothing - when he has the characters try to grab the apples on the flat that are obviously, well....flat, they claw at the paper and cant do it. At a different point they come on with ladders and turn the tarps around so we see more set pieces. Eventually we get what looks like a street.
The ladies also have tatoos on their bodies with the silhouettes of Orlando Bloom with the word "fake" underneath. Angela Merkel with the words "Cool" underneath and an amoeba with the word "love" underneath. Interesting...
The characters veer from struggling in their flat world to returning backstage with their microphones in near whispers, there they are safe, they are not as worried and they can think and rattle off the very very dense text.
This is a play I really wish I knew a bit more german in, since I could get general simple conversations but when they went into really deep stuff my brain would just shut off. Donna Haraway's ideas on Objectivity (all I could grasp) seemed to dominate most of their discourse. And apes too. Having not read Donna Haraway I can't really offer any ideas to what the hell they were talking about.
Oh, there was the same two fucking white chairs in a corner of the stage. They were never used. I'm serious, those chairs are everywhere.
Pollesch seems to want to specialize in moments that seem to be coup de theatres, or places where the theatre reaches a space where it loses control. Examples.-..at the way sets are created are the nmere turning around of these larhge sheets. That really communicates the flat nature of the piece, but thats only the beginning.
There is a large fucking fan that just turns on every now and then literally blowing the characters off the stage. They hold on to themselves and to set pieces to keep from flying off. Books, feathers, dresses, everywhere. Pretty impressive, pretty loud. Not at all like the Big Love fan, I mean a big daddy fan.
The Actresses take turns rebelling against the set, hitting the fake set pieces, or trying to walk through the revolving doors of the fake hotel and just hitting flat wood. Enraged, at times they use the door affixed to one of the flats at other times they just go under the tarp. The fluidity of exits and entrances is also quite fascinating.
I am so excited to get back to williams to start thinking out these theatrical ideas on the stage myself, for now I am just a well, getting full of these creative masters literally doing whatever the fuck they want.
Example. Enraged actresses grab the books which were used to cover up a chalk outline, grab hockey sticks and start chucking the books at each other. Each one takes turns creating a goal by turning their dress upside down and leaning back creating the illusion of a net. Screams, rock, ELO, everything comes together.
The video says reclaiming the streets in some terirble scrawl, as they put books on the chalk outline of a man. That moment stayed with me.
My favorite moment? And mom, youll love this one. They start talking about James Bond and how Orlando Bloom is their best friend and what theyd do if they're millionaires, when the Octopussy (bond film) theme song comes up and they run up to the screen and start dancing on the screen, but so satirically, so faux, and what happens is you see the absolute absurdity of whats on the screen, Every now and then the Bond credits, which are the epitome of chauvinist and sexist fantasy, i.e. women and guns - the bond credits are switched back to shots of the theatre. Craggly, dusty, strong and architectural, a veritable deconstruction of a bond film opening. It was hilarious and beautifully done.
In the end I dont know what to say, I cant provide such a clear theatrical dissection as before a) because I didnt understand it all (and by that I mean I understood VERY little) but also b) because it does such a good job at skewering itself, and make its job to make you think up more questions than answering any for you. And thats as good a night of theatre as any.+
TONIGHT: Cappucetto Rosso. Pollesch again (this is kind of Pollesch week, another show tonight and two more on Sat and Sunday)
Tschüss!
- J
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