Einfach Kompliziert - Simply Complicated

"Du wirst sehen / es ist alles / sehr kompliziert auf der Welt / Es sieht alles einfach aus / aber es ist sehr kompliziert / alles ist kompliziert."
[You will see / it is all / very complicated in the world / It all looks simple / but is it very complicated / everything is complicated]

http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/

Wednesday night we saw Thomas Bernhard's "Einfach kompliziert" (1986) at the Berliner Ensemble, a one-actor piece with Gert Voss (with the exception of part of one scene, where a little girl brings the milk). We really enjoyed it. Parts were laugh-out-loud funny, but mostly it was rather sad and tragic, about a lonely old actor who spends his time alone in his apartment, performing to himself. 


„Die Menschen sind die Ursache, immer sind es die Menschen“

„Wir wollen allein gelassen sein / und man lässt uns nicht allein / Wir brechen die Brücken hinter uns ab / und wir werden belästigt / wir wollen unsere Ruhe haben / und man klopft an die Tür“.

"Wir existieren nur / wenn wir sozusagen / der Mittelpunkt der Welt sind,"
"Die Wünsche aufgegeben / aber mich selbst habe ich nicht aufgegeben / Wir schulden niemandem etwas / Alle schulden uns alles / aber wir schulden niemandem etwas."


Unauthorized translation of the whole play.

These are not the Disney fairy tales...

It seems that fairy tales are in. Lately I've been hearing so much about them: the TV shows "Grimm" and "Once upon a Time," the re-making of children's fairy tales into adult movies: "Red Riding Hood" (2011) and "Snow White and the Huntsman" (2012) with Charlize Theron as the evil queen.

the Märchenhütte

So when I heard about a small German theater that plays fairy tales--for children during the day and for adults at night--I had to go.

Tonight Michael and I saw four Märchen (fairy tales) at the Märchenhütte (fairy tale cabin). In "preparation," I've been reading the original Grimm fairy tales on the train while commuting to/from the library and the FU. They're really fun to go back to as an adult, and these Grimm versions are so violent and brutal sometimes--very different from the watered-down Disney stories. For example, did you know Rapunzel gets pregnant, and that's how the evil fairy (not a witch) knows the prince has been getting up into the tower?! And here is what happens to the evil stepmother in "The 12 brothers": Was sollten sie mit der bösen Stiefmutter anfangen; sie ward in ein Faß gesteckt von siedendem Oehl und von giftigen Schlangen angefüllt, und starb da eines bösen Todes. [she was put in a barrel with boiling oil and filled with poisonous snakes, and died there a nasty death].  Ha! Sometimes it makes me laugh out loud.

I remember reading the original Hans Christian Anderson "Little Mermaid" at my aunt Julie's house--which was a much different version than the Disney one. It also reminds me of hearing Lise Lunge-Larsen's troll stories when I was in school in Duluth. She's a local storyteller who draws upon the Norwegian tradition of telling troll stories. Here, too, kids hear somewhat brutal stories: but good always wins over evil, smart people are able to trick the dumb trolls through cunning.

And I love the patterns that emerge: don't tell a lie, good deeds will be repaid, persistence pays off...

We saw "Der Wolf & die sieben Geißlein" [The wolf and the seven little goats], "Das tapfre Schneiderlein" [the valiant little tailor] and two "Gruselmärchen" [horror stories] for adults, rated 18+. "Gevatter Tod" [Godfather Death], and "Von einem, der auszog, das Fürchten zu lernen" [The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was]. Our favorite was the Schneiderlein. They did a great job playing off of the two characters. Michael: "Hysterical." The "adult" Märchen were a bit of a disappointment. Not scary, but also not as funny as the other ones. They took "adult" to mean "vulgar" in most cases...But it was a really cool atmosphere in the "cabin", and a unique Berlin/German experience.

Have any of you seen these new movies, or the TV shows? Or re-read fairy tales recently? I'd like to know what you think about this phenomenon.

outside the "cabin" there was a campfire, another cabin, and a pizzeria

"Und das muß anderscher wern ... jetzt uf der Stelle"

Emil Orlik, 1897

Wow, this has been Kultur-Woche for me. Theater, art museums, film to come. Tonight Michael and I saw Gerhart Hauptmann's Die Weber in the Deutsches Theater. It was kinda cool to see it there--because this is where it premiered publicly in 1894. Funny anecdote: after the play was staged, Kaiser Wilhelm cancelled his box seat at the theater. The play was also banned by the police (although the ban was later lifted). The authorities were afraid it would lead to class warfare and even uprisings in Berlin.

The story is based on a true incident: a weavers' uprising in Schlesien (Eastern Prussia) in 1844. The working conditions for the weavers was miserable and many were starving. The revolt was put down with military violence. (More about the play in German here).

Hauptmann was one of the few Germans who has received the Nobel Prize for Literature (in 1912). He is famous for being a part of the "Naturalism" movement, making political, hyper-real plays that expose social inequity. In Die Weber, the characters also speak in dialect, providing access to a certain specific social milieu and adding additional class distinctions through spoken language. 

http://www.deutschestheater.de/home/die_weber/

As you can see from these pictures, the stage was a two-tiered ladder. During the first two scenes we thought this worked especially well, as they critiqued the hierarchy of the factory and the powerlessness of the weavers. But after the third act I think the performance kinda deteriorated. We both agreed that it was the material, the play itself, that made it, and the performance detracted at times. And of course there was quite a bit of the yelling, spitting, and screaming we looove so much in the German theater...Although it did admittedly work better here than in Kleist.

the Weberlied:
"Hier im Ort ist en Gericht, / noch schlimmer als die Vehmen, / Wo man nicht erst ein Urteil spricht / das Leben schnell zu nehmen. / - Hier wird der Mensch langsam gequält / hier ist die Folterkammer, / hier werden Seufzer viel gezählt / als Zeugen von dem Jammer."

"Nicht die Kinder bloß speist man mit Märchen ab"

 Last night I saw Lessing's play Nathan der Weise [Nathan the Wise] at the Berliner Ensemble. The play was written 1779, and is most famous for its "ring parable" about religious tolerance (the three religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam), and general themes of humanism and enlightenment.

The director, Claus Peymann, said he chose to stage the play after September 11th, after hearing the rhetoric of revenge, fight against evil, and crusades. He understood this classic work to be the "voice of reason" that still needed to be heard. "Natürlich habe ich dieses Stück gewählt unter dem Eindruck dieser im September 2001 jählings ausgebrochenen Finsternis", erklärt Claus Peymann. "Es wird von Kreuzrittern gesprochen, von Revanche, von Rache, vom Kampf gegen das Böse, und da schien mir diese bedeutende Stimme der Vernunft aus dem brodelnden Topf der deutschen Klassik gerade die richtige Antwort." (source)

The staging was rather minimalist, and the characters were dressed in a way reminiscent of the crusades (when the play was originally set), mixed with more modern costumes. A few small critiques aside, I really enjoy the Berliner Ensemble. I paid 7 EUR (student discounted rate) for a ticket--which is about the price of going to a movie! And got to see amazing theater! 

Again, some favorite quotes:

Die Menschen sind nicht immer, was sie scheinen, aber selten etwas besseres. [People are not always what they seem, but they are seldom something better.]
Der Wunder höchstes ist, dass uns die wahren, echten Wunder so alltäglich werden können, werden sollen [The greatest miracle is that the true, real miracles can become--should become-- so commonplace to us.]
Es sind nicht alle frei, die ihrer Ketten spotten. [Not all who mock their chains are free.]
Kein Mensch muss müssen. [No man must must.]
Macht denn nur das Blut den Vater? [Is it only blood that makes the father?]
Nicht die Kinder bloß speist man mit Märchen ab. [Not only children can be fed fairy tales.  - hard to translate, it's more like "fended off" with stories...Nathan says this right before he tells the ring parable to the sultan]
Der Wille und nicht die Gabe macht den Geber. [Intention and not the gift makes the giver.]

Effi 2.0

 Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater put on this really cool project on Monday, "Effi Briest 2.0" on Facebook. I didn't catch it "live" but visited the site later and it's really fun how they play with the text. They invited members to "watch" the play, and interact through "likes" or "comments" at various points. The goal was to generate interest (and hopefully attract younger viewers) for an upcoming production of Fontane's famous novel at their (actual) theater.

I think something like this could also be really fun and productive to use in class, because it helps you think about the text in new ways. They use some real quotes from the text, and also play with the characters. Although I like on-stage theater to stay close to the text, I have to admit I was amused to see Crampas and Effi flirting through emoticons and reacting with "WTF".

"we can't begin until the theater is quiet.." (haha)

This is how they opened the "play": "Ab jetzt gelten die Hausregeln, bitte beachten Sie diese aufmerksam und widerstehen Sie dem Reflex, etwas zu kommentieren oder zu liken. In wenigen Augenblicken geht es los... wir müssen noch ein paar Zuschauer einladen...Aktualisieren Sie die Seite regelmäßig, um nichts zu verpassen."

Here are some more funny examples from the "play". (A bit out of order, sorry)

mother, telling Effi that Innstetten has asked for her hand

viewers voting on a wedding dress for Effi

Where are the letters?

Here is the link to the entire "production." 
A link to more about the production in English. 
And some press in German. Der Tagesspiegel, „Gefällt mir“: Fontane als Facebook-Theater

Die Revolution frisst ihre Kinder

Crowds cheering the guillotine, the brutal Marseillaise, French mobs, back-stabbing intrigue, and revolutionary politics...it's all here.

http://www.berliner-ensemble.de

Last night we saw Georg Büchners play Dantons Tod at the Berliner Ensemble.

The setting is the reign of terror of the French Revolution (la terreur), when the violence of the Revolution gets out of control, and revolutionaries start to turn on one another and  murder based on suspicion of treason.

This most famous line, "The revolution is like Saturn, it eats its own children," refers to the way that the revolution, after guillotining off the royalty and royalists, also starts to turn on its own supporters, out of suspicion and fear.

You might wonder why it's a German play about the French revolution. The play was written in 1835, when the ideals of the French Revolution were being hotly debated in the German lands. Other European countries were afraid that the Revolution would spread, and that the liberal ideals of "liberté, égalité, fraternité" would upset the status quo all over Europe.

Here are some good quotes from the play:

http://www.berliner-ensemble.

"Adieu, mein Freund! Die Guillotine ist der beste Arzt."
[Adieu, my friend! The guillotine is the best doctor.]

"Die Revolution ist wie Saturn, sie frißt ihre eignen Kinder." - [The revolution is like Saturn, it eats its own children.]

"Wir haben nicht die Revolution, sondern die Revolution hat uns gemacht."
[We haven't made the revolution, but the revolution has made us.]

"Ihr wollt Brot und sie werfen euch Köpfe hin. Ihr durstet und sie machen euch das Blut der Guillotine zu lecken. " -Danton
[You want bread, and they throw you heads. You are thirsty and they make you lick the blood of the guillotine.]

"Puppen sind wir, von unbekannten Gewalten am Draht gezogen." -Danton
[We are puppets, pulled on strings by unknown forces.] 

"Wer in einer Masse, die vorwärts drängt, stehenbleibt, leistet so gut Widerstand, als trät' er ihr entgegen: er wird zertreten."  -Robespierre
 [Whomever stands still in a mob that is pushing forwards offers as much resistance as if he were confronting it head-on: he will be trampled.]

zum 200. Todestag - Heinrich von Kleist

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/autoren/heinrich-von-kleist-aus-dem-leben-11534227.html

It is the 200 year anniversary of the German poet/writer Heinrich von Kleist's death. It ended with a carefully orchestrated murder-suicide out in Wannsee, outside of Berlin.

Kleist wasn't very well-received during his life, and only wrote a small number of plays and prose pieces, but he is very popular today among scholars of German studies, also because his writings often theorize writing itself. He has a unique style, with lots of long, complex sentences, and brutally violent scenes. If you want to read something, you can get The Marquise of O and Other Stories in English. The title story, for instance, begins with a raped woman who, finding herself pregnant, puts an ad in the paper to find the father of the baby. Yes, crazy stuff.

from Hermannsschlacht production

In honor of this anniversary, there have been lots of events going on...including a theater festival at the Maxim Gorki Theater. I went to three plays: Hermannsschlacht, Penthesilea, Die Familie Schroffenstein. I have to admit, it wasn't really my kind of theater...people stripping down naked...yelling at the audience...cutting down the script.... I'm also not a connoisseur of modern theater and don't really go to productions like this very often, so I also had trouble judging the merits of the stagings. 

Penthesilea

Die Familie Schroffenstein