EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018

WHAT’S ON — Stage
Ute Langkafel
Inspiration and exasperation
I
had doubts when I heard Sebastian
Nübling was directing
Heiner Müller’s Die Hamletmaschine
(photo) at the Maxim
Gorki Theater. The production
would be performed by the Exil
Ensemble, seven actors from
Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine
who had fled their lands to find
a creative home at the Gorki; it
would integrate new texts written
by Ayham Majid Agha, a Syrian
actor in the ensemble. Müller’s
fragmentary riff on Shakespeare’s
tragedy, so open to interpretation
that one of its best known
directors, Robert Wilson, flat-out
admitted he didn’t understand
it, would now be reconfigured to
focus on the Middle East, becoming
more tendentious, narrower,
smaller. And then those production
posters showing clowns: it
just seemed wrong.
But as it turns out, Agha’s textual
interpolations blend surprisingly
well with Müller’s script.
In the original, a character calls
himself “clown number two in the
spring of communism,” providing
the key to Nübling’s and Agha’s
reconception of Hamletmaschine
as a group of clowns born of
the Arab Spring. These aren’t
harmless clowns, either – think
Chucky, not Bozo. The Middle
Eastern contexts chime nicely
The Gorki breathes life into Hamletmaschine, while
the Volksbühne takes the fun out of sex. By Daniel Mufson
with the original because
Müller, too, alludes to events
such as the crushed Hungarian
uprising of 1956.
And some phrases’ meanings
multiply here. “The ruins of
Europe behind me” becomes
more, not less, suggestive when
uttered by an actor fleeing the
Middle East. The multilingual
nature of the play, spoken in German,
Arabic, and English, provides
an excuse to foreground the
text visually: The surtitles aren’t
discreetly projected into a corner
but are magnified, beamed large
as part of the stage environment.
Even without Agha’s additions,
however, Müller’s words effortlessly
take on new life when
spoken by the losers of the failed
Arab Spring: An actress delivers
Ophelia’s lines about smashing
the tools of her captivity and
setting fire to her prison and
then seems to break character,
exclaiming, “I love this text!”
With the passion of this production,
so do we.
Less passion is on display,
ironically, in Albert Serra’s new
play Liberté, which premiered
last month at the Volksbühne.
In it, a group of pre-French
Revolution libertines have left
France to arrive just outside of
Berlin, where they hope to win
the German court over to their
decadent ways, formulating plans
for the corruption of girls at a
local convent or the import of
sex slaves from Polynesia. Sadomasochism
can be played for
laughs or examined for its durably
alluring psychological complexity,
but Serra just makes it dull.
Given his, shall we say, “leisurely
paced” films, this shouldn’t be all
too surprising, but a slow procession
of quiet cinematic images can
somehow generate more interest
than a stage set lit so dimly that
one often can’t figure out which
actor is talking. The elaborate but
monotone plotting of these sexual
intrigues captivates the audience
with all the erotic force of a store
owner taking stock of pretzels.
Even when characters finally start
to get down and nasty, it’s hard to
react with anything but a yawn:
Not tonight, dear, I’m exhausted. ■
Die Hamletmaschine ★★★★ Apr 6, 26, 19:30 (with English surtitles),
Maxim Gorki | Liberté ★ 1978/2018 Apr 7, 8, 19:30 (with English
surtitles), Volksbühne
Editor’s Choice
DON’T MISS
Momentum
Cie.toula limnaios’
new dance piece
tries to locate intensity,
mystery and
poetry in the small
moments of daily life.
Apr 5-8, 12-15,
Halle Tanz Berlin
Isabelle Schad
The Berlin-based
choreographer and
dancer has works at
two different theatres
this month: Fugen,
her 2015 solo work
exploring non-representational
movement
and the fugue;
and Solo for Lea, a
portrait of choreographer
and dancer
Lea Moro that uses
aspects of the visual
arts as well as dance.
Apr 5-6, HAU3; Apr
7-8, Sophiensaele
The Einstein of Sex
Copenhagen-based
theatre company
Livingstones Kabinet
joined forces with
Danish queer vocal
group Schwanzen
Sängerknaben to
create a multimedia,
English-language
musical documentary
performance about
Weimar sexologist
Magnus Hirschfield
and his merry band
of researchers.
Apr 5-7, 20:00
APRIL 2018 35