Hey! I'm not here anymore. I'm back home, and soon to be in college. So I figured calling it "Julian in Berlin" would sorta be a huge lie.
Here's the new URL
http://enemyofthestage.blogspot.com
See you there!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Dresssssssden
The train arrived and I got to Dresden. I heard varied things from, "oh its boring and strange and depressing," to it's the "Florence of Germany" to " It's sort of strange but it's worth a trip". I got in to Dresden not knowing what to expect. All the Germans I met spoke about it with great respect and awe, but the others, not so much.
Dresden, as you all know, was completely leveled during the war. It was one of the most devastating bombings of the War and thousands upon thousands of people died and numerous treasures destroyed. Since then, a massive rebuilding project was underway, building it brick by brick by brick, and now you really couldn't even tell there was one bomb let alone thousands.
That gives the city a sort of eerie feel about it, since it was rebuilt, for the most part, just like it was before. It feels like a brand new old city, kind of because it IS new. A sort of darker, more gothic epcot. I walked past a vast friendly shopping district full of people and sunlight and brand names, until I got to the Rathaus (town hall) and took a view of the city. It was quite grand, and pretty beautiful. But it was nothing until I got to the town center. Literally old buildings and castles spaced out beautifully, it was a city built to accomodate glory, and though there was a strange out of whack feeling about it, one cannot help but feel its immenseness and its absolutely gorgeous architecture. There was the Frauenkirche, rebuilt finally in 2003 and bright pink on the inside, a sort of strange cheery Dresden-like artifact. A large medieval terrace featuring more classic works. And of course the Zwinger which was the old castle, bearing a magnificent art gallery I was too tired to see. The city is cut between the River Elbe, bordering new city and old city, new city looks just as nice, with a very sort of Mediterranean feel. I even got to eat Gambas al Ajillo. Quite delectable served in the standard Spanish way, with the pan of boiling hot oil served next to you. There really isnt much else to say about Dresden, I can go on about how pretty it is, but its true when they said its like the Florence of Germany, in the sense that its gorgeous sure, but theres nothing much else to it, and it's teeming with tourists. After a nap across the zwinger, I headed back to the much uglier, but so much cooler, and a place I kind of call home, Berlin.
- J
Dresden, as you all know, was completely leveled during the war. It was one of the most devastating bombings of the War and thousands upon thousands of people died and numerous treasures destroyed. Since then, a massive rebuilding project was underway, building it brick by brick by brick, and now you really couldn't even tell there was one bomb let alone thousands.
That gives the city a sort of eerie feel about it, since it was rebuilt, for the most part, just like it was before. It feels like a brand new old city, kind of because it IS new. A sort of darker, more gothic epcot. I walked past a vast friendly shopping district full of people and sunlight and brand names, until I got to the Rathaus (town hall) and took a view of the city. It was quite grand, and pretty beautiful. But it was nothing until I got to the town center. Literally old buildings and castles spaced out beautifully, it was a city built to accomodate glory, and though there was a strange out of whack feeling about it, one cannot help but feel its immenseness and its absolutely gorgeous architecture. There was the Frauenkirche, rebuilt finally in 2003 and bright pink on the inside, a sort of strange cheery Dresden-like artifact. A large medieval terrace featuring more classic works. And of course the Zwinger which was the old castle, bearing a magnificent art gallery I was too tired to see. The city is cut between the River Elbe, bordering new city and old city, new city looks just as nice, with a very sort of Mediterranean feel. I even got to eat Gambas al Ajillo. Quite delectable served in the standard Spanish way, with the pan of boiling hot oil served next to you. There really isnt much else to say about Dresden, I can go on about how pretty it is, but its true when they said its like the Florence of Germany, in the sense that its gorgeous sure, but theres nothing much else to it, and it's teeming with tourists. After a nap across the zwinger, I headed back to the much uglier, but so much cooler, and a place I kind of call home, Berlin.
- J
Leipzig!
Is gorgeous and Medieval. I arrived early, off quite a fast ICE train. The ride was short, and showed me a bit of the green Germany countryside, though there really wasnt much to say really.
Leipzig can best be described as a big city (500,000+) with a small town atmosphere. The city center is made up of densely packed medieval blocks. Like most of East Germany it is still under heavy construction, most of it involving the tearing down of boring GDR architecture to better match the surroundings. Leipzig is also famously the home of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in the church where he composed all his famous pieces for stands his large looming countenance and figure, sculpted in black stone, which is also his tomb. My old friend Gareth, the drama counselor from my time in England doing the Experiment for International Living Program, picked me up and showed me around the city. He had a rehearsal to go to so I was given 2 hours to explore the city center on my lonesome. It was a lovely time, just seeing old buildings, walking into old churches (I lit a candle for my grandma in one of the cathedrals, just as she has for me so many times before), and trying to find the smallest alleyways possible. I was able to see most of the city center in about an hour, and then I walked into the large modern glass block that was the art museum to check out their collection and see hopefully some of the famous Leipzig School of modern art.
The people in the museum were crabby and they spoke a strange, Saxon german, kinda sounds like you have a bunch of cotton in your mouth. They weren't very nice, to me or anyone else, but no matter, cause their museum had a crap collection. Sure, there were some nice pieces. An exceptional Beckmann piece called "The battle" and a good, but small collection of the Leipzig school, but the older dutch and italian collections were heavily lacking. More boring than anything else. Even the Rubens left something to be desired.
I got through the museum pretty fast and met up with Gareth. We ate lunch in this underground sort of passageway that the students took over a long time ago and turned into a huge club. It was pretty impressive. Leipzig is primarily a student's city, with a large presence of young people it certainly has a great feeling, and I can see why someone like Gareth would call it his home.
We ate what could only be described as zucchini shepard's pie, and it was quite hearty and good as we had a long talk, mostly gareth speaking about his experiences in theatre here in Berlin. He had a lot to say, and it was great since he provided an interesting angle to my research here in Berlin.
- he noticed that as a director, the actors expect you to be more specific, than say in England where he worked. Here every moment was expected to be mapped out for a director, so it seemed, in a lot of ways that directors have more power here.
- On the other hand, your power as a director is a bit stilted, since if the actor does not agree with your direction, he doesnt necessarily have to keep it. For example, say if the actor does something that he finds great, and you dont necessarily like, if enough of the other members of the show like it, then it usually stays. Lighting designers and stage managers will also give direction sometimes. This was a sort of fascinating thing about German culture in general, they never let the person in charge have too much power. Even in government, Angela Merkel's word is not necessarily law in the way that Bush's is. She is constantly forced to compromise and work with other groups, take for example how the Green Party and the Christian Democrats teamed up to take on Global Warming for instance. We wondered if it was because of the sort of bad history of giving leaders and governments too much power in Germany that this sort of thing was the case. Just a bit of speculation.
- Actors here tend to be specialized on ONE thing, rather than UK actors which are more well rounded, here the actors tend to only do one thing but do it really really well.
- The way directing works in Germany is that unlike the UK and US where one builds and builds and doesnt find the character until the very end, right before the first night. In Germany one finds the character 3 months before and then lives with it, finding the ups and downs of progress. This results in having really different shows each night in the UK and US and almost exactly the same show every night in Germany.
He runs a theatre company here in Leipzig called Ubiquity theatre. Its goals are to have both a regularly performing theatre company (which I believe at least 10% has to be inexperienced actors) as well as holding acting workshops, specializing on people with problems (using theatre to cope with problems, sort of like psychodrama, very big in england, not so much in germany)
- Gareth's theatre (he is a writer and director like myself) has a clear goal, to give the people the tools to ask the right sort of questions. His shows therefore provide them with information a tabloid doesn't. Taking an issue and not attempting to take a stand, but, in a very Boal way, exploring all the options and opening up all the possibilities. He explained an interesting show he put up at the Schauspielhaus featuring a bunch of school students from the neighboring area. They were turkish, white, chinese and black, I believe. A complete mix. The piece was an exploration of articles that claim that most violent crime in Germany is committed by lower class immigrants. His play, which functioned also on improvisations, explored, all the different situations, and gave a voice to the statistics, showing us examples of why these things happen, and also providing examples of white violent crime as well. In doing so he attempted to give his audience a more 3 dimensional idea of the problem rather than the blatant declarations a tabloid would make.
The government is surprisingly receptive and willing to give money for these sorts of projects here, as long as they arent too far in advance and deal with a pressing issue.
I talked with him a little about my project, mostly centering on desensitization and the creation of "traumatic theatre" and he seemed interested - we both in many ways are dealing with the same problems, and though his theatre takes a very different strategy, the hoped-for outcomes, a rethinking of our problems in society, are very similar.
We threw around the idea of a play that is in many ways the opposite of my theatre - a play that aims to resensibilize us to the smallest amount of pain. The suffering of a pinch maybe, or the pain of a bit tongue...who knows maybe it'll provide inspiration for me to write something else - a show in Leipzig? Who knows.
That night I crashed a bit in Gareth's flat, he stayed over at his girlfriend's that night offering me the place, great of him. I did a bit of shopping in the supermarkt and settled on some schnitzel and a premade potato salad. The salad was horrible, to say the least and the schntzel ended up tasting good, but cooked really slowly and badly and ended up getting a bit burnt. Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) was on the tv and it was great to see familiar locations in Berlin run right through.
At night we went to a small bar/club called Tonellis where it was open mic night. I feared the worst, knowing what sort of talent comes out on open mic night. But Leipzig is a city famous for its music school, and the music students populate the open mic night. The house band was kicking and the singers were incredible, each one boasting quite a powerful set of pipes. The music itself was either bad 90s rock or some choice soul and motown, but played life with a buzzing band it was quite great. We then headed over to a karaoke bar where me and G did quite an impressive version of happy together. Leipzig is a great city, and a place I'd definitely love to come back to. It is a quiet place in a lot of ways a lot more relaxed than Berlin, but still quite nice.
The next day, Dresden!
- J
Leipzig can best be described as a big city (500,000+) with a small town atmosphere. The city center is made up of densely packed medieval blocks. Like most of East Germany it is still under heavy construction, most of it involving the tearing down of boring GDR architecture to better match the surroundings. Leipzig is also famously the home of Johann Sebastian Bach, and in the church where he composed all his famous pieces for stands his large looming countenance and figure, sculpted in black stone, which is also his tomb. My old friend Gareth, the drama counselor from my time in England doing the Experiment for International Living Program, picked me up and showed me around the city. He had a rehearsal to go to so I was given 2 hours to explore the city center on my lonesome. It was a lovely time, just seeing old buildings, walking into old churches (I lit a candle for my grandma in one of the cathedrals, just as she has for me so many times before), and trying to find the smallest alleyways possible. I was able to see most of the city center in about an hour, and then I walked into the large modern glass block that was the art museum to check out their collection and see hopefully some of the famous Leipzig School of modern art.
The people in the museum were crabby and they spoke a strange, Saxon german, kinda sounds like you have a bunch of cotton in your mouth. They weren't very nice, to me or anyone else, but no matter, cause their museum had a crap collection. Sure, there were some nice pieces. An exceptional Beckmann piece called "The battle" and a good, but small collection of the Leipzig school, but the older dutch and italian collections were heavily lacking. More boring than anything else. Even the Rubens left something to be desired.
I got through the museum pretty fast and met up with Gareth. We ate lunch in this underground sort of passageway that the students took over a long time ago and turned into a huge club. It was pretty impressive. Leipzig is primarily a student's city, with a large presence of young people it certainly has a great feeling, and I can see why someone like Gareth would call it his home.
We ate what could only be described as zucchini shepard's pie, and it was quite hearty and good as we had a long talk, mostly gareth speaking about his experiences in theatre here in Berlin. He had a lot to say, and it was great since he provided an interesting angle to my research here in Berlin.
- he noticed that as a director, the actors expect you to be more specific, than say in England where he worked. Here every moment was expected to be mapped out for a director, so it seemed, in a lot of ways that directors have more power here.
- On the other hand, your power as a director is a bit stilted, since if the actor does not agree with your direction, he doesnt necessarily have to keep it. For example, say if the actor does something that he finds great, and you dont necessarily like, if enough of the other members of the show like it, then it usually stays. Lighting designers and stage managers will also give direction sometimes. This was a sort of fascinating thing about German culture in general, they never let the person in charge have too much power. Even in government, Angela Merkel's word is not necessarily law in the way that Bush's is. She is constantly forced to compromise and work with other groups, take for example how the Green Party and the Christian Democrats teamed up to take on Global Warming for instance. We wondered if it was because of the sort of bad history of giving leaders and governments too much power in Germany that this sort of thing was the case. Just a bit of speculation.
- Actors here tend to be specialized on ONE thing, rather than UK actors which are more well rounded, here the actors tend to only do one thing but do it really really well.
- The way directing works in Germany is that unlike the UK and US where one builds and builds and doesnt find the character until the very end, right before the first night. In Germany one finds the character 3 months before and then lives with it, finding the ups and downs of progress. This results in having really different shows each night in the UK and US and almost exactly the same show every night in Germany.
He runs a theatre company here in Leipzig called Ubiquity theatre. Its goals are to have both a regularly performing theatre company (which I believe at least 10% has to be inexperienced actors) as well as holding acting workshops, specializing on people with problems (using theatre to cope with problems, sort of like psychodrama, very big in england, not so much in germany)
- Gareth's theatre (he is a writer and director like myself) has a clear goal, to give the people the tools to ask the right sort of questions. His shows therefore provide them with information a tabloid doesn't. Taking an issue and not attempting to take a stand, but, in a very Boal way, exploring all the options and opening up all the possibilities. He explained an interesting show he put up at the Schauspielhaus featuring a bunch of school students from the neighboring area. They were turkish, white, chinese and black, I believe. A complete mix. The piece was an exploration of articles that claim that most violent crime in Germany is committed by lower class immigrants. His play, which functioned also on improvisations, explored, all the different situations, and gave a voice to the statistics, showing us examples of why these things happen, and also providing examples of white violent crime as well. In doing so he attempted to give his audience a more 3 dimensional idea of the problem rather than the blatant declarations a tabloid would make.
The government is surprisingly receptive and willing to give money for these sorts of projects here, as long as they arent too far in advance and deal with a pressing issue.
I talked with him a little about my project, mostly centering on desensitization and the creation of "traumatic theatre" and he seemed interested - we both in many ways are dealing with the same problems, and though his theatre takes a very different strategy, the hoped-for outcomes, a rethinking of our problems in society, are very similar.
We threw around the idea of a play that is in many ways the opposite of my theatre - a play that aims to resensibilize us to the smallest amount of pain. The suffering of a pinch maybe, or the pain of a bit tongue...who knows maybe it'll provide inspiration for me to write something else - a show in Leipzig? Who knows.
That night I crashed a bit in Gareth's flat, he stayed over at his girlfriend's that night offering me the place, great of him. I did a bit of shopping in the supermarkt and settled on some schnitzel and a premade potato salad. The salad was horrible, to say the least and the schntzel ended up tasting good, but cooked really slowly and badly and ended up getting a bit burnt. Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) was on the tv and it was great to see familiar locations in Berlin run right through.
At night we went to a small bar/club called Tonellis where it was open mic night. I feared the worst, knowing what sort of talent comes out on open mic night. But Leipzig is a city famous for its music school, and the music students populate the open mic night. The house band was kicking and the singers were incredible, each one boasting quite a powerful set of pipes. The music itself was either bad 90s rock or some choice soul and motown, but played life with a buzzing band it was quite great. We then headed over to a karaoke bar where me and G did quite an impressive version of happy together. Leipzig is a great city, and a place I'd definitely love to come back to. It is a quiet place in a lot of ways a lot more relaxed than Berlin, but still quite nice.
The next day, Dresden!
- J
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Berlin Adventures Part II
*takes a deep breath*
okay, well its been a while since I updated, which isn't to say nothing has happened. So much has happened. And so much walking has been done. I'll start where I left off, the morning of July 9th. It is the 13th now and its hard to believe three days have passed.
So that day I woke up and heavily excited to go see the Neue Nationalgalerie I went over to the U Bahn to head over to Potsdamer Platz. I was feeling a bit chancey so instead of the usual huge potsdamer platz station I headed one station over to Mendellsohn Bartholdy Park, just to see what was around. Boring, green industrial and many cars is what I have to say. It seems that Potsdamer Platz was once a bustling city center, before being ravaged by the wall, literally cut in half. What came after was a no man's land that held a bleak future for the once bustling center. Though now it has returned, in many ways to its old glory, it does so strangely. Set apart, and almost ravaged by its large architecture, it feels strangely bleak and empty. The towering and fututristic Sony Center is one of many architectural marvels. The yellow jagged temple that is the Philharmonie is another. And yet these strange architectural beasts stand far apart from each other, almost isolated in their vain glory. To my discontent the permanent gallery, housing 19-20th century german and international art was closed until 2009, so I did the next best thing and traipsed up to the Kulturforum and checked out the Gemäldegalerie (literally Painting Gallery).
Advertised by many as Berlin's best art museum, the gallery lies in the Kulturforum, a sort of multiple museums in one. In doing so however, you feel a sort of strange mall/cafeteria like atmosphere upon entering. The stark white lobby makes you feel a little like a schoolboy and a little like a hospital warden. I paid my entrance fee and picked up another audio tour (this one didnt come with any exciting music) and made my way through the paintings.
It was quite a collection, 20 rembrandts, a good amount of Rubens, Cranach the Elder, both Brueghels, even some Renaissance Botticellis, Mantegnas, Raphaels and Bellinis. It was a bit breathtaking and certainly overwhelming. You walked into a room sort of knowing what to expect but there was such an onslaught of art you only ended up concentrating on one or two pieces. The Rembrandts housed there were quite quirky, not the usual shocking use of light and darkness, a lot of these were his older and younger works, the fabulous painting of Moses atop Mount Sinai, quite possibly on the verge of hurling down the Commandments again had a rugged orange and gold tinge that seemed to light the painting on timeless fire. The one of Samson, right next to it, also gave us a sort of fiery moment, though the darkness being more apparent and the moment being a bit more subdued. it is right before Samson makes the girl he loves's father feel sorry for marrying her off to another. Real choice biblical drama.
Rembrandts use of darkness shocks me. Just how much of his paintings are shrouded in darkness and yet how much that offers us. If we look closer we can almost make out the shapes in the darkness. Quite impressive and makes being next to his paintings quite the experience.
Rubens's St. Christopher was another standout. Completely lifelike and lifesize, we have this torrential figure in a moment of pure transfiguration. I paid attention to the way Rubens builds his shadows, using this almost green coloring to give the body a sort of humor that lets you almost feel the warm soft texture of his skin.
Lots of other paintings, a bellini of the madonna and her child (which one I cantz tell you because Bellini made about a hundred of them) really stood out to me.
I got to the Volksbühne for my final show and it was a doozy, UBUKOENIG (Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jarry) directed by Gottscheff.
I have to say the piece started with promise. The set, which was incredible was only a series of balloons. Different colors purple, white, black, red and orange. Different sizes as well, ranging from the usual small balloon, to huge ones that would sometimes fly menacingly offstage and linger around where the audience was, sometimes being hit to one side or another.
The play began with darkness, cheesy music, and an american voice listing all the characters in the play, in English. So many characters, Jarry is a stinker really.
the piece starts in mystery, with two men behind a balloon, shadows, as a light shines behind them. The tension builds to the last possible moment. And POP, the balloon pops and we see the men standing behind it, completely and utterly naked.
They have their first conversation this way, and eventually one of the men tucks his genitals behind his legs, conveying to us, that he has become UBU's wife. The other characters soon emerge from the balloons, and the meet and greet that happens is done by micing (yep, anther mic) the voices and then distorting them in real time, creating a truly horrendous soundscape.
Eventually UBU and his wife return, both in high heels, then they both have regular heels. Both actors trade the roles, an interesting choice.
Every now and then, a balloon pops. Thats hilarious.
The piece was interesting, I guess, but I was expecting a bit more spectacle from a play that claims to have two entire armies go to war and stage. For all the promise Gottscheff gave us, what it ended up being was a very well acted absurdist farce that didnt really communicate to us the absolute spectacle necessary. I prefer to think of Jarry not as an absurdist, but as a symbolist, or even an expressionistic, giving us the bombast, the sheer ridiculousness of human emotion, but not in measured naturalistic chaos, as Ionesco is best done, but in true marionette fashion. In the end, taking the words so seriously bored me, and though there were funnier lines, it all got lost in the haze of balloons. To Gottscheffs credit I was also very tired, and also very tired of seeing theatre in another language, so maybe I wasnt in the best condition to appreciate his work.
Another thing that peeved me is that his cuts just left the absurd bear and the two armies as sort of afterthoughts in the ending sequence as the stage rotated and balloons flew everywhere. The army and the bear, in my opinion are the moments when the play really comes together. And the bear scene is among the funniest I've read. Ah well, the play really was a nice culmination of my time at the Volksbühne, and 18 plays later, (is it 18 or more?) I really do have a lot of thinkin to do...
The next morning, Leipzig!!!
okay, well its been a while since I updated, which isn't to say nothing has happened. So much has happened. And so much walking has been done. I'll start where I left off, the morning of July 9th. It is the 13th now and its hard to believe three days have passed.
So that day I woke up and heavily excited to go see the Neue Nationalgalerie I went over to the U Bahn to head over to Potsdamer Platz. I was feeling a bit chancey so instead of the usual huge potsdamer platz station I headed one station over to Mendellsohn Bartholdy Park, just to see what was around. Boring, green industrial and many cars is what I have to say. It seems that Potsdamer Platz was once a bustling city center, before being ravaged by the wall, literally cut in half. What came after was a no man's land that held a bleak future for the once bustling center. Though now it has returned, in many ways to its old glory, it does so strangely. Set apart, and almost ravaged by its large architecture, it feels strangely bleak and empty. The towering and fututristic Sony Center is one of many architectural marvels. The yellow jagged temple that is the Philharmonie is another. And yet these strange architectural beasts stand far apart from each other, almost isolated in their vain glory. To my discontent the permanent gallery, housing 19-20th century german and international art was closed until 2009, so I did the next best thing and traipsed up to the Kulturforum and checked out the Gemäldegalerie (literally Painting Gallery).
Advertised by many as Berlin's best art museum, the gallery lies in the Kulturforum, a sort of multiple museums in one. In doing so however, you feel a sort of strange mall/cafeteria like atmosphere upon entering. The stark white lobby makes you feel a little like a schoolboy and a little like a hospital warden. I paid my entrance fee and picked up another audio tour (this one didnt come with any exciting music) and made my way through the paintings.
It was quite a collection, 20 rembrandts, a good amount of Rubens, Cranach the Elder, both Brueghels, even some Renaissance Botticellis, Mantegnas, Raphaels and Bellinis. It was a bit breathtaking and certainly overwhelming. You walked into a room sort of knowing what to expect but there was such an onslaught of art you only ended up concentrating on one or two pieces. The Rembrandts housed there were quite quirky, not the usual shocking use of light and darkness, a lot of these were his older and younger works, the fabulous painting of Moses atop Mount Sinai, quite possibly on the verge of hurling down the Commandments again had a rugged orange and gold tinge that seemed to light the painting on timeless fire. The one of Samson, right next to it, also gave us a sort of fiery moment, though the darkness being more apparent and the moment being a bit more subdued. it is right before Samson makes the girl he loves's father feel sorry for marrying her off to another. Real choice biblical drama.
Rembrandts use of darkness shocks me. Just how much of his paintings are shrouded in darkness and yet how much that offers us. If we look closer we can almost make out the shapes in the darkness. Quite impressive and makes being next to his paintings quite the experience.
Rubens's St. Christopher was another standout. Completely lifelike and lifesize, we have this torrential figure in a moment of pure transfiguration. I paid attention to the way Rubens builds his shadows, using this almost green coloring to give the body a sort of humor that lets you almost feel the warm soft texture of his skin.
Lots of other paintings, a bellini of the madonna and her child (which one I cantz tell you because Bellini made about a hundred of them) really stood out to me.
I got to the Volksbühne for my final show and it was a doozy, UBUKOENIG (Ubu Roi, by Alfred Jarry) directed by Gottscheff.
I have to say the piece started with promise. The set, which was incredible was only a series of balloons. Different colors purple, white, black, red and orange. Different sizes as well, ranging from the usual small balloon, to huge ones that would sometimes fly menacingly offstage and linger around where the audience was, sometimes being hit to one side or another.
The play began with darkness, cheesy music, and an american voice listing all the characters in the play, in English. So many characters, Jarry is a stinker really.
the piece starts in mystery, with two men behind a balloon, shadows, as a light shines behind them. The tension builds to the last possible moment. And POP, the balloon pops and we see the men standing behind it, completely and utterly naked.
They have their first conversation this way, and eventually one of the men tucks his genitals behind his legs, conveying to us, that he has become UBU's wife. The other characters soon emerge from the balloons, and the meet and greet that happens is done by micing (yep, anther mic) the voices and then distorting them in real time, creating a truly horrendous soundscape.
Eventually UBU and his wife return, both in high heels, then they both have regular heels. Both actors trade the roles, an interesting choice.
Every now and then, a balloon pops. Thats hilarious.
The piece was interesting, I guess, but I was expecting a bit more spectacle from a play that claims to have two entire armies go to war and stage. For all the promise Gottscheff gave us, what it ended up being was a very well acted absurdist farce that didnt really communicate to us the absolute spectacle necessary. I prefer to think of Jarry not as an absurdist, but as a symbolist, or even an expressionistic, giving us the bombast, the sheer ridiculousness of human emotion, but not in measured naturalistic chaos, as Ionesco is best done, but in true marionette fashion. In the end, taking the words so seriously bored me, and though there were funnier lines, it all got lost in the haze of balloons. To Gottscheffs credit I was also very tired, and also very tired of seeing theatre in another language, so maybe I wasnt in the best condition to appreciate his work.
Another thing that peeved me is that his cuts just left the absurd bear and the two armies as sort of afterthoughts in the ending sequence as the stage rotated and balloons flew everywhere. The army and the bear, in my opinion are the moments when the play really comes together. And the bear scene is among the funniest I've read. Ah well, the play really was a nice culmination of my time at the Volksbühne, and 18 plays later, (is it 18 or more?) I really do have a lot of thinkin to do...
The next morning, Leipzig!!!
Berlin Adventures Part I
Greetings from cloudy Leipzig! I'm here visiting an old friend and having a marvelous time in this really gorgeous little (well, little compared to Berlin, still about 500,000 people) city. But before I tell you about Leipzig I must catch you up with what have been some lovely days in Berlin.
Now that the plays are over for the most part (thank goodness since my desire to see theatre is at a zero, you could say I'm a bit exhausted seeing nearly 20 plays in 4 weeks. But I must conserve energy for the avignon festival is fast upon me and I shall be extremely busy with theatre then. However, my project has moved on to phase two. I made it very clear that half of the project was getting to know the city, and I have been doing so. Visiting museums, seeing parts of the city I haven't and talking to Berliners. The other component of my project is writing my play (and soon to be another play when I finish this one, hopefully in Paris). So my day has been spent half sight-seeing what I havent seen cause I was working so hard at learning german and seeing theatre, and then writing a scene or two, and then finally closing the evening with a bit of rest, or socializing and maybe learning more about the culture here.
So Tuesday I got up, made myself a salad, like the old days, with tomato, lettuce and onion and a bit of oil and vinegar. It was wonderful. The german food you get on the street or in restaurants doesnt really offer that much in the way of veggies so I was craving one of those big salads I would always have in argentina after a huge amount of meat. Mmmmm I miss my patria just thinkin about it. Maybe I will go to B.A. soon, I should, anyhow.
Monday I arrived home a bit earlier than usual, but still full from the currywurst I had in the midday. Currywurst, for the uninitiated is Germany's national food. Basically, a cut up bratwurst (literally meaning fried sausage) and slathered in ketchup (or some red ketchup sauce) and then drizzled generously with yellow curry powder. It sounds disgusting, and it can be, but at Konnopke's imbiss they have it down to an art. I knew I was in for something special when I had to wait about 20 minutes for service, all local berliners and the occasional tourist. Kids from school businessmen, old men, society ladies and everything in between. The place had a cool mystique about it, the faded large cart blazoned with its words, while unappetizing sandwiches lay in the window and in teh column right under the rail where the imbiß was stationed was some faded paintings promising good taste.
The first currywurst I had, I should tell you was disastrous. It was like eating a lukewarm birthday cake made of lard. Never eat under the imbiß by the fernsehturm. Please.
This currywurst was crisp, filling, and surprisingly delicious. It was a delicious snack I thought, but little did I know just a currywurst and fries could last me the whole night.
Anyway, culinary adventure aside, I came home to my house to find a very peaceful man making green tea. I had just bought some groceries so I was stuffing the food in the small fridge when he offered me a bit of green tea. I of course obliged, the man being one of the boarders and having a young, friendly face. We soon got to talking. The green tea, I should add was sipped out of shotglasses, the way it is done in Peking (Beijing).
We spoke in Spanish, the man (whose name escapes me, I'll ask Sergio later) was originally from Spain, in Santander. He lived in Peking now, for about a year I believe. Before he lived in Bristol. Why he went to Peking, he told me "for a woman, of course". The man was an artist, visual, and was living in a small artists town right outside the city. It was a community of about 500 artists, basically just living, drinking tea, talking about life, and painting. It sounded pretty fabulous. There was a simplicity to the way he spoke, pointed, but still with a resounding peace, that seemed the product of having a peace of mind that one in cities sometimes forgets.
We sipped the green tea, it seemed like for ages, I was asking him about his life there, I was telling him about new york, my mission here, my impressions of Berlin, etc. etc. The tea was prepared carefully in what looked like a bowl, the top would be pressed against the water which would then be poured into the shotglass. The tea was fresh, it tasted healthy and gently warm, it was a soothing experience to say the least.
Soon Sergio, the owner of the place joined us. Sergio, I believe I have mentioned before, is a Peruvian photographer, filmmaker, performance artist and is a great host, and this man was a friend of his, working on a project. The conversation was light and spirited, and wholly original. I feel entirely at home here, in this place, feeling unhurried from place to place, a time for people to just sit around and talk is something I don't get much when I'm huddled under 10 hours of homework or I'm rushed around in NYC. Not to say I don't get time, I do, but it's something I have to seek out, not something that seems to find me, as it does here.
The next day I saw the Alte Nationalgalerie. I went for one reason and one reason alone. Caspar David Friedrich. Since I was by myself I took the audio tour, and what a great one it was! Each one had its own little theme song, taken from the best of classical music, and the british guides, male and female, each had their own distinctive appreciation of the pieces. It made you think each piece was desired by thousands of people, and hell, maybe it was. One pet peeve though, every time a piece is introduced, they spend about 2 minutes describing what you are seeing. I was a bit confused about this, after all, we were seeing the painting, we knew perfectly well what was in front of us. Sure the smaller details escape us, but even the broadest details become introduced as if we were just staring at a bunch of colors and couldn't piece them together.
Like, for example for one of Friedrich's paintings the man was like "a mountain stands in the background"! No shit! A mountain? Wow, I was wondering what the weirdly pointed thing among all those trees was. I never would have guessed it was a mountain, thanks audio guide.
They had the abbey in the oak wood, which I remember being Professor Glenn Shuck's favorite painting. I wish Glenn all the best and hopes he gets better, and definitely thought of him in the Friedrich room. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have discovered this most mystifying of painters and through him the German Romantics that were of his age, and influenced my coming to Germany even. The paintings were phenomenal to look at up close. There you could see Friedrich's every brush stroke, and see the battle between precision and imagination.
The thing that most fascinates me about Friedrich, is how he painted most of these landscapes from his imagination. After all, for Friedrich, the landscape showed the mystical inner nature of the soul, of God, of the absolute, and not just the specificity of nature. In the grandeur of nature, Friedrich built these temples to the human condition, and they certainly shock you with their presence. Even in the darkest of paintings, like Abbey in the Oak Wood, we are shown in the glimmers of hope, and the presence of the absolute, in the half-crescent moon, teasing us with its fullness. Worth every boring German medieval painter I had to look through to get to Friedrich.
That night I had dinner with a German acquainttance of mine and her friends. They were a great bunch, one studying Art History German Literature and Psychology at Humboldt and the other Medicine, like my friend. It was wonderful not just to meet these students in Berlin but to hear them speak German to each other, it was flying fast and free, and after seeing theatre and seeing it spoken casually, it really is such an expressive language. I prided myself on being able to follow general concepts through the conversation, though they could all speak english thank goodness. We had Sushi, and I must say Berlin Sushi rivals American Sushi. Wowee.
I got home not too late and managed to crash in order for another day of sightseeing. Oh, I also finished act 2 of the Oblivious a few days ago, so I'm gonna take it easy I think.
Berlin part II includes my adventures at Gemäldegalerie, and UBU!
Tschüssies!
- J
Now that the plays are over for the most part (thank goodness since my desire to see theatre is at a zero, you could say I'm a bit exhausted seeing nearly 20 plays in 4 weeks. But I must conserve energy for the avignon festival is fast upon me and I shall be extremely busy with theatre then. However, my project has moved on to phase two. I made it very clear that half of the project was getting to know the city, and I have been doing so. Visiting museums, seeing parts of the city I haven't and talking to Berliners. The other component of my project is writing my play (and soon to be another play when I finish this one, hopefully in Paris). So my day has been spent half sight-seeing what I havent seen cause I was working so hard at learning german and seeing theatre, and then writing a scene or two, and then finally closing the evening with a bit of rest, or socializing and maybe learning more about the culture here.
So Tuesday I got up, made myself a salad, like the old days, with tomato, lettuce and onion and a bit of oil and vinegar. It was wonderful. The german food you get on the street or in restaurants doesnt really offer that much in the way of veggies so I was craving one of those big salads I would always have in argentina after a huge amount of meat. Mmmmm I miss my patria just thinkin about it. Maybe I will go to B.A. soon, I should, anyhow.
Monday I arrived home a bit earlier than usual, but still full from the currywurst I had in the midday. Currywurst, for the uninitiated is Germany's national food. Basically, a cut up bratwurst (literally meaning fried sausage) and slathered in ketchup (or some red ketchup sauce) and then drizzled generously with yellow curry powder. It sounds disgusting, and it can be, but at Konnopke's imbiss they have it down to an art. I knew I was in for something special when I had to wait about 20 minutes for service, all local berliners and the occasional tourist. Kids from school businessmen, old men, society ladies and everything in between. The place had a cool mystique about it, the faded large cart blazoned with its words, while unappetizing sandwiches lay in the window and in teh column right under the rail where the imbiß was stationed was some faded paintings promising good taste.
The first currywurst I had, I should tell you was disastrous. It was like eating a lukewarm birthday cake made of lard. Never eat under the imbiß by the fernsehturm. Please.
This currywurst was crisp, filling, and surprisingly delicious. It was a delicious snack I thought, but little did I know just a currywurst and fries could last me the whole night.
Anyway, culinary adventure aside, I came home to my house to find a very peaceful man making green tea. I had just bought some groceries so I was stuffing the food in the small fridge when he offered me a bit of green tea. I of course obliged, the man being one of the boarders and having a young, friendly face. We soon got to talking. The green tea, I should add was sipped out of shotglasses, the way it is done in Peking (Beijing).
We spoke in Spanish, the man (whose name escapes me, I'll ask Sergio later) was originally from Spain, in Santander. He lived in Peking now, for about a year I believe. Before he lived in Bristol. Why he went to Peking, he told me "for a woman, of course". The man was an artist, visual, and was living in a small artists town right outside the city. It was a community of about 500 artists, basically just living, drinking tea, talking about life, and painting. It sounded pretty fabulous. There was a simplicity to the way he spoke, pointed, but still with a resounding peace, that seemed the product of having a peace of mind that one in cities sometimes forgets.
We sipped the green tea, it seemed like for ages, I was asking him about his life there, I was telling him about new york, my mission here, my impressions of Berlin, etc. etc. The tea was prepared carefully in what looked like a bowl, the top would be pressed against the water which would then be poured into the shotglass. The tea was fresh, it tasted healthy and gently warm, it was a soothing experience to say the least.
Soon Sergio, the owner of the place joined us. Sergio, I believe I have mentioned before, is a Peruvian photographer, filmmaker, performance artist and is a great host, and this man was a friend of his, working on a project. The conversation was light and spirited, and wholly original. I feel entirely at home here, in this place, feeling unhurried from place to place, a time for people to just sit around and talk is something I don't get much when I'm huddled under 10 hours of homework or I'm rushed around in NYC. Not to say I don't get time, I do, but it's something I have to seek out, not something that seems to find me, as it does here.
The next day I saw the Alte Nationalgalerie. I went for one reason and one reason alone. Caspar David Friedrich. Since I was by myself I took the audio tour, and what a great one it was! Each one had its own little theme song, taken from the best of classical music, and the british guides, male and female, each had their own distinctive appreciation of the pieces. It made you think each piece was desired by thousands of people, and hell, maybe it was. One pet peeve though, every time a piece is introduced, they spend about 2 minutes describing what you are seeing. I was a bit confused about this, after all, we were seeing the painting, we knew perfectly well what was in front of us. Sure the smaller details escape us, but even the broadest details become introduced as if we were just staring at a bunch of colors and couldn't piece them together.
Like, for example for one of Friedrich's paintings the man was like "a mountain stands in the background"! No shit! A mountain? Wow, I was wondering what the weirdly pointed thing among all those trees was. I never would have guessed it was a mountain, thanks audio guide.
They had the abbey in the oak wood, which I remember being Professor Glenn Shuck's favorite painting. I wish Glenn all the best and hopes he gets better, and definitely thought of him in the Friedrich room. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have discovered this most mystifying of painters and through him the German Romantics that were of his age, and influenced my coming to Germany even. The paintings were phenomenal to look at up close. There you could see Friedrich's every brush stroke, and see the battle between precision and imagination.
The thing that most fascinates me about Friedrich, is how he painted most of these landscapes from his imagination. After all, for Friedrich, the landscape showed the mystical inner nature of the soul, of God, of the absolute, and not just the specificity of nature. In the grandeur of nature, Friedrich built these temples to the human condition, and they certainly shock you with their presence. Even in the darkest of paintings, like Abbey in the Oak Wood, we are shown in the glimmers of hope, and the presence of the absolute, in the half-crescent moon, teasing us with its fullness. Worth every boring German medieval painter I had to look through to get to Friedrich.
That night I had dinner with a German acquainttance of mine and her friends. They were a great bunch, one studying Art History German Literature and Psychology at Humboldt and the other Medicine, like my friend. It was wonderful not just to meet these students in Berlin but to hear them speak German to each other, it was flying fast and free, and after seeing theatre and seeing it spoken casually, it really is such an expressive language. I prided myself on being able to follow general concepts through the conversation, though they could all speak english thank goodness. We had Sushi, and I must say Berlin Sushi rivals American Sushi. Wowee.
I got home not too late and managed to crash in order for another day of sightseeing. Oh, I also finished act 2 of the Oblivious a few days ago, so I'm gonna take it easy I think.
Berlin part II includes my adventures at Gemäldegalerie, and UBU!
Tschüssies!
- J
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Two more plays, and the beginning of Berlin Adventures
Oh boy, so many happenings in these my last few weeks in Berlin. Two crazy Pollesch plays, and such and so on and such, but it's too much even for me to explain adequately, so I guess I'll start with the two plays I saw, and then move on to my adventures across Berlin.
Soooo
Darwin-win and Martin Loser Drag-King and Hygiene Auf Tauris
First of all Pollesch, WTF? Ok. Now I'm just confused. This piece was typical Volksbühne fare. Plenty of theory and completely incoherent text and then of course the usual theatrical madnesses. I've seen so much of it that by now it has become endearing. Quite the feat I must say. The stage is very much a Pollesch stage, what does that mean? There are the usual flat elements of a kitchen in fake paper and then of course a place for characters to smoke a cigarette and talk. Basically what we are seeing is the backstage of the other show. Diktatorregattinen I, which I saw the next day.
This piece, unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was about commericalization, and Cappucetto Rosso which was about theatre and the political edge, this piece was about Evolution, and Darwin and science.
The first moments of the piece we have one of the characters in a leatherjacket and oscar wilde on his shirt start talking really fast and lecturing to us. He gets more and more caught up in what he is saying until finally he bursts and just starts shifting the podium with more madness until it crashes and a piece of wood actually comes off. There is a bit of talking from the other characters but soon, instead a ballet. And we have beautiful dancing from two of th main characters, a man in what looks like a flight suit and a drag king in a ballet outfit, and another drag king in jogging pants and a muscle shirt. She is the one who takes out that dancing streamer thing, I dont know how to describe it theres a word for that thing that the dancer holds in their hand and its like a flying ribbon with them? You see it alot in the olympics.
Like el Perro Cubano, Pollesch takes advantage of the fact that we are staring right into an empty house. The theatre becomes almost like a forest, with some characters becoming animals, spoken to on camera, and some others become television reporters studying them, one other becomes a jaded character merely looking on. There is an incredible amount of versatility.
It gets exhausting sometimes articulating every single detail of these shows but some dont escape ones mind even if one tries. Pollesch's theatre hopefully averages one or two of thes emoments, and this piece certainly had them.
So we have the guy pretty much rattling on and on about evolution, when all of a sudden he takes an egg out to make a point. He cracks it and lets the white fall into the bowl and then lets the yolk dance a bit on his skin, as to make the point that the yolk itself is still alive. I dont know whether this was a rag on antiabortionists, or satirizing nature study, but what happened next was pure madness.
Basically every character took this idea to heart and began cracking eggs, removing the whites and playing with the yolk, until it unceremoniously ended up broken spread otu on their bodies. We had deliciously kitschy music to go along with this moment as the characters tried everything. One of the actors had his shirt off and was letting it dance on his belly, two others were trying to pass it from one body to the other, with varying results. The man who had it on his belly had somehow gotten it all the way to his eye, and we all gaped in awe and hilarity as he then attempted to get it off his eye and ended up spreading it all over his neck.
When it was over the characters were covered in dried yellow yoke and I had witnessed yet another challenge (is it really?) to the theatre.
Amogn other things the piece had was video (17-0?) and mics. Oh my oh me. There was a point where one of the characters was trying to convince a bunch of penguins on screen, to go the other way, to disobey their instincts.
Phew, it's exhausting to write so much, especially after a day of museums.
another image, woman dressed as man dresses herself up as this fabric sheeted angel, really beautiful moment actually.
The last image that bears mentioning is the last image of the piece, which amounted to this bizarre huge sort of thin cloth beast, that eventually devoured each one of the characters until they were all moving and squirming, getting through the door and coming towards us. Then the piece ended. Bravo, Pollesch. You crazy fucker.
....
Saturday night was Berghain. Now I couldn't feasibly go to Berlin without visiting this club, capital of debauchery in industrial Friedrichshain, right by the formidable Ostbanhof train station. The whole act of even getting in was a challenge. I was with a friend of mine who had already been there various times, so getting in for us was not as hard as for all the poor souls I would see every 5 minutes turned away. We waited for 40 minutes, which for Berghain is nothing. This is because we got there early, and by early I mean 200 am. Dont be the poor fool who makes the mistake of showing up at 4 because you will be in line for at least 2 hours.
The main man at the door, who wears some bizarre sort of jawring and stands as a hulking beast at the entrance of club-inferno is actually an incredibly established and well off artist. He technically does not need to be working the club, but continues to do so out of a sense of duty, his discerning taste keeping the lameos out and those who are apparently "cool" enough in. Whatever.
Well we got in and after that excitement passed my friend Ayman showed me all the workings of this place that is so debaucherous cameras are expressly forbidden and must be checked at the entrance.
Oh man, now this was techno central. The way up to the first dance floor is this sort of factory like stair, that when you reach the top you get to the huge darkly lit room, this building used to be a train station, with a serious soundsystem and hard techno. Every now and then a fog machine would pump up smoke and the strobes would sound.
The top floor was the "softer" techno, and it was populated with more touristy fare and english could be heard more than german, though that was the case in most of the bar.
In the end the dancing was fun, techno is the sort of thing anyone can dance to anyway they please and you wont ever be judged too harshly for it...and we left the club at 9 am, which for Berghain, is early. Some other friends of ours who happened to be there left at 2 pm.
Truth be told I'm not truly the clubbing type and though Berghain was an exciting and memorable experience, it wont be the type of thing I'll find myself missing too much, or suddenly craving, the way I will the theatres.
....
to be honest, I'm trying to figure out how to describe the next Pollesch show, but so much of it, so much of it went over not just my head, but a german friend of mine who understood a bit more than me, but not so much as to really let me know. Maybe one day I'll return and give Dikatorregattinen the airy mystique and justified review it deserves. But for now, I'll leave it to your imagination:
3 women dressed the same way. Two of them are the same person or dopplegangers of each other. We're not sure if its a famous opera singer or the wife of a Romanian dictator. The only male in the cast is dressed in a powder blue dictators uniform, but all the time his only lines are I want to be an actress! And I only get these few lines I want more lines! He plays the daughter of the 2? women.
Add to that, guns. And something involving mirrors. And a video camera, and a huge chandelier that doubles as a disco ball.
There. Thats all you get.
................
Well, with that ended what was my haupt (main) phase in berlin....the next few days were spent getting to know the city more closely, travelling to places I havent been to, seeing museums I should see, and really making sure I dont miss anything too unmissable.
Monday all the museums were closed, so I made my way to Mitte to explore a bit more of the interesting areas. I looked around the Nikolaiviertel which showed a bit of old berlin, and though it was old it was no less grandiose, replete with very formidable looking buildings and a modest avenues. It must have been quite the city then as well.
I passed the ruins of a small church, bombed out during the war. That is quite an interesting relic of berlin, since most of it has been completely rebuilt it is only really in churches where you see the pain of war - in these spaces that used to hold or claimed to hold God that opened violently with the hand of man now stand as empty containers of an absent god? Or is it that now they contain the divine more than ever, since in their incompleteness they retain some hidden element that had evaded them when they once had structure?
I kept on wandering and ended up in the back of an alexander platz shopping mall. I kept walking not really paying attention where I was going and somehow ended up in Friedrichshain. It was dull and depressing soviet style housing. A really interesting experience though seeing this part of Berlin, built up with unattractive GDR era architecture. Whose faded dreams of a different sort of grandeur now bear frightening reminders of the extremes of modernity. I crossed over these prisonlike avenues into Kreuzberg, and ended up incidentally in another bombed out church.
This was a particularly strong one since the angel that stayed atop, commanding a white hot angry gaze stared right at the sight of the old wall.
I ended up walking a bit more to this sort of built in reservoir and got to one of Kreuzberg's old centers, Oranien Strasse. It was lovely, large amounts of turkish immigrants and the smell of delicious food coupled with trendy bars and berliner yuppies.
I decided to keep my adventure going and trekked over to the other side of Kreuzberg to see the area around Bergman strasse. It was one of the most picturesque parts of Berlin, and that was very much true. The streets have an absolutely timeless feel, and for many one could even imagine Europe. The people were like Prenzlbergers but a bit "trendier", not as many tourists and many families. A lovely area bordered by Victoriapark, another breathtaking Belin park replete with a fake waterfall and a huge impressive green. Lovely.
I ended up again somehow in Schönberg, and bored of residential housing I went back home to the cafe across the street and wrote another scene of my play.
So much more to tell but UBU starts in 20 minutes and I must go!
Tschüss!
- J
Soooo
Darwin-win and Martin Loser Drag-King and Hygiene Auf Tauris
First of all Pollesch, WTF? Ok. Now I'm just confused. This piece was typical Volksbühne fare. Plenty of theory and completely incoherent text and then of course the usual theatrical madnesses. I've seen so much of it that by now it has become endearing. Quite the feat I must say. The stage is very much a Pollesch stage, what does that mean? There are the usual flat elements of a kitchen in fake paper and then of course a place for characters to smoke a cigarette and talk. Basically what we are seeing is the backstage of the other show. Diktatorregattinen I, which I saw the next day.
This piece, unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was about commericalization, and Cappucetto Rosso which was about theatre and the political edge, this piece was about Evolution, and Darwin and science.
The first moments of the piece we have one of the characters in a leatherjacket and oscar wilde on his shirt start talking really fast and lecturing to us. He gets more and more caught up in what he is saying until finally he bursts and just starts shifting the podium with more madness until it crashes and a piece of wood actually comes off. There is a bit of talking from the other characters but soon, instead a ballet. And we have beautiful dancing from two of th main characters, a man in what looks like a flight suit and a drag king in a ballet outfit, and another drag king in jogging pants and a muscle shirt. She is the one who takes out that dancing streamer thing, I dont know how to describe it theres a word for that thing that the dancer holds in their hand and its like a flying ribbon with them? You see it alot in the olympics.
Like el Perro Cubano, Pollesch takes advantage of the fact that we are staring right into an empty house. The theatre becomes almost like a forest, with some characters becoming animals, spoken to on camera, and some others become television reporters studying them, one other becomes a jaded character merely looking on. There is an incredible amount of versatility.
It gets exhausting sometimes articulating every single detail of these shows but some dont escape ones mind even if one tries. Pollesch's theatre hopefully averages one or two of thes emoments, and this piece certainly had them.
So we have the guy pretty much rattling on and on about evolution, when all of a sudden he takes an egg out to make a point. He cracks it and lets the white fall into the bowl and then lets the yolk dance a bit on his skin, as to make the point that the yolk itself is still alive. I dont know whether this was a rag on antiabortionists, or satirizing nature study, but what happened next was pure madness.
Basically every character took this idea to heart and began cracking eggs, removing the whites and playing with the yolk, until it unceremoniously ended up broken spread otu on their bodies. We had deliciously kitschy music to go along with this moment as the characters tried everything. One of the actors had his shirt off and was letting it dance on his belly, two others were trying to pass it from one body to the other, with varying results. The man who had it on his belly had somehow gotten it all the way to his eye, and we all gaped in awe and hilarity as he then attempted to get it off his eye and ended up spreading it all over his neck.
When it was over the characters were covered in dried yellow yoke and I had witnessed yet another challenge (is it really?) to the theatre.
Amogn other things the piece had was video (17-0?) and mics. Oh my oh me. There was a point where one of the characters was trying to convince a bunch of penguins on screen, to go the other way, to disobey their instincts.
Phew, it's exhausting to write so much, especially after a day of museums.
another image, woman dressed as man dresses herself up as this fabric sheeted angel, really beautiful moment actually.
The last image that bears mentioning is the last image of the piece, which amounted to this bizarre huge sort of thin cloth beast, that eventually devoured each one of the characters until they were all moving and squirming, getting through the door and coming towards us. Then the piece ended. Bravo, Pollesch. You crazy fucker.
....
Saturday night was Berghain. Now I couldn't feasibly go to Berlin without visiting this club, capital of debauchery in industrial Friedrichshain, right by the formidable Ostbanhof train station. The whole act of even getting in was a challenge. I was with a friend of mine who had already been there various times, so getting in for us was not as hard as for all the poor souls I would see every 5 minutes turned away. We waited for 40 minutes, which for Berghain is nothing. This is because we got there early, and by early I mean 200 am. Dont be the poor fool who makes the mistake of showing up at 4 because you will be in line for at least 2 hours.
The main man at the door, who wears some bizarre sort of jawring and stands as a hulking beast at the entrance of club-inferno is actually an incredibly established and well off artist. He technically does not need to be working the club, but continues to do so out of a sense of duty, his discerning taste keeping the lameos out and those who are apparently "cool" enough in. Whatever.
Well we got in and after that excitement passed my friend Ayman showed me all the workings of this place that is so debaucherous cameras are expressly forbidden and must be checked at the entrance.
Oh man, now this was techno central. The way up to the first dance floor is this sort of factory like stair, that when you reach the top you get to the huge darkly lit room, this building used to be a train station, with a serious soundsystem and hard techno. Every now and then a fog machine would pump up smoke and the strobes would sound.
The top floor was the "softer" techno, and it was populated with more touristy fare and english could be heard more than german, though that was the case in most of the bar.
In the end the dancing was fun, techno is the sort of thing anyone can dance to anyway they please and you wont ever be judged too harshly for it...and we left the club at 9 am, which for Berghain, is early. Some other friends of ours who happened to be there left at 2 pm.
Truth be told I'm not truly the clubbing type and though Berghain was an exciting and memorable experience, it wont be the type of thing I'll find myself missing too much, or suddenly craving, the way I will the theatres.
....
to be honest, I'm trying to figure out how to describe the next Pollesch show, but so much of it, so much of it went over not just my head, but a german friend of mine who understood a bit more than me, but not so much as to really let me know. Maybe one day I'll return and give Dikatorregattinen the airy mystique and justified review it deserves. But for now, I'll leave it to your imagination:
3 women dressed the same way. Two of them are the same person or dopplegangers of each other. We're not sure if its a famous opera singer or the wife of a Romanian dictator. The only male in the cast is dressed in a powder blue dictators uniform, but all the time his only lines are I want to be an actress! And I only get these few lines I want more lines! He plays the daughter of the 2? women.
Add to that, guns. And something involving mirrors. And a video camera, and a huge chandelier that doubles as a disco ball.
There. Thats all you get.
................
Well, with that ended what was my haupt (main) phase in berlin....the next few days were spent getting to know the city more closely, travelling to places I havent been to, seeing museums I should see, and really making sure I dont miss anything too unmissable.
Monday all the museums were closed, so I made my way to Mitte to explore a bit more of the interesting areas. I looked around the Nikolaiviertel which showed a bit of old berlin, and though it was old it was no less grandiose, replete with very formidable looking buildings and a modest avenues. It must have been quite the city then as well.
I passed the ruins of a small church, bombed out during the war. That is quite an interesting relic of berlin, since most of it has been completely rebuilt it is only really in churches where you see the pain of war - in these spaces that used to hold or claimed to hold God that opened violently with the hand of man now stand as empty containers of an absent god? Or is it that now they contain the divine more than ever, since in their incompleteness they retain some hidden element that had evaded them when they once had structure?
I kept on wandering and ended up in the back of an alexander platz shopping mall. I kept walking not really paying attention where I was going and somehow ended up in Friedrichshain. It was dull and depressing soviet style housing. A really interesting experience though seeing this part of Berlin, built up with unattractive GDR era architecture. Whose faded dreams of a different sort of grandeur now bear frightening reminders of the extremes of modernity. I crossed over these prisonlike avenues into Kreuzberg, and ended up incidentally in another bombed out church.
This was a particularly strong one since the angel that stayed atop, commanding a white hot angry gaze stared right at the sight of the old wall.
I ended up walking a bit more to this sort of built in reservoir and got to one of Kreuzberg's old centers, Oranien Strasse. It was lovely, large amounts of turkish immigrants and the smell of delicious food coupled with trendy bars and berliner yuppies.
I decided to keep my adventure going and trekked over to the other side of Kreuzberg to see the area around Bergman strasse. It was one of the most picturesque parts of Berlin, and that was very much true. The streets have an absolutely timeless feel, and for many one could even imagine Europe. The people were like Prenzlbergers but a bit "trendier", not as many tourists and many families. A lovely area bordered by Victoriapark, another breathtaking Belin park replete with a fake waterfall and a huge impressive green. Lovely.
I ended up again somehow in Schönberg, and bored of residential housing I went back home to the cafe across the street and wrote another scene of my play.
So much more to tell but UBU starts in 20 minutes and I must go!
Tschüss!
- J
Friday, July 4, 2008
The halfway point?
Could it be?
Could my time in Berlin be nearing an end? - two weeks and a bit more and then Avignon.
I don't want to leave, I feel I've gotten to know this city so well.
My language lessons are over and I can happily say I'm nearly A2 level...and I plan on taking some German at Williams (5th course, pass/fail, you know how it is)
Alright, so...I haven't been writing for a bit because I've sort of been taking a break, not seeing as many plays, well, thats a lie. I only didnt go to the theatre once this week (and I think I'll take a break again today), so I do have two plays to go over. I'll do that then...
Okay, so Polleschfest continued at Volksbühne with Cappucetto Rosso. Now I thought I was going to see Little Red Riding Hood done castorf style, who knows - wolves, nudity, grandmothers, I'm sure he would have thought up something. But no, this title I guess was some reference I for the life of me could not understand, but thats all well and good, since Pollesch offers us what could only be deemed as intensely postmodern, self-aware, critic-theatre.
So what was the play? From what me and my friend Mark (who speaks German far better than I do) could gather, the play was about an actress, albeit a reluctant one, who is rehearsing this play - and I believe the actress, Maria Tura, taken from To be or Not to Be, is an actress in Nazi occupied poland.
This is the frame that Pollesch uses, however the play itself is more of an exploration of the themes of representation through the theatrical medium and the ability for theatre to disguise and play with history and a history of itself. Or something like that.
the set is once again by Bert Neumann and it reminded of me of Berlin Alexanderplatz, in the sense that it was a very similar sort of trailer type house. The outside just had a chair with a directors book. The texture of the walls were very much Pollesch style with the fake textures on flat surfaces. This man certainly has his aesthetic.
Adding to this aesthetic is the screen to the right, which, along with a camerawoman and a stage manager on book, finishes Pollesch's aesthetic.
Unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was more of a musing with 3 muses, this play has more rigidly defined characters. We have Maria Tura, and then another actress who has no problems with whats going on, because she's also a Nazi. Then the director and his assistant, a woman with red hair and and a very stylish suit emblazoned with the Swastika.
Not unlike Castorf do we have these characters in a quasi theoretical quasi theatrical always self conscious stew. They go back and forth from talking to the camera to talking to us. And all very humorously. Sort of like a strange absurdist slapstick.
This piece again has both microphones and video!! Hoorah (15-0, I believe?)
The microphones here give the character the ability to pull another layer of theatrical tapestry, we have the 3 dimensionality of the aside taken to a 4th dimension with the mic, the character rises above the scene almost as omniscent narrator, we get the ability for personal thoughts, but also for power over all other characters, at least for that moment.
One word that the Volksbühne I feel has never (and will hopefully) never understand is sublety. If the theme is representation we are going to be told that over and over again. if the actress is mad chances are she will scream and throw something. If the actress is sad she will cry, or she will whine, or she will cry and whine so much her voice is literally like a taut violin bow slowly being pulled apart, being played as it breaks. I cant really describe it any other way.
If she is upset she will take an entire bottle of pills and wash it down with Johnnie Walker Red as another one of the actresses talks at us.
The theoretical parts that comprise the beginning of the show, all taking place inside the house and nearly invisible because of the video, were a bit frustrating - a) because I like watching theatre not film. And b) because I couldnt really understand anything. Im only up to really simple concepts in german and though I can usually follow along, if the discussion is already above berliner's heads theres no way Ill grasp even a slice. The audience was laughing though, so I guess it was still funny.
My favorite aspect of Pollesch is when he breaks out of his theoretical muck, literally a muck where characters talk at each other or to the camera and seem to balance issues larger than themselves - however the moments that most seem to resonate with me are when the music starts and all of a sudden a purely theatrical aesthetic returns.
Example!
Rita Pavone (remember Nueve Reinas?) starts playing, and all of a sudden we are treated to the most bizarre candid camera game/mentos commercial ever. Where characters are being filmed being slightly disturbed. Maybe they get bumped into, or get something spilled, but nothing so as to be that big of a deal. The way the characters react though is priceless, since the camera freezes on them, and then everyone comes out to see the frozen silly picture and eventually a little sort of cursor draws a few lines over their head, perhaps suggesting shock or something of the sort. A very WTF moment indeed.
Pollesch also loves to use music to set moods. We get the sad movie music, almost without any water we can imagine rain. We have the character walk up to the door, having just left. She knocks and the doorbell rings. This sort of confused moment, where genre and expectation and all these formal units, sort of become disjointed from themselves and become (literally) bells and whistles.
I am quite certain pollesch has read his baudrillard, and probbaly his lyotard and jameson too, since his work is the epitome of postmodernism. Superflat, a pop soup, and nothing essential but the essential work of critique.
Slapstick is also perfect for these sort of shows. Every now and then, Maria Tura would come onstage and see the actress with the swastika and scream " AH! EIn Nazi!" and run away. As if replicating the the mix of forced amnesia and reawakening that must be played in such a historically confusing site that is Berlin.
This is what I feel has been essential in my stay here in Berlin - I dont feel as if I have never seen these theatrical questions attempt to be answered back home. You see it in the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and plenty of experimental and underground theatres in the states. What I feel more than anything here though, is the attempt to provide at once the theoretical and aesthetic intellectual parsing, but also to entertain, to let us have fun.
The spectacle has been intact in nearly every show, every show is aware that half of its purpose is merely showbusiness, and so even for someone with little command of the language, or little understanding of postmodern or postdramatic theory, the shows give so much more, these moments that are fun, hilarious even, or just plain bizarre.
I feel like sometimes in the states I get what the directors want us to get, I understand the sort of theoretical push and respect those intentions, but all that respect doesnt keep me from getting bored and at once falling asleep.
Pulling theatre apart shouldn't be boring, it is an exciting act. It replicates that excitement that we all get from thanatos, the urge of destruction.
here is an example - back in the day me and my friend Matt would get so much more out of destroying our toys figures than merely playing with them - we would behead our action figures or freeze them, and then run hot wheels cars together and crash them. There is something innately entertaining about taking things apart. A sort of rush, a glee. this is a dangerous desire within all of us - and I only advocate for that sort of violence only on an aesthetic level. Gestural violence - cruelty on the stage.
In that way, pollesch's theatre flirts with cruelty. It keeps the actors out of reach of the audience, stripping us of the sight of people onstage . it moves the actors at one point into the booth which is right next to us (we are, like in el Perro Cubano, seated on the stage). It romanticizes what should be strange and stupid gestures by not merely staging them but putting them onscreen. The scrubbing of hands, the eating of cake.
It makes an actress come onstage and renounce acting. Renounce Nora, Hedda, all the Ibsen actors. She eats the cake and she quits.
the director asks her to please go on, but he himself is asking for line from the woman who is on book. So does the actress, they are all, in the end actors.
In Pollesch we are doubled towards infinity, like two mirrors staring each other right in the face. But those mirrors, which are onstage, also project their infinity, flattened, onscreen. But which non-end is less essential? Silly question to ask, no? But silly, in many ways, is the point.
......................
The next day we went to Badeschiff. I had no play that day, I didnt want to think about plays, or talk about plays, I was having a one-day vacation, ja?
It is a great idea. Literally meaning Bath-ship, it is a pool which is on a barge which is sunken on the spree. So you are literally river level, but you are in clean, pool water. Apart from being a bit crowded it was perfect. Me and Mark had a bit of an escapade getting there however. We mistakenly took Berlin hospitality for local wisdom and ended up walking 20 more minutes. The problem with such a "cool" city is things arent easily labeled. Everything is almost like a hidden treasure, you have to keep discovering it. Thats what trendy is all about, hiding. Once something is shown, it loses its essence, then anyone, even fat americans can go, and thats what Potsdamer Platz is for...shhhhhh.
I have to say, after waiting for a delayed S-bahn for 30 minutes and then walking that much after the Subway, the cold water of the Badeschiff was a fucking gift! We will have to go to the lake soon, but all I can say is ich liebe das Badeschiff.
.............
So the next day, I had my next play experience. I was really excited since it was the only Kleist I was seeing the whole time I'm here. And having written a paper two semesters ago on Kleist and Caspar David Friedrich (who I will be seein in das Museum so soooon) I was hankering for some German Romantic theater!!! Penthislea was the play, and what a play to do.
Unlike Prince of Homburg, this play does not end with trumpets and confusing happiness, it ends, literally torn apart, the world fragmented, but both causes of disorder neutralized. We have the boyish and arrogant Achilles, who is sweeter than we are led to think, and the girly, but fierce, and by fierce I mean fucking awesomeley fierce Penthislea who takes Achilles's resigned offer of love and out of this anger just rips him, literally, to pieces.
Fuck Paris and his puny arrow dipped in poison, this is the real deal. Drama that rips its subjects apart. No moderation, no sublety, just an angry-ass queen black with blood (actual stage direction = glorious) .
Reading the play beforehand (in English, mind you, I can barely read my german workbook let alone Kleist!!!), I noticed that so much of the play is percieved offstage. That is to say, unlike the role of a messenger in Greek tragedies, where the action is recounted to us in past-tense from some horrible event that has either jus happened or happened ages ago, the world of Kleist happens in the now. However we can only see it from observers eyes. So much of the events, especially in the beginning dictate stuff that is happening as it is being seen that is an especially interesting theatrical device, because it allows the audience to imagine the worst, but even moreso, because it allows the site of the action to be within the world of the audience itself. That is done easily. Have the characters that are speaking what is happening look out into the audience, what is nothing other than the fabric of the abyss for the characters onstage.
My favorite line is Penthislea, which I was glad to have seen quoted (in german) in the postcard of the show afterwards goes like this:
"...Küse, Bisse,
Das reimt sich, und wer recht von Herzen liebt,
Kann schon das eine für das andre greifen"
Basically, one is liable to get both kissing and biting confused in the haze of love.
I personally love Kleist and his characters caught up in the haze of existence, lost by the very intensity of the world they create, unaware of their savagery, while calmly discovering it is only the means to their end. Penthislea soon kills herself after these lines.
So the play. Good old Luk Perceval, who gave us Death of a Salesman now takes on Kleist.
Remember the play? OK, now forget it. This is basically nothing like it, and by that I mean Perceval basically takes the idea of Penthislea, the rawness and savagery of it, the existential angst, and takes these ideas, puts them in some sort of german blender and cuts the nastiest grimiest most brutal wurst out of them you could imagine.
This is a sausage of sheer madness.
How do we begin? Take a large wooden structure, made up of identical wooden planks, about 3 stories high, thin, like large sticks and have them all stacked next to each other in a circle. They are being held up by a sort of gizmo that keeps them from falling and destroying everything (thats important dont forget it)
Other than that, the stage is bare. The actors are in the dark, shit is about to go down.
Two of the actors grab some large poles, stick them into the holding structure and twise the sticks creating what seems to be a stake. So fucking ceremonious, so fucking intense, the lights come on. The ritual has begun. Penthislea is here.
The actors? Every single one of them is doused from head to toe with clay, that is, nasty, grey clay, that makes their eyes and mouths look bright pink, as if they were the most disturbing clown masks you ever saw. The men only wear shorts. The set is just that structure and then, bam hanging mics in a circle around the structure. An eerie light follows the mics. (yep no video, but we have mics, 16-0 I believe?)
The play takes a while to begin, and BAM the actors scream mercilessly the events of horror that Penthislea onslaughts onto the Greek armies, one man and then another saying the words, repeating them, desperately, one of them standing up, one of them on the floor. Clawing. Where are they looking? Out, thank goodness. Odysseus, in the background merely mumbles, with nearly no voice, into the mic. Chilling.
Penthislea is fucking nuts. She comes in running and starts chucking mics. She chucks the mics at the audience, throwing them right at us, the mics swing unceremoniously back and forth, they could have easily hit an actor. It is very disturbing to have stuff thrown at you. Castorf has spawned a horrible tradition (and by horrible I mean wonderful).
Perceval has done away with most of the text, it is a lot, to his credit (100plus pages of blank verse), so it isnt necessarily missed. He basically condenses it so we have angry Penthislea, stern Odysseus, crazy High Priestess, arrogant Achilles, and pleading amazon sisters and country men. The fucking high priestess basically for the first 30 minutes of the play just walks around in a circle and says nothing. Terrifying.
Heres the other thing about this play. I have never thought about the directional thrust of plays, because nearly every single play Ive seen has had a linear thrust. I mean, the space that is being used, is envisioned in linear moves. This play is 100% circular. There is so much goddamn running. The actors must be so tired. Running literally laps, and faster and so fast, Penthislea running and throwing mics. Men running in unison, creating a beat for the music.+
Oh, you thought there wouldn't be music? You thought wrong...theres one dude in the corner with a guitar making the weirdest fucking abstract guitar noise you could imagine. The music rises so high and so distorted at times you want to tell him to shut up, but its an oncoming storm, the play just exists, its there, its verse and everything just happens to you and you have to sit and take it.
The actress who played Hedda Gabler, Katharina Schüttler is back as Penthi and then Rafael Stachowiak takes on Achilles. Like Hedda, Schüttler plays Penthislea sort of girl like. The ripe violence however makes no question as to how she feels, and it goes from tantrum like playing, to fierce, unwavering anger, coupled with sexuality. Achilles never reaches those heights, he prefers to be an arrogant clod, jogging and playing while the others march, riling against fatherly odysseus.
Perceval luckily eschews the tacky declarations of love for what is really behind all that devotion. ANNNNGST. The sheer recklessness of existence, the sheer disregard for each other and othrs is what binds the two warriors together. The masterslavedialectic taken as a photo and then merely kept in its negative form. There is no hope in their love, just waiting, and the only moment of sex, the only moment of togetherness is a back embrace. Achilles grabbing Penthisela from behind, her body against his. She catches the mic, whole, in her mouth. We gasp. The moment lasts not for about 2 minutes in a 1:45 minute play. And yet for us that is enough, we get it, we get how we can be slaves to each other - not out of some desire for lilies, but for a desire to stop running, to stop running in circles, to pause the music, to hold a moment in our grasp like a fluttering microphone.
But soon it all collapses. Forces of power intervene, separation occurs. the final confrontation is a haze, as most of the play. Achilles is led off without being torn apart. We are shown merely the violence of men marching then sprinting in circles and the priestess and odyseeus talking but nobody being heard. Finally everyone faces the front. Penthislea is indicted, along with all of us.
She speaks, whispers into the microphone (one of the plusses of having a microphone, really), for about 5 minutes. A sort of condensation of the last 20 pages.
WHERES THE VIOLENCE? I ask. WHERES ALL THE KLEISTIAN BLOOD???
Wondering were I to be gypped the last moment of the play, shows me the most violent act I have probably ever witnessed on a stage.
The actors, now nearly facing us, turn away. The holding machine, holding all those large trunks of wood rises. The structure collapses. And by collapse I mean just fall. Imagine a set of popsicle sticks stacked together. Now make those popsicle sticks the size of brownstones and you have the idea.
Percevla doesnt need to kill anyone, he just needs to sacrifice the theatrical structure, just needs to break apart the theatre itself, to shows us that there is no more to be seen, the characters have disappeared, even the set, under the weight of war, has vanished.
A berliner studying medicine next to me said it was unlike anything she's ever seen. She asked me if I liked it. I didn't know what to say, I'll have to wait until tomorrow and think about it.
See above for my answer.
---------
Enjoy finding new and creative ways to express your patriotism on this most gag-inducing of holidays!!
I'll be taking a brief holiday myself today and maybe write some more of my play. Tomorrow and Sunday, Pollesch-fest continues!
Tschüss!
- J
Could my time in Berlin be nearing an end? - two weeks and a bit more and then Avignon.
I don't want to leave, I feel I've gotten to know this city so well.
My language lessons are over and I can happily say I'm nearly A2 level...and I plan on taking some German at Williams (5th course, pass/fail, you know how it is)
Alright, so...I haven't been writing for a bit because I've sort of been taking a break, not seeing as many plays, well, thats a lie. I only didnt go to the theatre once this week (and I think I'll take a break again today), so I do have two plays to go over. I'll do that then...
Okay, so Polleschfest continued at Volksbühne with Cappucetto Rosso. Now I thought I was going to see Little Red Riding Hood done castorf style, who knows - wolves, nudity, grandmothers, I'm sure he would have thought up something. But no, this title I guess was some reference I for the life of me could not understand, but thats all well and good, since Pollesch offers us what could only be deemed as intensely postmodern, self-aware, critic-theatre.
So what was the play? From what me and my friend Mark (who speaks German far better than I do) could gather, the play was about an actress, albeit a reluctant one, who is rehearsing this play - and I believe the actress, Maria Tura, taken from To be or Not to Be, is an actress in Nazi occupied poland.
This is the frame that Pollesch uses, however the play itself is more of an exploration of the themes of representation through the theatrical medium and the ability for theatre to disguise and play with history and a history of itself. Or something like that.
the set is once again by Bert Neumann and it reminded of me of Berlin Alexanderplatz, in the sense that it was a very similar sort of trailer type house. The outside just had a chair with a directors book. The texture of the walls were very much Pollesch style with the fake textures on flat surfaces. This man certainly has his aesthetic.
Adding to this aesthetic is the screen to the right, which, along with a camerawoman and a stage manager on book, finishes Pollesch's aesthetic.
Unlike Tod Eines Praktikanten which was more of a musing with 3 muses, this play has more rigidly defined characters. We have Maria Tura, and then another actress who has no problems with whats going on, because she's also a Nazi. Then the director and his assistant, a woman with red hair and and a very stylish suit emblazoned with the Swastika.
Not unlike Castorf do we have these characters in a quasi theoretical quasi theatrical always self conscious stew. They go back and forth from talking to the camera to talking to us. And all very humorously. Sort of like a strange absurdist slapstick.
This piece again has both microphones and video!! Hoorah (15-0, I believe?)
The microphones here give the character the ability to pull another layer of theatrical tapestry, we have the 3 dimensionality of the aside taken to a 4th dimension with the mic, the character rises above the scene almost as omniscent narrator, we get the ability for personal thoughts, but also for power over all other characters, at least for that moment.
One word that the Volksbühne I feel has never (and will hopefully) never understand is sublety. If the theme is representation we are going to be told that over and over again. if the actress is mad chances are she will scream and throw something. If the actress is sad she will cry, or she will whine, or she will cry and whine so much her voice is literally like a taut violin bow slowly being pulled apart, being played as it breaks. I cant really describe it any other way.
If she is upset she will take an entire bottle of pills and wash it down with Johnnie Walker Red as another one of the actresses talks at us.
The theoretical parts that comprise the beginning of the show, all taking place inside the house and nearly invisible because of the video, were a bit frustrating - a) because I like watching theatre not film. And b) because I couldnt really understand anything. Im only up to really simple concepts in german and though I can usually follow along, if the discussion is already above berliner's heads theres no way Ill grasp even a slice. The audience was laughing though, so I guess it was still funny.
My favorite aspect of Pollesch is when he breaks out of his theoretical muck, literally a muck where characters talk at each other or to the camera and seem to balance issues larger than themselves - however the moments that most seem to resonate with me are when the music starts and all of a sudden a purely theatrical aesthetic returns.
Example!
Rita Pavone (remember Nueve Reinas?) starts playing, and all of a sudden we are treated to the most bizarre candid camera game/mentos commercial ever. Where characters are being filmed being slightly disturbed. Maybe they get bumped into, or get something spilled, but nothing so as to be that big of a deal. The way the characters react though is priceless, since the camera freezes on them, and then everyone comes out to see the frozen silly picture and eventually a little sort of cursor draws a few lines over their head, perhaps suggesting shock or something of the sort. A very WTF moment indeed.
Pollesch also loves to use music to set moods. We get the sad movie music, almost without any water we can imagine rain. We have the character walk up to the door, having just left. She knocks and the doorbell rings. This sort of confused moment, where genre and expectation and all these formal units, sort of become disjointed from themselves and become (literally) bells and whistles.
I am quite certain pollesch has read his baudrillard, and probbaly his lyotard and jameson too, since his work is the epitome of postmodernism. Superflat, a pop soup, and nothing essential but the essential work of critique.
Slapstick is also perfect for these sort of shows. Every now and then, Maria Tura would come onstage and see the actress with the swastika and scream " AH! EIn Nazi!" and run away. As if replicating the the mix of forced amnesia and reawakening that must be played in such a historically confusing site that is Berlin.
This is what I feel has been essential in my stay here in Berlin - I dont feel as if I have never seen these theatrical questions attempt to be answered back home. You see it in the Wooster Group, Richard Foreman, and plenty of experimental and underground theatres in the states. What I feel more than anything here though, is the attempt to provide at once the theoretical and aesthetic intellectual parsing, but also to entertain, to let us have fun.
The spectacle has been intact in nearly every show, every show is aware that half of its purpose is merely showbusiness, and so even for someone with little command of the language, or little understanding of postmodern or postdramatic theory, the shows give so much more, these moments that are fun, hilarious even, or just plain bizarre.
I feel like sometimes in the states I get what the directors want us to get, I understand the sort of theoretical push and respect those intentions, but all that respect doesnt keep me from getting bored and at once falling asleep.
Pulling theatre apart shouldn't be boring, it is an exciting act. It replicates that excitement that we all get from thanatos, the urge of destruction.
here is an example - back in the day me and my friend Matt would get so much more out of destroying our toys figures than merely playing with them - we would behead our action figures or freeze them, and then run hot wheels cars together and crash them. There is something innately entertaining about taking things apart. A sort of rush, a glee. this is a dangerous desire within all of us - and I only advocate for that sort of violence only on an aesthetic level. Gestural violence - cruelty on the stage.
In that way, pollesch's theatre flirts with cruelty. It keeps the actors out of reach of the audience, stripping us of the sight of people onstage . it moves the actors at one point into the booth which is right next to us (we are, like in el Perro Cubano, seated on the stage). It romanticizes what should be strange and stupid gestures by not merely staging them but putting them onscreen. The scrubbing of hands, the eating of cake.
It makes an actress come onstage and renounce acting. Renounce Nora, Hedda, all the Ibsen actors. She eats the cake and she quits.
the director asks her to please go on, but he himself is asking for line from the woman who is on book. So does the actress, they are all, in the end actors.
In Pollesch we are doubled towards infinity, like two mirrors staring each other right in the face. But those mirrors, which are onstage, also project their infinity, flattened, onscreen. But which non-end is less essential? Silly question to ask, no? But silly, in many ways, is the point.
......................
The next day we went to Badeschiff. I had no play that day, I didnt want to think about plays, or talk about plays, I was having a one-day vacation, ja?
It is a great idea. Literally meaning Bath-ship, it is a pool which is on a barge which is sunken on the spree. So you are literally river level, but you are in clean, pool water. Apart from being a bit crowded it was perfect. Me and Mark had a bit of an escapade getting there however. We mistakenly took Berlin hospitality for local wisdom and ended up walking 20 more minutes. The problem with such a "cool" city is things arent easily labeled. Everything is almost like a hidden treasure, you have to keep discovering it. Thats what trendy is all about, hiding. Once something is shown, it loses its essence, then anyone, even fat americans can go, and thats what Potsdamer Platz is for...shhhhhh.
I have to say, after waiting for a delayed S-bahn for 30 minutes and then walking that much after the Subway, the cold water of the Badeschiff was a fucking gift! We will have to go to the lake soon, but all I can say is ich liebe das Badeschiff.
.............
So the next day, I had my next play experience. I was really excited since it was the only Kleist I was seeing the whole time I'm here. And having written a paper two semesters ago on Kleist and Caspar David Friedrich (who I will be seein in das Museum so soooon) I was hankering for some German Romantic theater!!! Penthislea was the play, and what a play to do.
Unlike Prince of Homburg, this play does not end with trumpets and confusing happiness, it ends, literally torn apart, the world fragmented, but both causes of disorder neutralized. We have the boyish and arrogant Achilles, who is sweeter than we are led to think, and the girly, but fierce, and by fierce I mean fucking awesomeley fierce Penthislea who takes Achilles's resigned offer of love and out of this anger just rips him, literally, to pieces.
Fuck Paris and his puny arrow dipped in poison, this is the real deal. Drama that rips its subjects apart. No moderation, no sublety, just an angry-ass queen black with blood (actual stage direction = glorious) .
Reading the play beforehand (in English, mind you, I can barely read my german workbook let alone Kleist!!!), I noticed that so much of the play is percieved offstage. That is to say, unlike the role of a messenger in Greek tragedies, where the action is recounted to us in past-tense from some horrible event that has either jus happened or happened ages ago, the world of Kleist happens in the now. However we can only see it from observers eyes. So much of the events, especially in the beginning dictate stuff that is happening as it is being seen that is an especially interesting theatrical device, because it allows the audience to imagine the worst, but even moreso, because it allows the site of the action to be within the world of the audience itself. That is done easily. Have the characters that are speaking what is happening look out into the audience, what is nothing other than the fabric of the abyss for the characters onstage.
My favorite line is Penthislea, which I was glad to have seen quoted (in german) in the postcard of the show afterwards goes like this:
"...Küse, Bisse,
Das reimt sich, und wer recht von Herzen liebt,
Kann schon das eine für das andre greifen"
Basically, one is liable to get both kissing and biting confused in the haze of love.
I personally love Kleist and his characters caught up in the haze of existence, lost by the very intensity of the world they create, unaware of their savagery, while calmly discovering it is only the means to their end. Penthislea soon kills herself after these lines.
So the play. Good old Luk Perceval, who gave us Death of a Salesman now takes on Kleist.
Remember the play? OK, now forget it. This is basically nothing like it, and by that I mean Perceval basically takes the idea of Penthislea, the rawness and savagery of it, the existential angst, and takes these ideas, puts them in some sort of german blender and cuts the nastiest grimiest most brutal wurst out of them you could imagine.
This is a sausage of sheer madness.
How do we begin? Take a large wooden structure, made up of identical wooden planks, about 3 stories high, thin, like large sticks and have them all stacked next to each other in a circle. They are being held up by a sort of gizmo that keeps them from falling and destroying everything (thats important dont forget it)
Other than that, the stage is bare. The actors are in the dark, shit is about to go down.
Two of the actors grab some large poles, stick them into the holding structure and twise the sticks creating what seems to be a stake. So fucking ceremonious, so fucking intense, the lights come on. The ritual has begun. Penthislea is here.
The actors? Every single one of them is doused from head to toe with clay, that is, nasty, grey clay, that makes their eyes and mouths look bright pink, as if they were the most disturbing clown masks you ever saw. The men only wear shorts. The set is just that structure and then, bam hanging mics in a circle around the structure. An eerie light follows the mics. (yep no video, but we have mics, 16-0 I believe?)
The play takes a while to begin, and BAM the actors scream mercilessly the events of horror that Penthislea onslaughts onto the Greek armies, one man and then another saying the words, repeating them, desperately, one of them standing up, one of them on the floor. Clawing. Where are they looking? Out, thank goodness. Odysseus, in the background merely mumbles, with nearly no voice, into the mic. Chilling.
Penthislea is fucking nuts. She comes in running and starts chucking mics. She chucks the mics at the audience, throwing them right at us, the mics swing unceremoniously back and forth, they could have easily hit an actor. It is very disturbing to have stuff thrown at you. Castorf has spawned a horrible tradition (and by horrible I mean wonderful).
Perceval has done away with most of the text, it is a lot, to his credit (100plus pages of blank verse), so it isnt necessarily missed. He basically condenses it so we have angry Penthislea, stern Odysseus, crazy High Priestess, arrogant Achilles, and pleading amazon sisters and country men. The fucking high priestess basically for the first 30 minutes of the play just walks around in a circle and says nothing. Terrifying.
Heres the other thing about this play. I have never thought about the directional thrust of plays, because nearly every single play Ive seen has had a linear thrust. I mean, the space that is being used, is envisioned in linear moves. This play is 100% circular. There is so much goddamn running. The actors must be so tired. Running literally laps, and faster and so fast, Penthislea running and throwing mics. Men running in unison, creating a beat for the music.+
Oh, you thought there wouldn't be music? You thought wrong...theres one dude in the corner with a guitar making the weirdest fucking abstract guitar noise you could imagine. The music rises so high and so distorted at times you want to tell him to shut up, but its an oncoming storm, the play just exists, its there, its verse and everything just happens to you and you have to sit and take it.
The actress who played Hedda Gabler, Katharina Schüttler is back as Penthi and then Rafael Stachowiak takes on Achilles. Like Hedda, Schüttler plays Penthislea sort of girl like. The ripe violence however makes no question as to how she feels, and it goes from tantrum like playing, to fierce, unwavering anger, coupled with sexuality. Achilles never reaches those heights, he prefers to be an arrogant clod, jogging and playing while the others march, riling against fatherly odysseus.
Perceval luckily eschews the tacky declarations of love for what is really behind all that devotion. ANNNNGST. The sheer recklessness of existence, the sheer disregard for each other and othrs is what binds the two warriors together. The masterslavedialectic taken as a photo and then merely kept in its negative form. There is no hope in their love, just waiting, and the only moment of sex, the only moment of togetherness is a back embrace. Achilles grabbing Penthisela from behind, her body against his. She catches the mic, whole, in her mouth. We gasp. The moment lasts not for about 2 minutes in a 1:45 minute play. And yet for us that is enough, we get it, we get how we can be slaves to each other - not out of some desire for lilies, but for a desire to stop running, to stop running in circles, to pause the music, to hold a moment in our grasp like a fluttering microphone.
But soon it all collapses. Forces of power intervene, separation occurs. the final confrontation is a haze, as most of the play. Achilles is led off without being torn apart. We are shown merely the violence of men marching then sprinting in circles and the priestess and odyseeus talking but nobody being heard. Finally everyone faces the front. Penthislea is indicted, along with all of us.
She speaks, whispers into the microphone (one of the plusses of having a microphone, really), for about 5 minutes. A sort of condensation of the last 20 pages.
WHERES THE VIOLENCE? I ask. WHERES ALL THE KLEISTIAN BLOOD???
Wondering were I to be gypped the last moment of the play, shows me the most violent act I have probably ever witnessed on a stage.
The actors, now nearly facing us, turn away. The holding machine, holding all those large trunks of wood rises. The structure collapses. And by collapse I mean just fall. Imagine a set of popsicle sticks stacked together. Now make those popsicle sticks the size of brownstones and you have the idea.
Percevla doesnt need to kill anyone, he just needs to sacrifice the theatrical structure, just needs to break apart the theatre itself, to shows us that there is no more to be seen, the characters have disappeared, even the set, under the weight of war, has vanished.
A berliner studying medicine next to me said it was unlike anything she's ever seen. She asked me if I liked it. I didn't know what to say, I'll have to wait until tomorrow and think about it.
See above for my answer.
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Enjoy finding new and creative ways to express your patriotism on this most gag-inducing of holidays!!
I'll be taking a brief holiday myself today and maybe write some more of my play. Tomorrow and Sunday, Pollesch-fest continues!
Tschüss!
- J
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