Exberliner Issue 138, May 2015

More documents

Recommendations

Info

What’s on STAGE MAY 6-22 Hausbesuch Europa The newest project from Rimini Protokoll sounds like a cross between a house party and a game of Risk: 15 people gather in a private apartment somewhere in Berlin, lay out maps, and determine the future of Europe. Anybody want to test what happens if Greece leaves the Eurozone? Should we appoint Angela Merkel leader of the entire continent? Or, if we’re really reaching here, see if we can finally get that new airport built in Berlin? A “table robot” will apparently dispense instructions, and about a quarter of the shows will be held in English. Address provided after ticket purchase; more info at rimini-protokoll.de MAY 7, 8, 9, 11, 20:00 Welcome to Germany Gießen-based performance collective Monster Truck describes its latest piece as a balancing act between documentary theatre and surrealistic installation. It’s about Villa Baviera, a bizarre colony run by German immigrants in the Chilean Andes from the early 1960s to the late 1980s in which a seemingly idyllic world of folk music, traditional costumes and Wurst hid a secret torture centre. Today, it’s become a gaudy tourist trap. Expect ample use of video, probably some oldschool folk songs and maybe even a dirndl or two. Sophiensaele, Sophienstr. 18, Mitte, U-Bhf Weinmeisterstr. MAY 14, 16, 18, 19, 20:00, MAY 20, 18:00 Bella Figura Thomas Ostermeier directs the world premiere of a new work by Yasmina Reza, which the French playwright wrote specifically for the Schaubühne ensemble (including Nina Hoss and Mark Waschke). The play revolves around marriage and infidelity, unfolding over the course of a single evening. It’s not the first time Reza, a two-time Tony Award winner, has seen her work immediately translated from French into German: God of Carnage had its world premiere in Zürich in 2006. Schaubühne, Kurfürstendamm 153, Charlottenburg, U-Bhf Adenauer Platz MAY 13, 14, 20, 22, 23, 25, 30, 19:30 Duato | Kylián Once an upstart newcomer, Nacho Duato has now spent a full season as artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin, and the Spaniard is finally setting some new choreography on the dancers. The company is mum about exactly what to expect from the new piece, titled Static Time. Also on the bill: White Darkness, Duato’s 2001 piece about drug abuse, and Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián’s Click-Pause-Silence, a stark and austere work from 2000. Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Bismarckstr. 110, Charlottenburg, U-Bhf Ernst-Reuter-Platz FERNANDO MARCOS ARNO DECLAIR MARÍA JOSÉ AQUILANTI “Nothing happens in the lines, but a lot goes on in between them” By REBECCA JACOBSON NURKAN ERPULAT goes back to Chekhov at the Maxim Gorki with a new production of Uncle Vanya. Erpulat, a resident director at the Gorki, took his first crack at Chekhov two years ago with a take on The Cherry Orchard that some criticised as simplistic parable – it drew parallels with Turkish guestworkers in Germany – and others as cliché-laden cabaret. (A few found it genuinely funny.) But the Turkishborn director, who first built a name for himself at Ballhaus Naunystraße, wasn’t cowed, and now he’s tackling Uncle Vanya, a tale of dashed hopes, the perpetual search for meaning and clumsy gun-slinging. Why did you want to direct another Chekhov play? What interested you about Uncle Vanya in particular? For me, Chekhov is one of the greatest writers of his century. He is a gift for theatre people, because his plays are about life. Of course, theatre in general is about life. But Chekhov captured how sometimes absolutely nothing happens – that life is sometimes characterised by meaningless events, by daily routines. He opens up these moments, and that interests me. In Chekhov’s plays, nothing happens in the lines, but a lot goes on in between them. What especially interests me about Uncle Vanya is the question of how people deal with the fact that they might have to change their lives. It’s an attitude that’s familiar today. The stagnation he describes is very modern. As a director, what was your approach? As audience members, what can we expect? I’m trying to listen between the lines. I think that’s the only approach in theatre, but it’s particularly the case for Chekhov. The audience can expect a picture of life, of a life filled with missed moments. Some reviews of Cherry Orchard were very critical – did that affect your approach to Va nya? Unfortunately, only a few reviews were ultimately all that critical – I’d actually expected a lot more criticism. What we’re doing here, I think, sometimes has the quality of being done for the first time: Until recently, you didn’t see certain segments of the population onstage. Theatre supposedly holds up a mirror to society – that’s its purpose, at least UNCLE VANYA (ONKEL WANJA) May 1, 2, 10, 19:30; May 17, 18:00 | Maxim Gorki Theater, Am Festungsgraben 2, Mitte, S+U-Bhf Friedrichstr. (with English surtitles) according to Shakespeare – but these segments of the population have been forgotten in Germany, and people don’t even notice that they’ve been forgotten. Showing a society onstage that corresponds to today’s reality was, on its own, a political exercise in Cherry Orchard. But it’s not about reviews or opinions, it’s instead about bringing particular issues to the stage. It’s about the question: What kind of theatre has been made in Germany in the last 45 years? This is what we must critically engage with. What sorts of issues have you brought to the stage here? In Uncle Vanya, it’s about dealing with change, which includes dealing with political positions. Chekhov addresses other exciting questions, too: What is our purpose in the world? What is work, what is freedom? What am I doing to create a better world? For instance, there’s Sonya, the professor’s daughter, whose father left her behind in the village, and she sees him for the first time only after many years. That mirrors the phenomenon of today’s “Kofferkinder” [children of guest workers], who were also left behind because their parents went to work in another country. This is precisely our subject matter. ■ ESRA ROTTHOFF 36 • MAY 2015
What’s on MUSIC AND NIGHTLIFE The Doppel Gang By D. STRAUSS Regular radio listeners born after 1995 can be forgiven for thinking that pop music only comes in a few varieties – sexually emancipated R’n’Bflecked pop, gender empowered pop-flecked R’n’B, and masked advertisements for Pharrell’s haberdasher (who is generally impressive). As capitalism preferences monopoly and monopoly thrives on a cheap and easy monoculture, this shouldn’t just seem understandable, but inevitable: if the trains run on time, not many care which colour they’re painted. But capital also creates waste, which leads to a paradoxical diversity. You know what else creates waste? Bookers who don’t bother to talk to one another and so schedule similar, less mainstream acts on the same night. If you need evidence of Berlin’s complicated relationship with commerce, look no further than the intra-genre competition that occurs on this city’s stages with monthly precision: a battle over the euros of those who don’t appear to possess any. For example, a dozen prosaic punk-metal showcases pass through Berlin every month, rarely as inspired as their names (the month I’m writing this brings us Walking Dead on Broadway), yet when LITURGY and VOIVOD – generationallyseparated virtuosic art-metal titans in sympathy – come to town, they play on the same date. Why? The metal world can be so divisive, with microslices of snack cake gobbled up and defended by its H.G. Geiger insect denizens. As the ancient Voivod preferences nutty prog shifting riffs over Liturgy’s static, building chords, perhaps they’ll change time signatures to another night. Almost as virtuosic as the fingerings of metal are those that tickle within the concert hall. With much bemusement, Berliners have watched former resident CHILLY GONZALES (photo) transform himself from Canadian piano geek Eminem-ite laugh riot to Paris’ go-to guy for keyboard drops. Somewhere along the line, EDITOR’S PICK! the more jokes he told, the more he was taken seriously and his recent gig as Public Speaking Music School Pedagogue feels vaguely like a Vinny Gallo put-on. Now that he’s going Full Monty at the Philharmonie with a string quartet, let’s just put the powdered wig on his head and be done with it. In the meantime, minimalist composer and piano virtuoso LUBOMYR MELNYK, playing the same night, must settle for the space above the Volksbühne as he rubs his hands together over his last piece of toast while Gonzales is spoon-fed caviar by Daft Punk robots (an experiment which could, admittedly, go horribly, horribly wrong). Would it be sexist to compare the (self-evidently) female artists LAURA MARLING and Bethany Cosentino of BEST COAST, just for the sake of continuing the conceit of simultaneous bookings? I’ve been shaming a lot of people online recently and I don’t want to be called out as a hypocrite. Still, though their musical styles don’t really overlap, both pull from the opposite ends of the sundappled Laurel Canyon spectrum, with Marling phrasing like a Lady of the Canyon and Cosentino attempting to merge early Wilson brothers surf epiphany with their later power-popped Pacific Ocean Blue approach. As well, Marling is the big Mumford-y star trying to establish indie cred while Cosentino remains in the alt-rock ghetto with ambitions toward the Fleetwood Mac mainstream. I guess all music is similar if you think about it long enough. If the bookers wanted to save a little, they could just have the same act play over and over and ask me to explain how the same songs are actually entirely different compositions. Should they be interested, my rates are reasonable and my email is below. n Music Editor D. Strauss may be contacted at strauss@exberliner.com CHILLY GONZALES & KAISER QUARTETT Mon, May 11, 20:00 | Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Str. 1, Tiergarten, S+U-Bhf Potsdamer Platz LUBOMYR MELNYK Mon, May 11, 21:00 | Roter Salon, Linienstr. 227, Mitte, U-Bhf Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz BEST COAST Sat, May 16, 20:00 | Bang Bang Club, Mehringdamm 61, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Mehringdamm LAURA MARLING W/ GILL LANDRY Sat, May 16, 21:00 | Heimathafen Neukölln, Karl-Marx-Str. 141, Neukölln, U-Bhf Karl-Marx-Str. LITURGY Mon, May 25, 20:00 | Berghain Kantine, Rüdersdorfer Str. 70, Friedrichshain, S-Bhf Ostbahnhof VOIVOD Mon, May 25, 19:00 | Cassiopeia, Revaler Str. 99, Friedrichshain, S+U-Bhf Warschauer Str. Intro & Piranha präsentieren: MARINA & THE DIAMONDS Fr. 08.05. Einlass 20:00 Astra Kulturhaus motor.de, nbhap & Spex präsentieren: SEKUOIA Do. 14.05. Einlass 20:00 Berghain Kantine Musikexpress präsentiert: PATRICK WATSON Fr. 15.05. Einlass 20:00 ByteFM & Testspiel.de präsentieren: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING Fr. 22.05. Einlass 19:00 wegen der großen Nachfrage verlegt ins Gretchen KulturNews, putpat.tv & The Leisere Society präsentieren: JONATHAN JEREMIAH Fr. 15.05. Einlass 20:00 frannzClub verlegt in den Postbahnhof ByteFM präsentiert: BRISTOL Di. 26.05. Einlass 19:00 Gretchen Visions präsentiert: BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB Fr. 26.06. Einlass 19:00 Astra Kulturhaus DAMIEN RICE spec. guest: Mariam The Believer Di. 04.08. Einlass 18:30 Tempodrom Infos unter www.mct-agentur.com Online Tickets unter www.tickets.de Ticket Hotline: 030 - 61 10 13 13 Every Wednesday // Maschinenhaus // 8 pm IMPROTHEATER PATERNOSTER Dein Held – Deine Geschichte Fri 05/01 // Maschinenhaus // 8 pm CHRISTOPHE SCHWEIZER & BILLY HART QUARTET // AKI TAKASE ROLLED UP WITH JAN RODER & OLIVER STEIDLE The ultimate “Jazz-experience” Wed 05/27 // Maschinenhaus // 8 pm GINGER BAKER WITH PEE WEE ELLIS The world’s greatest drummer (Cream) enters the German stages Sat 05/30 // Maschinenhaus // 8 pm EAST BLUES EXPERIENCE Support: The White Dukes 06/02 – 06/05 // Kesselhaus // 8 pm JAZZDOR BERLIN 2015 4 days, 11 bands, 8 premieres! Wed 06/10 // Kesselhaus // 8 pm BERGE – RECORD RELEASE CONCERT Berlin Hippie-duo with new album TICKETS 030 44 31 51 00 // WWW.KESSELHAUS.NET 37
Page 1 and 2: Issue 138 • €2.90 • May 2015
Page 3 and 4: ISSUE 138, MAY 2015 SPECIAL: ADDICT
Page 5 and 6: Interview with a vampire The case f
Page 7 and 8: VERENA BRÜNING Best chairs for a g
Page 9 and 10: “It is tempting to label behaviou
Page 11 and 12: withdrawal symptoms and tolerance r
Page 13 and 14: DRUG-FREE The antiaddicts In the sh
Page 15 and 16: RASA URNIEZIUTE ticket. Tempel also
Page 17 and 18: ARTICLE PROFILE TAG PHOTO BY FRANCE
Page 19 and 20: tions, because, being so high all t
Page 21 and 22: JASON HARRELL members to beat the o
Page 23 and 24: SPOTLIGHT The men in the mirror An
Page 25 and 26: work addicts risk developing severe
Page 27 and 28: laws by paying out in chewing gum i
Page 29 and 30: Nick Cave, May 6 5 13 Confirmation
Page 31 and 32: STARTS MAY 7 The Water Diviner D: R
Page 33 and 34: LOFT.DE FACEBOOK.COM/LOFTCONCERTS S
Page 35 and 36: XPOSED May 21-24 PRISCILLA: QUEEN O
Page 37: Wolfram Lotz: Lost in the Afghan ra
Page 41 and 42: JOY WELLBOY 06.05. Berghain Kantine
Page 43 and 44: Ich will nicht nach Berlin Airing o
Page 45 and 46: eally breaking things down into jou
Page 47 and 48: The language school directory Find
Page 49 and 50: FASHION By JESSICA SALTZ ■ FASHIO
Page 51 and 52: Kala: Simply fish When a new Imbiss
Page 53 and 54: ut very originally decorated partie
Page 55 and 56: ADVICE ask HANS-TORSTEN Hans-Torste
Page 57 and 58: SEX Ask Dr. Dot q: You have probabl
Page 59 and 60: PROPAGANDA From Hitler’s first ri

Exberliner Issue 138, May 2015

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?