EXBERLINER Issue 164, October 2017

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WHAT’S ON — Stage DON’T MISS Editor’s Choice Class versus everything else Slowly but surely, Berlin theatres broaden their perspectives. By Daniel Mufson Rückkehr nach Reims: Nina Hoss Arno Declair The Staatsoper reopens After seven years and cost overruns that brought the renovation bill to over €400 million, the Staatsoper is finally returning to its refurbished home on Unter den Linden... slowly. The full repertoire won’t move in until December, but for now Robert Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, will have to suffice. There will be a pre-performance lecture each night, 45 minutes before curtain, and an introduction to the work at 11am on Oct 1. Oct 3, 20:00; 6, 18:00; 14, 17, 19:00 Until Our Hearts Stop Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods and Münchner Kammerspiele bring their choreographed work on the search for intimacy back to the HAU after a sold-out run at last year’s Tanz im August. It features six performers, three musicians, and an audience that may well be tempted to squirm as it receives direct attention from the dancers. Oct 18, 20, 21, 20:00; Oct 22, 17:00, HAU2 In an interview published last year, Frank Castorf, former head of the Volksbühne, lamented that “it’s no longer possible for someone to play Othello in blackface because there are a couple of people who incriminate black paint on white skin […] Smoking doesn’t belong on stage either. Basically, this limits the freedom of the art […] in the name of Correctness.” Castorf likes to provoke. But comparing the reaction to blackface on stage to the opposition to cigarettes is, at the very least, clueless – and it’s symptomatic of the narrowness of his world view and that of many of the directors he has surrounded himself with, like René Pollesch. He and his acolytes have been obsessed with neoliberalism at the expense of race, gender, xenophobia, and other social issues. But at a time when xenophobia can propel a con man into the White House and split the UK from the EU, the focus on neoliberalism as the evil of our days seems out-of-step. The coming month of theatre seems to recognise the shift in priorities and threats, with productions that place issues like sexual and ethnic identity, or nationalism and war, in the foreground. Chris Dercon’s first drama at the Volksbühne, for example, is an adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia, in which Syrian exile Mohammad Al-Attar integrates texts by women fleeing the Syrian war. The Sophiensaele’s October programme is dominated by identity politics – with Jochen Roller’s Blutsbrüder, an examination of the German fetishisation of Native Americans; Roderick George’s Fleshless Beast, a dance piece exploring racial and gender identities; and Melanie Jame Wolf’s Highness, the second part of her trilogy dealing with the female archetypes of “whore, queen, and hag”. Is it accidental that three of those four works are by non-Germans? One can of course ponder issues like racism in the context of class, and that is at least part of what makes the Schaubühne’s Rückkehr nach Reims one of the more anticipated productions of the season. The sociopolitical memoir on which it’s based, by French intellectual Didier Eribon, examines the author’s shame towards his working-class background and the way his homosexual identity shaped his feelings towards the milieu of his upbringing. Thomas Ostermeier sets one of his best actors, film star Nina Hoss, at the heart of the production, which begins with Hoss as herself providing the voiceover for a (fictional) film version of the book. Soon, she begins to argue with the film director about his script by referring to her own family’s background, in particular that of her father, also once a Communist, who then became a founding member of Germany’s Green Party – a contrast to Eribon’s father, a former Communist who drifted to Le Pen. The July premiere at Manchester’s international festival garnered almost universal acclaim, in no small part because it deals with human responses to current events from a broad perspective. It’s not just about the banks, or flows of capital, or free trade; it’s also about the plural identities within each of us – Muslim or Christian, intellectual or anti-intellectual; queer or straight, and so on. If giving less time to directors obsessing about neoliberalism yields more time for artists grappling with the issues raised by these other aspects integral to our selfhood, audiences will be the richer for it. ■ Rückkehr nach Reims Oct 1, 20:30; Oct 11-15, 20:00 Schaubühne | Iphegenia Oct 1-2, 20:00, Oct 3, 18:00 Volksbühne at Tempelhof Hangar 5 | Blutsbrüder Oct 17-21, 20:00 Sophiensaele | Highness Oct 25-28, 21:00 Sophiensaele | Fleshless Beast Oct 26-29, 19:30 Sophiensaele 42 EXBERLINER 164
Ute Langkafel “ Review RAF for our times? In the Gorki Theater’s Roma Armee, Yael Ronen stages a rallying cry for unity and justice. Burn them!” cried the jubilant crowd in the English town of Firle in 2003. Bonfire night, a centuries-old tradition rooted in anti-Catholicism, had become the town’s occasion to burn in effigy anyone who had gotten on their collective nerves. After gypsies allegedly made a mess of a local estate, the bonfire organizers built a caravan with the faces of a Roma family painted on its windows and set it alight. Condemnation followed after a resident with a Romani grandmother contacted the media. She and her seven-year-old daughter had looked on in horror that night. Now, the seven-year-old is grown-up and telling that and other stories as part of Roma Armee, Yael Ronen’s new ensemble project at the Maxim Gorki Theater. Roma Armee owes something to the documentary style of Rimini Protokoll: The cast play themselves, taking turns telling the audience about their lives, families, feelings and suffering while emphasising their diversity as individuals. It’s an act of cultural resistance to what others have called “the How plastic is made Philipp Rost’s interest in theatre was sparked when he took some drama classes during an exchange year in Canada; now, working in the Schaubühne’s theatre education department, he’s trying to provide the sparks for others. Rost is offering a four-hour workshop in English that allows participants to experiment with techniques used in Marius von Mayenburg’s satirical skewering of a middle class family, Stück Plastik (A Piece of Plastic). Students will have the WHAT’S ON — Stage OCTOBER 2017 last acceptable racism”. But what kind of resistance? The poster, featuring a grimacing woman with a handgun and a bandolier draped around her neck, seems to promise an evening of rage and militancy. But while the mostly-Roma ensemble frequently express anger at their abuse, the show at its core is a plea – alternately bitter, humorous and sentimental – for understanding and sympathy. This can occasionally make Roma Armee feel like a public service announcement, even as it strives to make its didacticism entertaining with comic zingers and musical interludes. Balancing the traumatic life stories, the script’s trajectory aims at redemption: the performers begin by listing what they’re ashamed of and discussing hardships, but end by naming sources of pride and describing their visions for a better future. If it sounds syrupy, that’s because it often is. What redeems the evening is the talent, energy, and sincerity of the performers – and the disturbing sense that the show is a necessary counter to old prejudices stubbornly widespread in Europe. — DM Roma Armee HHHH Oct 13-15, 7:30 pm (English/German, with surtitles) Maxim Gorki Theater chance to learn Mayenburg’s creative process and connect the conflicts in A Piece of Plastic with their own lives as they craft their own performance based on extracts from it. The course just might help you with your own creative work – and give you a deeper appreciation of the play, which has been in the Schaubühne’s repertoire since it premiered at the Festival for New Drama in 2015. Tickets for the workshop become available starting October 10. — DM Introducing: A Piece of Plastic Oct 17, 18:00 Schaubühne NICK MULVEY Mo. 23.10. Einlass 19:00 Musik & Frieden WEAVES Fr. 03.11. Einlass 19:00 Auster-Club MELANIE DE BIASIO Mo. 13.11. Einlass 19:00 Columbia Theater Musikexpress, KulturNews, Ask Helmut & ByteFM präsentieren: LITTLE DRAGON So. 19.11. Einlass 19:00 Astra Kulturhaus vevo, Metal Hammer & Sonic Seducer präsentieren: MARILYN MANSON Sa. 25.11. Einlass 18:30 UFO im Velodrom Rolling Stone präsentiert: BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB So. 26.11. Einlass 19:00 Columbiahalle OTZEKI Mi. 29.11. Einlass 20:00 Monarch KLANGSTOF Do. 30.11. Einlass 20:00 Kantine am Berghain Fritz präsentiert: KATY PERRY WITNESS: The Tour Mi. 06.06.2018 Einlass 18:00 Mercedes-Benz-Arena Infos unter www.mct-agentur.com tickets > www.tickets.de und 030-6110 1313 DIET CIG 05.10.2017 | KANTINEAMBERGHAIN SHOUT OUT LOUDS 14.10.2017 | ASTRA WE INVENTED PARIS TUSQ 28.10.2017 | BADEHAUS ANGUS & JULIA STONE 30.10.2017 | COLUMBIAHALLE ALEX LAHEY präsentiert von Info & Tickets: www.karreraklub.de MUSIKBRAUEREI GRIZZLY BEAR 12.10.2017 | COLUMBIAHALLE YUMI ZOUMA 14.10.2017 | ROSI’S THE SHERLOCKS 19.10.2017 | LIDO 20.10.2017 | LIDO LEYYA 30.10.2017|KANTINEAMBERGHAIN JOHNNY FLYNN & THE SUSSEX WIT 31.10.2017 | BI NUU CABBAGE 01.11.2017 | PRIVATCLUB 03.11.2017 | BADEHAUS MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA ROYAL BLOOD 03.11.2017 | FRANNZ CLUB 05.11.2017 | COLUMBIAHALLE INTERGALACTIC LOVERS MEW 10.11.2017 | LIDO 26.11.2017 | LIDO OSCAR AND THE WOLF 01.12.2017 | HEIMATHAFEN NEUKÖLLN HENRY ROLLINS SPOKEN WORD - TRAVEL SLIDESHOW 04.02.2018 | GROSSER SENDESAAL DES RBB WEDNESDAY I’M IN LOVE EVERY WEDNESDAY 23H BOHNENGOLD | FREE ENTRY KARRERA KLUB DJ’S | INDIE | BRIT POP | ELECTRO | WAVE & BEYOND FROM THE EARLY DAYS UNTIL NOW
Page 1 and 2: Berlin in English since 2002 164
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS Exberliner 164 - October 2
Page 5 and 6: Berlin in English since 2002 €3.9
Page 7 and 8: BEST OF BERLIN — October 2017 Bur
Page 9 and 10: CHARLOTTENBURG PORTRAITS WE RUN THE
Page 11 and 12: CHARLOTTENBURG but even if they don
Page 13 and 14: CHARLOTTENBURG ARCHITECTURE KADEWE
Page 15 and 16: CHARLOTTENBURG HOT DISH Whether you
Page 17 and 18: CHARLOTTENBURG As soon as I step in
Page 19 and 20: CHARLOTTENBURG Nov 9-12 Giorgio Car
Page 21 and 22: CHARLOTTENBURG The couple returns f
Page 23 and 24: CHARLOTTENBURG “I know the hip Je
Page 25 and 26: CHARLOTTENBURG south of KaDeWe on M
Page 27 and 28: CHARLOTTENBURG “As you get older
Page 29 and 30: CHARLOTTENBURG ART EXHIBITION THE O
Page 31 and 32: WHAT’S ON — Barry Burns MY PL A
Page 33 and 34: WHAT’S ON — Film Reviews Starts
Page 35 and 36: WHAT’S ON — Film Preview Who Wi
Page 37 and 38: WHAT’S ON — Music Preview Kiddy
Page 39 and 40: WHAT’S ON — Music MY PL AYLIST
Page 41 and 42: WHAT’S ON — Art Preview Eyes on
Page 43: WHAT’S ON — Art Fressen oder Fl
Page 47 and 48: WHAT’S ON — Stage What is your
Page 49 and 50: WHAT’S ON three-month retrospecti
Page 51 and 52: ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide 3
Page 53 and 54: ADVERTISING — The Language School
Page 55 and 56: COLUMN— The Gay Berliner Macho me
Page 57 and 58: REGULARS German Palomeque Brasserie
Page 59 and 60: REGULARS #ROUND-UP Give trees a cha
Page 61 and 62: COLUMN — Ask Hans-Torsten Funky t
Page 63 and 64: Ambrose Akinmusire John Beasley’s

EXBERLINER Issue 164, October 2017

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