Das sind nicht wir, das ist nur Glas (Zimmertheater Tübingen)

In between all the other things that are currently going on in my life, I managed to catch another one of the Zimmertheater's monologues, Das sind nicht wir, das ist nur Glas (roughly "This isn't us, it's only glass"), by Croation playwright Ivana Sajko. Since it's the tiniest of our professional theatres in town with an ensemble of five actors only, they regularly do a lot of one-man-plays and, thankfully one-woman-plays too, to offer more than ten plays in rep per season - extended runs not included.

Das sind nicht wir is a dystopian vision of a society after an economical breakdown of the worst kind. It's basically the Apocalypse and Black Friday rolled into one: first all wheat crops fail and then the rest of the global economy starts to disintegrate to disastrous effects. Unemployment soars, mortgages are left unpaid, the children go hungry and their parents despair.

Sajko sums up the reactions to this economic and social meltdown in a generational conflict that also comments on what a consumerist society hands on to the next generation. It follows the question of what actually happens when the only basis of such a society breaks away. What is left when we don't have the possibility to go shopping anymore? Together with their job, their bank accounts and eventually their homes the adults lose all their self-esteem and simply retreat into their self-loathing, leaving their hungry offspring largely to themselves. And the kids? They yearn for everything their parents can't buy them, for shoes big enough for their growing feet, for food to fill their stomachs, but also for sports clothes, mobile phones, cars. There's a deeper yearning for respect too, for exactly the self-esteem their parents let go, for a future that is simply a bit less shite than the past. Sajko's monologue is full of references to looking glasses, reflections in shop windows, photographs. However, it is less the glitzy images of the fashion world than the glamour of crime as embodied in Bonnie and Clyde's series of 1930s robberies. Sajko presents shoplifting as the only kind of uprising the younger generation is capable of, the smashing of windows is only a means to steal the designer goods behind them, not an emblem of the will to change something. This world is quite generally one that has completely forgotten about any kind of 'us' - it's split into the tiniest of social units and peopled by individuals who are no longer capable of connecting with other human beings apart from superficial admiration and meaningless sex.

Consisting mainly of dust and light - a favourite element of the Zimmertheater's set repertoire - the design of the play is as dreary as the world that is created in the monologue, which is superbly delivered by Nicole Schneider. Since monologues naturally stand and fall with the actor, the Zimmertheater can be glad that they've got exactly the right person to pull this off (as she did brilliantly as last year's Richard II in their version of Shakespeare's history for five people and too heavy scenery). The play itself is, however, slightly inconsistent in its imagery. At the beginning, it places quite a lot of emphasis on religious imagery, but veers away from this completely from about the middle onwards and leaves a loose end in this respect. With 65 minutes run time, the trick of discussing the end of society in the guise of a generational conflict starts to run out of steam with one generation not 'doing' much apart from lamenting and chain smoking. I had the feeling that it would have been possible to achieve more with less by trimming the script, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

On a rather personal note, I found this a play which I wouldn't have been able to bear a mere three weeks ago: the descend of people who become unemployed is one that just went too close to the bone for me. I've been unemployed since the beginning of October (no sympathy, please, I quit out of free will and already have another job lined up, so I'm great again, thanks) and for some 7 weeks I had no idea what to do with myself and where I wanted to go (and whether I would get any chance to decide at all). Plus I had the immense pleasure of communicating with the job centre and had to realise that this truly is an institution that seems to have as their goal the demoralising of already demoralised people. From one moment to the other, all skills and qualifications, all prospects and projects become totally meaningless because you committed the crime of becoming unemployed - of becoming one blip in the statistic that is taken for political success like almost no other in this country. From tax payer to nothing at the stroke of midnight. You see this play - and a lot of other things too - in a different light after this experience. I've not taken up chain smoking though.


Production details:
Das sind nicht wir, das ist nur Glas by Ivana Sajko, Zimmertheater Tübingen, Spielzeit 2013/2014 Director and design: Michael Hanisch
Nicole Schneider

Link to the Zimmertheater's website, including a video trailer: Das sind nicht wir, das ist nur Glas
Next performance: Jan 31, 2014
All photographs: (c) Alexander Gonschior

Stuttgarter Ballett (im Park): Krabat

I accidentally deleted this post while working on the site, so this is a re-loaded version. The original one dates 14 Jul 2013.

I've been enthusing about this on twitter for so long that I thought I might as well write a proper blog entry about the ballet I saw last weekend. I'm not usually a ballet person since for some reason words tend to do more for me than sounds or pictures. But Krabat is based on a much-loved children's book by one of my childhood heroes, Otfried Preußler, who gave us so many unforgettable characters like Räuber Hotzenplotz, Die kleine Hexe, Der kleine Wassermann, and Krabat, which is closer to YA than children's literature, so I thought, why not give it a try?

Based on a Sorbian fairy tale and set in 16th-century Saxony, Krabat is an orphan who travels the area with a group of other beggar boys, when he finds himself mysteriously drawn to a mill in a valley, where he begins an apprenticeship. He soon notices that milling isn't the only craft he is going to learn at this particular mill and he joins the other journeymen and apprentices at night, practising Black Magic under the miller's guidance. The twelve turn themselves into ravens for these sessions. 

Krabat finds a friend and surrogate brother in Tonda, the senior journeyman, who shows him the ropes in the mill. On New Year's Eve of Krabat's first year as an apprentice, however, Tonda dies in an accident, but the other journeymen stay astonishingly calm about this. The same happens on New Year's Eve the following year, when another senior apprentice dies. Krabat realizes that the Master either has to sacrifice one of his apprentices at the end of the year or his pact with the devil ends and he has to die himself. The Master usually picks the best of his pupils, before they become strong enough to challenge him.

Planning revenge for his friends' deaths, Krabat wants to become the best pupil of them all. Juri, the apparent idiot cook in the mill, warns Krabat and reveals to him that he will only manage to stay alive by acting dumb like he himself does. The two of them secretly train together to challenge the Master at the end of the year, and Juri discovers that Krabat's love for a girl from the village, Kantorka (meaning "little chorister" in Sorbian), increases his resistance to magic.

Kantorka agrees to ask for Krabat's release on New Year's Eve, in the full knowledge that if she fails the Master's test they both are going to die. Before they can execute this plan, however, the Master offers Krabat the inheritance of the mill and of the pact with the devil. Yet Krabat turns down this offer, as he doesn't want to be responsible for other people's deaths in order to keep his magical powers.

When Kantorka - whose real name we never get to know - appears on the night of the challenge, the Master turns all the boys once again into ravens, blindfolds Kantorka and challenges her to identify her lover among the birds. Since the apprentices are all fearing for their own life, while Krabat is the only one fearing for the life of his love, she is able to tell him apart, the journeymen are all free to leave - albeit without their magical powers - , and the Master is left to die in his burning mill.

The fairytale elements of the story already evoke fairly strong visuals, as any 10-year old who's read the book will tell you. What turns this production into a complete success is the combination of the strong design of set and costumes by Katharina Schlipf with Demis Volpi's choreography that really manages to communicate character and emotion. 

The mill consists entirely of high walls of flour sacks and catches the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Master's realm. They seriously limit the dancers' space and particularly in the big scenes with all apprentices present there is hardly enough room for them all to move, let alone jump, which sometimes feels a shame. What fascinated me most, though, were the raven costumes. Elongating the dancers' arms to twice their normal length and fitted with five different kinds of real feathers as well as synthetic ones, the wings worked incredibly well in the choreography. 

A second lucky idea was the Master's long, black coat. (Yes, Sherlock fans will see what I mean.) Apart from being absolutely awesome, this coat was also used to signify the Master's power and position in the mill. When he offers Krabat to succeed him as miller, he hands over his coat, and Krabat literally picks up the mantle, tries it on and - in a long solo dance scene - fights the coat that attempts to take possession of him. 

It is exactly the economy behind decisions like these that makes the production so powerful. There are no special effects necessary to evoke the dark magical world of the mill; music, light, costumes, and choreography lead the audience through the story of the Sorbian orphan turned wizard.

One thing I should add is that I was able to see Krabat for free and open air - the performance was broadcast live from the Opernhaus to the park in front of it, where the audience could follow the music and action on a massive LED screen, while tending to their picknicks and sipping chilled wine. The close-ups of the dancers added considerably to the experience - one which you can never have up in the gods. So, thank you, Stuttgarter Ballett im Park - more like this, anytime!

P.S.: There's one point of critique - the depiction of the choir girls... well, that could have been less stereotypical. If the Master is eventually defeated by strong women (there's a lengthy magical battle between him and another Master, who's a proper kick-ass young woman; plus the devil is female), why stage the choir girls all the time en point and going through Ballet routines whereas the rest of the cast is allowed to have a bit of fun?

More info: 

• Krabat will return to Stuttgart next January, booking is open until March 2014: http://www.stuttgarter-ballett.de/spielplan/krabat/
• Here's the link to the official trailer, which also gives a fairly good insight into the music composed for the ballet: http://www.stuttgarter-ballett.de/spielplan/krabat/trailer/
• Krabat was first published in 1971 and translated into English as The Satanic Mill, then as The Curse of the Darkling Mill and, finally, as Krabat in 2011.

"I think Prospero’s suicide is a must." Interview with Simone Sterr, artistic director of the Landestheater Tübingen

This is the transcript and an English translation of an interview I did with the artistic director of the bigger of our local theatres last month. They staged a site-specific production of the Tempest on the topmost park deck of a multi-storey car park. My review will be eventually up on reviewingshakespeare.com, but I thought I might as well put the interview on here, for those interested. The pictures are all taken from the LTT's homepage; the copyright for the production photos: Patrick Pfeifer.

Here's the English translation first:

LP: What came first, the decision to stage The Tempest or the idea to do it in a car park?

SS: That went kind of together. It was the decision to do this play for the Summer Theatre and then the decision for the venue. We were looking for an island of some kind and consequently looking for natural islands and stuff like that; we had a look at everything available. But then, The Tempest isn’t really a play where any romantic idea of nature plays a major role. It is rather an island that is an exile, it is a place of privation where nobody really wants to be. So, where can you find a place in this town that is close to the water, that feels like an island, where somebody gets stranded, exiled, where you can find people who have fallen out of society, like Caliban or Prospero, who’s said goodbye to all that circus or rather who was forced to say goodbye to all that?

LP: Are there more advantages of this venue compared to the big auditorium in the Landestheater, apart from the symbolic ones?

SS: First it has an aesthetic advantage and compared to the big auditorium it’s the decision for an open air experience. You want to be a bit closer to the sky and you have a range of different means to work with. One thing you have to be aware of though is that you don’t start to wish for the focus of the proscenium stage. There was a point yesterday when we discussed whether it was okay that you could see a spotlight and then you can basically go back inside the theatre where you can draw your curtains. I think we managed to come up with a couple of ideas for the driveway [up to this parking deck] and this is the moment when you really start using a site like this. The car park is super ugly as a space, it is entirely possible to meet a garbage kid like Caliban here, but at the same time it offers the possibility for magic, for enchantment, because you can create beautiful images and work with the light.

LP: It is possible then to bring Prospero’s magic onto the parking deck?

SS: Absolutely. Those things over there [points to the transformer columns on the riverside of the setting], they can do stuff, they can glow and flash, those transformers. The basic idea behind this is magic as a kind of mastery of nature. That was the key word we set ourselves. And to control nature also means to control energy, the wind, the sun, water; it also means to control emotions. This is also one of the big topics in Shakespeare, control: power and love, governing, being governed – all of this is strongly related to nature in the Tempest, how to control it and subject it to one’s will. That is Prospero, too. I don’t think he’s that likeable poor guy who was the victim of a coup although he knows so much and is a philosopher; we weren’t interested in that. Rather in this.

LP: In Prospero as a power hungry person?

SS: Yes.

LP: Was this also the reason for choosing a Shakespeare for this year’s Summer Theatre season?

SS: I like the play, also for this reason. I did A Midsummer Night’s Dream where I was also fascinated by this topic, the interplay of power and love. I did the political plays, Troilus and Cressida and the Purpurheuchler [an adaptation of the three parts of Henry VI], all these plays about kingship. So I was interested in continuing this kind of work and connect it to the supernatural, to magic. The Tempest isn’t really psychological but it’s got something suggestive. Ariel actually affects people’s souls, he works on them in a way that is related to depth psychology, almost traumatic. I think this is an interesting quality that no other play has.

LP: After I’ve seen the rehearsals for Act V, there won’t be a happy ending for everyone in this production...

SS: That is still a question that is slightly undecided, but I am truly convinced of the fact that Prospero can’t return from the island. I’m sure that in the precise moment when his staged revenge has worked out according to plan, this revenge feels like a superfluous emotion. Basically, the Tempest is a truly boring play: the staging works exactly the way it’s laid out in Prospero’s script, there’s not even the slightest mistake. Caliban is the only uncontrollable element, but apart from that everything works, which is actually totally boring. And in this moment, when everything has come off as planned, the only thing that remains for him is to jump into the Neckar or just to kill himself. So I’m convinced that he’s got to die. I think Prospero’s suicide is a must.

LP: One last question: which translation did you use for this production?

SS: It’s the one by Frank Günther. I find Günther’s translations really good for the richer and lusher political plays. They can sometimes get on your nerves a bit because he plays a lot with language, these peculiar words, which are sometimes too artificial. But actually this gives the text a good, lush, light artificiality, which is important for the size this production has.

_________________________

And here comes the German transcript.

LP: Was war zuerst da, die Entscheidung für den Spielort oder für das Stück?

SS: Das ging so ein bisschen zusammen. Es war die Entscheidung fürs Stück als Sommertheater und dann die Entscheidung für den Spielort. Wir haben eine Insel gesucht und waren dann auch nach Naturinseln und so auf der Suche, haben uns alles angesehen. Aber dann ist das aber kein Stück, wo es eigentlich um Romantik oder Naturromantik geht, sondern um eine Insel, wo man ausgesetzt ist, so ein Notort, wo keiner eigentlich hin möchte. Wo gibt es eine Ecke in dieser Stadt, die eine Nähe zum Wasser hat, die ein Inselgefühl hat, wo jemand gestrandet ist, ausgesetzt, wo also Leute zu finden sind, die eigentlich rausgefallen sind aus der Gesellschaft, wie Caliban und wie Prospero, der sich verabschiedet hat von dem ganzen Zirkus oder zwangsweise verabschiedet wurde.

LP: Hat der Ort noch andere Vorteile oder Nachteile im Vergleich zum Großen Saal des LTTs, einmal von der symbolischen Dimension abgesehen?

SS: Erstens hat es natürlich einen ästhetischen Vorteil und im Vergleich zum Großen Saal ist es natürlich die Entscheidung fürs Freie. Man will ein bisschen dem Himmel näher sein und man hat ja auch andere Formen zur Verfügung. Man muss halt aufpassen, dass man sich von der Konzentration nicht dann doch den Großen Saal wünscht. Gestern gab es eine Situation, wo es darum ging, ob man einen Scheinwerfer sehen darf. Dann können wir auch ins Theater gehen, da können wir schön die Vorhänge zumachen. Ich finde, mit der Auffahrt [zum Parkdeck] ist uns doch einiges eingefallen, und das sind dann so Momente, wo man einen Ort auch wirklich benutzt. Das Parkdeck ist ein superhässlicher Ort, so ein Müllkind wie Caliban könnte man hier treffen, und es hat aber trotzdem die Möglichkeit des Zaubers, die Möglichkeit der Verzauberung, weil sich einfach schöne Bilder herstellen lassen und man mit dem Licht gut arbeiten kann.

Q: Es ist also möglich, Prosperos Zauber aufs Parkdeck zu bringen?

A: Absolut. Also die Dinger [zeigt auf die Umspannsäulen an der Flussseite der Kulisse] können ja was, die können leuchten, die Transformatoren. Die Grundidee ist die Magie als eine Art von Naturbeherrschung, das ist das Stichwort, das wir uns vorgenommen haben. Und Natur beherrschen heißt auch, Energie beherrschen, heißt die Sonne, den Wind, das Wasser beherrschen, heißt natürlich auch Gefühle beherrschen. Das ist ja auch ein fettes Shakespeare-Thema, Beherrschung: Macht und Liebe, Herrschen, Beherrschung, beim ‚Sturm’ hat das sehr stark auch mit den Naturen zu tun, die zu beherrschen, sich unterwürfig zu machen. Das ist auch Prospero. Ich finde den nicht so den sympathischen Armen, den man geputscht hat, wo er doch ganz viel kann und ein Philosoph ist, das hat uns jetzt nicht so interessiert. Sondern das so.

Q: Prospero als Machtmensch?

A: Ja.

Q: War das auch der Grund für die Wahl eines Shakespeare-Stückes für das diesjährige Sommertheater?

A: Ich find das Stück toll, auch aus diesem Grund. Ich habe den Sommernachtstraum gemacht, da hat mich das auch schon interessiert, dieses Spiel von Macht und Liebe, ich habe diese politischen Sachen gemacht, Troilus und Cressida und die Purpurheuchler, diese ganzen Königsdramen. Da ist man schon daran interessiert, das irgendwie weiterzuführen und in Verbindung zu bringen mit Übersinnlichkeit, mit Magie. Der Sturm ist nicht wirklich psychologisch, aber hat doch so etwas Suggestives. Ariel wirkt ja gewissermaßen in die Seelen der Leute, wirkt quasi tiefenpsychologisch, nahezu traumatisch. Und das finde ich ist eine interessante Qualität, die kein anderes Stück hat.

Q: Nachdem ich die Proben für den fünften Akt gesehen habe, gibt es also kein happy end für alle?

A: Das ist tatsächlich noch eine Frage, die noch ein bisschen ungeklärt ist, aber ich bin tatsächlich überzeugt davon, dass Prospero nicht zurückkann vom Eiland. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass für ihn, der wirklich eine Inszenierung dieses Rachefeldzuges anstrengt, in dem Moment, wo alles geklappt hat, sich die Rache anfühlt wie ein überflüssiges Gefühl. Der Sturm ist ja eigentlich ein langweiliges Stück: die Inszenierung läuft genauso am Schnürchen wie es in Prospero’s Regiebuch steht, da passiert nicht mal ein Fehler. Caliban ist das unbeherrschbare Element, aber ansonsten läuft das, also eigentlich total langweilig. Und hier in dem Moment, wo alles funktioniert hat wie er sich’s vorgestellt hat, bleibt eigentlich nur noch in den Neckar zu springen oder sich einfach umzubringen. Also ich bin überzeugt, er muss sterben. Der Selbstmord von Prospero, finde ich, muss sein.

Q: Noch eine letzte Frage: Welche Übersetzung liegt denn der Inszenierung zu Grunde?

A: Die von Frank Günther. Ich finde Günther’s Übersetzungen für die satteren, politischeren Stücke immer sehr gut. Der kann manchmal ein bisschen nerven, weil er so dieses Sprachgespiele, die speziellen Wörter hat, wie hier bei Caliban „Gifthexentau“. Manchmal ist das zu artifiziell, aber eigentlich gibt das immer so eine gute, satte, leichte Künstlichkeit, das ist uns auch schon für die Größe, die das hier hat, wichtig.