Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

Interview
“Every stage seems to be so small
against the Volksbühne”
Director Adama Ulrich on Partisan, the film tribute to
Berlin’s most iconic theatre she co-authored. By Lily Kelting
No matter what your opinion of Frank Castorf,
Chris Dercon, repertory theatre, state subsidies,
neoliberalism, or the future of Europe, one thing
is for sure: the Castorf Volksbühne was a juggernaut. The
Berlinale documentary, Partisan, is a love poem to the
quarter century that was the Castorf Volksbühne: its
actors, directors, crew, the space itself and the aesthetic
language developed there. Filmmakers Lutz Pehnert,
Matthias Ehlert, and Adama Ulrich show that these
clichés of the Castorf era – the chaos, the screaming, the
“butchered” texts, videography, fights in rehearsal, the
nudity and fake blood – are all part of a unique theatrical
language developed on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Ulrich
hopes they aren’t lost forever.
Why did you make this film? All three of us are big fans
of the Volksbühne. I went there for the first time in the
1980s before reunification, when directors like Heiner
Muller were there. What an interesting aesthetic! I had
never seen anything like it. It was amazing. This continued
with Frank Castorf, Rene Pollesch, Christoph
Marthaler. When we learned that this era would come
to an end, we decided to do this documentary about the
Volksbühne from 1992 to July 1, 2017, just to create a
document for people who didn't experience this period.
Why did you decide not to include the drama surrounding
Dercon's appointment? Dercon is gone now, right? Ha!
We're so happy that we didn’t put the focus on the political
decision and Chris Dercon. Otherwise our documentary
would already be history. We just thought—1992 to 2017,
25 years, it’s a good figure, a quarter century. It felt right.
But can you comment, personally? For me, it was a scandal
that somebody like (former senator for culture) Tim
Renner and also Klaus Wowereit and now Michael Müller
made the decision. Of course this is not just my opinion.
You could say “poor Dercon,” the poor but so vain Dercon,
who didn’t even know what the Volksbühne really was.
When he got a call from Renner offering him the position,
he just said, “yes, I can do that!” When he opened his Berlin
office in 2016 and realised (senator for culture) Klaus
Lederer didn't want him there, nor the people working in
the Volksbühne, nor the audience, that is when he should
have stopped and thought, “Well, maybe I'm not the right
person”. But it is primarily the fault of the politicians. It is
a big political scandal to destroy such a great theatre.
The film avoids sheer sycophancy and even shows the chaos,
the feuds and even Castorf's famous fits. Was it difficult to
keep a balance? We just showed it like it was. Of course,
the film is something like a declaration of love. But we
also wanted to show the problems. Twenty-five years
is a long time for one director who was responsible for
everything. So we tried not to just say, “everything was
so fantastic.” There were crises, like in 2008-2009 when
directors and actors left and nobody really knew what to
do. We were lucky to have all the archival materials.
Some say that the ongoing scandal will kill the Volksbühne.
Do you agree? No, I hope now it will all get better. Now
we can bring back some of the actors and directors from
before. It is very good that Dercon is going. Too late,
but okay.
But what about the quote from Die Welt read aloud at the
end of the documentary: “It is enough. Twenty five years is a
long time... Do we want to be told what the avant-garde is by
people who are so old that they snorted coke in the ruins of
the East after the fall of the Berlin Wall?” There was always
something new at the Volksbühne! There were so many
directors there, it was diverse. It was not “enough”. I put
this text in the documentary because it was very typical
of one side of the debate. But, no, I don’t agree with it. ■
24 EXBERLINER 171