Thomas Ostermeier

I was telling some of my colleagues about my trip to Germany this summer to see the Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen. One of the plays I talked about at length was Death in Venice, a very provocative adaptation of the novella by Thomas Mann. I happened to have the program right there, and just as I was getting ready to go, I hear, "Oh, you didn't mention it was directed by Thomas Ostermeier!"

To be quite honest, I didn't realize that Ostermeier had such a big name. Well, as I am finding out, Ostermeier is one of the top directors working in Germany today. Since 1999, he has helped lead the Berlin Schaubuhne. He directed a notable production of A Doll's House in 2002 and took on Woyzeck in 2003. He frequently employes multiple media in his work, as was the case with Death in Venice, which utilized giant projections of the actors' faces as an on-stage cameraman filmed close-ups in full view of the audience.

Ostermeier began his career at Berlin's small Baracke Theater. There he directed Brecht's A Man's a Man, as well as directing translations of edgy English plays by the likes of Sarah Kane and Mark Ravenhill. Over the years, he's also directed a number of pieces by American playwrights, from Nicky Silver to Eugene O'Neill to Tennessee Williams.

Here's a publicity shot of his take on Death in Venice:

In addition to making use of projections, the production also incorporated live music composed by Gustav Mahler. Not everyone in the audience loved it (one couple walked out on the performance I saw), but if you have a chance to catch this production some time, I recommend it. It is definitely worth seeing.

Recklinghausen Recap

Now that I'm back in the States, I wanted to post these publicity shots of some of the great shows I saw at the Ruhrfestspiele in Germany. First of all, here's the wonderful cast of Heute: KOHLHAAS, based on the novella by Heinrich von Kleist.

And here's that great scene with the fabric in Red Giselle.

This photo doesn't quite capture the mask puppet in Songs for Alice, but it can give you an idea of what it looked like.

Here's the dish-smashing scene in Carl Sternheim's Die Hose / Burger Schippel.

Dancing maenads from Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

The cast of Maria Milisavljevic's Brandung in front of their ice set.

The cast of Der Weibsteufel with their equally impressive set.

Why don't we get theater like this in the U.S.?

Death in Venice

I quite enjoyed Death in Venice last night. There was an odd moment, however, when the waiter came over to Aschenbach and asked him to sign a bill. The scene was done in English, in spite of the rest of the play being in German. Why? Aschenbach is German, and the waiter is Italian. Perhaps they wanted a foreign language, but one that would be better understood than Italian.

There is an incident in the novella where an Englishman warns Aschenbach about the cholera epidemic. In the scene in the play, however, the waiter flatly denies any health problems in Venice, so this clearly wasn't that. What is more, the scene was performed very quietly, almost in whispers.

A woman in the back screamed out, "Lauter!" However, the actors had obviously been directed to speak that quietly, and the dialogue was not necessarily even meant to be understood.

There was a wonderful sequence at the end with some dancing Maenads, but I think I'll save writing about that for my review.