Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

Reviews
WHAT’S ON — Stage
NASSIM
Julian Röder
Women in Trouble
Kennedy versus Castorf
The figureheads of the new and old Volksbühne square off with
two new plays – and two very different aesthetics. By Daniel Mufson
Les Misérables
In a kind of dramaturgical face-off,
Susanne Kennedy and Frank Castorf
premiered their new productions
within days of each other in late November
and early December. Kennedy, the face of
theatre at the new Volksbühne, introduced
Women in Trouble, a collage of texts found
on the internet and lip-synced by actors
wearing latex masks. Castorf, meanwhile,
took his old Volksbühne aesthetic to the
Berliner Ensemble with an adaptation
of the Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables,
staged with a mix of veteran Castorf actors
and Berliner Ensemble regulars. Kennedy’s
production was mostly reviled by critics
for being emotionless and pretentious,
while Castorf’s elicited ambivalent
frustration as a work whose virtuoso
actors had great moments but were
ultimately dragged down by the length of
the evening – seven and a half hours for
the premiere, miraculously slashed to a
mere six-hour length by the time we saw it
just two nights later.
Let’s start with Les Misérables, Hugo’s
epic about repentant ex-convict Jean
Valjean ruthlessly pursued by police
inspector Javert. Are there actors often
shouting for no reason? Check. Repetitious
exchanges of dialogue that sound
improvised? Check. Interpolations of
tenuously related texts? Check. Video images
of actors beamed on a screen while
the audience’s direct view of them is often
obscured? Of course. Forgive a question,
though: Why are these techniques appropriate
here? They have no bearing on the
themes or formal aspects of Hugo’s text.
They’ve just been Castorf’s shtick for 18
years, so here we go again.
Despite its chilly reception, Women in
Trouble constitutes a welcome assault on
Castorf’s stagnant directorial habits. Kennedy’s
production may require patience
and altered expectations of what a theatrical
event should be, but her staging
techniques complement each other and
form a cohesive vision that’s all her own.
She collected texts from the internet, the
Bible, films and other sources and divided
them among various representations of a
character named Angelina Dreem. Dreem
would appear to be an actress suffering
from cancer, but, as is usually the case with
this kind of textual collage, the search for
a clearly defined plot and characters will
only result in frustration. In their place,
Women in Trouble offers images and soundbites
that touch on various contemporary
phenomena: modernity’s technological
sterility; the estrangement that humanity
has inflicted upon itself through its
fetishisation of technology; the frustrated
longing for happiness and human connections;
and the coexistence of discontinuity
and repetition in the way we perceive
ourselves through media. Given these
themes, the use of text fragments, latex
masks and lip-synced dialogue shouldn’t
– and don’t – seem like gimmicks on the
part of a director hoping to be acclaimed
as an auteur; they’re just smart, apt, effective
choices. And emotional ones, too: the
subdued line delivery was often haunting.
The figures felt like lobotomised patients
with a flickering consciousness of their
condition. Not dissimilar to us, perhaps,
with our on-again-off-again awareness of
the dysfunction around us and within us. n
Women in Trouble HHHHH Jan 6,
19:30; Jan 20, 18:00 (in English), Volksbühne
| Les Misérables HH Jan 6,
7, 18:00 (in German), Berliner Ensemble
Matthias Horn
From Berlin-based Iranian playwright Nassim
Soleimanpour comes a theatrical experiment that
explores the power of language to unite us in
uncertain times. No rehearsals. No preparation.
Just a sealed envelope and an actor reading a script
for the first time. WINNER of the Fringe First
Award at Edinburgh Fringe 2017
etb
January 2018
International Performing Arts Center
You are not alone!
Call 030 787 5188
or 01803-AA HELP
Meetings in English
Plus a reading by Holly-Jane
Rahlens and much, much more!
ETBERLIN.DE
www.alcoholics-anonymous-berlin.de
FBW Update.indd 1 06/10/16 13:
JANUARY 2018