(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Outside the notorious Volksbühne Theater in Berlin stands the large, rusty Robber Wheel, as a powerful warning that there are theater acts in this house that may scare the wits of any Berlin resident, or at worst be able to challenge anyone curious theater tourists. The robber wheel stands for the rebellious / anarchist and rebellious basic principle of the Volksbühne Theater; the wheel served as a horror symbol in a secret robbery language in the Middle Ages.
Before tonight's performance of Faust begins, playwright Sebastian Kaiser says that the award-winning protagonist Valery Tscheplanowa (Margarethe / Helena) was harmed during the previous performance. The cruciate ligament in one knee has smoked. He states that she will still be playing all night, with support bandage and limping on crutches – while director Frank Castorf has written some scenes to adapt the performance to the knee injury. The crowd yells.
There is little here reminiscent of a classic Faust-performance.
During the theater night, wild, volcanic association eruptions are thrown aggressively towards the spectator. The dark backdrop of the soundscape sharpens the ears, and a wealth of capitalism-critical imagery drives its naughty creature from the edge of the stage. This seven-hour performance is the legendary director Frank Castorf's final theater performance at Volksbühne. In one of the final scenes, the floss-wearing actor Martin Wuttke (Faust) drives around on a winding tricycle and is cheered by the audience. The evening is peppered with sarcastic slapstick touches, and at the same time, the theater dinosaur Castorf delivers a carefully calculated mega-theater power demonstration as a final farewell to Berlin – after 25 years at the helm of the world-famous Volksbühne, he resigns as an intendant this summer.
His latest setup of Faust is like a perpetual nightmare story. The multifaceted horror house, designed by the scenographer Alexander Denic, stands right on the turning stage – with confined spaces, different chambers and squares intertwined. From cubicles and various drinking holes, video images are projected into a large advertising wall adorned by a neon sign with the words "Exposition Coloniale". The facade of the house shows a lugubrious parish revue theater with gaping oral portal in ghosttrain-style. Over it is written in red neon light "L'enfer»-« Hell »in Norwegian.
The old pig. As the scene turns, the metro station ("Stalingrad") and posters from Paris are revealed. One poster refers to a colonialism exhibition that took place in Marseille in 1906, while most others refer to classic horror films – or contemporary stars such as Josephine Baker. Martin Wuttke, as tonight's Faust, wears a monster mask while babbling incomprehensible verses to the open-minded thrill of the audience. At the beginning of the play, Faust is an outgoing, horny and decadent old man.
There is little here reminiscent of a classic Faust-performance. Tscheplanowa sings a German-language version of Jacques Brel's "Ne me quitte pas" while challenging her on a smooth bar counter. A little later, Tscheplanowa, along with actresses Thelma Buabeng and Angela Guerreiro, quote from Emile Zola's famous horror novel girl from the year 1880, where, among other things, there is talk of the German power politician Otto von Bismarck. Buabeng tells a lot about the decolonization of North Africa, which author Frantz Fanon has written extensively about: "The Algerian people are renewing themselves through their struggle for resistance" against colonial power France.
What's going on here? Frank Castorf primarily deals with part two of Goethe's Faust, where the Master, with the help of Mefisto (Satan), plans to colonize the entire earth. The goal is nothing less than dominion over nature itself and the whole world culture then known.
A carefully calculated power demonstration by Frank Castorf.
"Do you stand here blaming yourself? Shouldn't you have long since begun to colonize? " stands in the program booklet listed as the motto of the play. In the quest for beauty and recognition and traveling through the "small and the big world", the Faust / Mefisto project leads to suffering and destruction. It is Margarethe, Faust's mistress, who finally has to pay the price for the two men's experimentation.
Entrecôte. The inside fillet in this substantial interpretation of Faust however, is the discourse surrounding both historical colonialism as well as contemporary neocolonialism. What did Hitler want in Baku? What did Blair / Bush want in Iraq? What does France want in Algeria? What do we want in Syria? Answer: Resources. In the Algeria region there are oil, gas and uranium, vital for French nuclear weapons and power plants. Baku has oil and gas; the same goes for Iraq and Syria. We get it visually confirmed on stage: Oil barrels with the Texaco, Shell and Esso logos are located at the French / European horror house. Mefisto is coming in on high oil bar stalks in the final scene. King Leopold "greets" Congo, Nigeria's river delta is poisoned by the greed and financial corruption of the big corporate oligarchs.
The Profit Devil Pact also applies today. Frantz Fanon once stated: "We must distance ourselves from this Europe that is constantly talking about man, but at the same time slaughtering it." It is this European butcher Castorf wants to live.
Volksbühne bombardment. "We dig a grave in the celestial sphere," it says in Paul Celan's poem "Death Grave," which is proclaimed in French by the great actor Martin Wuttke in a deafening slapstick number, after emptying the youth drink. Again and again the hero stumbles and falls as he quotes Celan: 'Your golden hair, Margarethe; your ash hair, Sulamith ». This stands out as one of the most credible of many references and foreign texts that Castorf weaves into the classic poem, in typical Volksbühne manners. It sounds complicated, but still does not distort the Volksbühne Gala: On the contrary, the glossy numbers escalate as a Best-of-Castorf show in a picture cavalcade and a discourse art that has been showcased in Volksbühne for a quarter of a century. The roar is performed by Frank Büttner, for the occasion in the role of half-naked slave driver. Marc Hosemann plays a bouncy Mefisto, and Lars Rudolph charms as Famulus Wagner.
At the beginning of the play, Faust is an outgoing, horny and decadent old man.
The female characters are special. Homunculus (Hanna Hilsdorf) must rid herself of a solid plastic foil cocoon, while the variety lady Lilith Stangenberg seduces the people easily and freely. Actress Sophie Rois acts as a witch with a feather booth around her neck and sings "The Tenant" from Schuberts Winterreise.
The end of an era. Daily FaustThe show is a solid final gala that definitely rounds off a distinctive time – Castorf's reign – an era that revolutionized European theater from the early nineties. Assuming heir to the theater manager's position, intendant and curator Chris Dercon, gets his passport written in Berlin: Alexander Scheer in the role of Lord Byron imitates Dercon's Belgian accent in a sour, revealing and extravagant way. After Scheer declared in German with a Belgian accent: "Enough talk now, let me finally see action!", Martin Wuttke pours a large beer over the head of the museum curator Dercon. This scenario is said to have recently taken place in the realm of Berlin's exuberant nightlife.
Whether the heyday of the Volksbühne is really over remains to be seen. Castorf is planning a performance in the Berlin ensemble next theater season. Probably the setup will not be much shorter than this one. In the midst of the performance, Mefisto himself states: “Some sense must have all this! What's the point of the show? If it has no meaning, why is the play so long? " A good point this evening. The first three and a half hours and the last one and a half hours were at least very entertaining. Latest performances by Faust goes in May this spring.
Designer Rainer Haußmann has decided that the robber wheel in front of Volksbühne will be taken down when the absolute last Castorf season is over in July this year. Then a theater era in Berlin is forever ended, or past, as Goethe said: "Vorbei – a stupid Wort."
