Herr Bertolt Brecht

Last night I saw Classic Stage Company's production of Brecht's A Man's a Man. Duncan Sheik provided the music for the songs, which included meta-theatrical references to "Herr Bertolt Brecht." The stand-out cast member was Justin Vivian Bond, better known as the Kiki half of the duo Kiki and Herb. He played Widow Begbick and also came out at intermission to sing a song that had been "cut from the second act."

Sheik used prerecorded music to accompany the actors, as the small three-quarter-round theatre used by CSC would never have been able to fit all of the musicians needed for the highly produced sound he wanted. (Not that the non-profit theatre could have afforded to hire them all, anyway.) The set, designed by Paul Steinberg, creatively used a number of what appeared to be orange oil drums. Justin Townsend's lighting design somehow managed to make the entire stage appear black-and-white at times, and other times in bright color. I'm still trying to figure out how that worked.

Brecht wrote A Man's a Man between 1924 and 1926, so the program said the play was set in "1925 or thereabouts, in an India that is suspiciously Rudyard Kipling-like." Brecht loved Kipling and was clearly influenced by his work, particularly in this play, which involves the construction of a fake elephant that then gets auctioned off as part of the plot. The play's climax actually takes place in Tibet. The anti-war sentiments at the end show that the disillusionment of WWI was another major factor in the piece.

By 1924, Brecht had written Baal, Drums in the Night, and In the Jungle of Cities, a trio of Expressionist works for which he had received the Kleist Prize for drama. (He had also written an early version of Die Kleinburgerhochzeit, which I saw in Germany last summer at the Ruhrfestspiele.) It was just after A Man's a Man, in the period from 1927 to 1930, that Brecht teamed up with composer Kurt Weill and fellow writer Elizabeth Hauptman on his most famous musical plays, The Three-Penny Opera, Happy End, and The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny.

CSC Artistic Director Brian Kulick helmed this production, following up another Brecht play he did last season, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. If you're interested in CSC's latest Brecht outing, it will be playing until February 16th. For more information go here:

Classic Stage Company

http://www.classicstage.org/season/productions/amansaman/

Songs for Alice

This past summer, I saw Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel's intimate chamber musical Songs for Alice at the Ruhrfestspiele Fringe Festival in Recklinghausen, Germany. Based on the works of Lewis Carroll, the play bypasses a linear narrative structure, instead using songs to structure the piece. I was telling people about it today, and a friend of mine going to Germany in January said he wants to see it if he gets a chance.

Well, Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel has not yet posted their schedule for January, but they have kept the show in their rotation, last performing it in Leipzig in October.

Charlotte Wilde and Michael Vogel have worked together since 1997. For this piece they used a freelance director, Hendrick Mannes, and added an extra musician, bass player Johannes Frisch. The play contains scenes and poems from Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, but it discards the narratives of both of those books. Instead, it presents incidents and songs in a seemingly random order.

Most stage and screen adaptations of the Alice books try to string events together into a logical sequence. Songs for Alice is notable for moving in precisely the opposite direction, presenting the different parts of the books as separate and distinct.

The play's use of puppets might once have set it apart from the world of musical theatre, but in the wake of such blockbusters as The Lion King and Avenue Q, puppets no longer seem so remote to musical-going audiences. Just as The Lion King sometimes merges together performer and puppet, Vogel frequently uses a similar technique in which he transforms himself into part of a puppet.

Avenue Q brought to Broadway the technique of having puppeteers dressed in neutral costumes standing in plain view of the audience. Vogel makes use of this technique as well, though he often suits his own appearance to the action of the scene. During the tea party sequence, for instance, he dons a top hat to become the Mad Hatter while also manipulating puppets of the Dormouse and the March Hare.

Other puppets include a Dodo bird, a Flamingo croquet mallet, a Caterpillar that blows real smoke and a White Rabbit puppet that is both comic and vaguely threatening at the same time. This aesthetic, both comedic and frightening, carries through the entire piece. Such an approach can perhaps be seen on Broadway, such as in Wicked's use of both playful musical comedy and foreboding signs of totalitarianism. The scale of Songs for Alice, however, is exactly the opposite of that for Wicked. While the Gershwin Theatre can fit 1,900 people, a technical leaflet on Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel's website claims Songs for Alice works best in a theatre that measures 12 by 10 meters and that the audience can be no more than 200.

If you're interested in finding out more about this exciting production, check out Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel's website here:

Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel

http://www.figurentheater-wildevogel.de/

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.

Thoughts on Sternheim

This summer, I had the pleasure of seeing two Sternheim plays in one with David Mouchtar-Samorai's mash-up of Die Hose and Burger Schippel at the Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen. Both plays satirize the pretensions of the would-be bourgeois, so they very much fit together.

Carl Sternheim had a habit of recycling his characters. In fact, Die Hose began a cycle of plays by Sternheim on what he called "The Heroic Life of the Bourgeois." He followed up Die Hose with his 1914 play Der Snob. This play continues the story of Theobald and Louise Maske, as well as letting the audience in on the life of their son, whose birth is alluded to in the previous play.

The first act of Der Snob opens with the ironically named son, Christian Snob, breaking off a relationship with Sybil, a lover who helped him rise in society but whom he has now outgrown. He offers Sybil cash to pay for her services, with interest, so he can be completely independent and owe nothing to anything. Next, he tries to make the same arrangement with his parents, paying them for everything they spent raising him. It's as if he wants to be a truly self-made man.

Christian aims to marry Marianne, the daughter of a count. In the second act, he makes progress toward this goal and becomes engaged to Marianne, in spite of the count's reservations. The presence of his father, however, becomes a source of continual worry. Christian seems to vacillate between being embarrassed by his father and wanting to use Theobald to rub the count's nose in the fact that his daughter is marrying such an upstart.

In the third act, the story of Louise's courters in Die Hose comes back, and Christian begins to wonder whether or not he might be the bastard son of a Viscount. This becomes a source of both shame and titillation. In the final scene, Marianne discovers the secret on her wedding night. She enthusiastically greets a portrait of Louise as "sweet mother adultress" and Christian as her "dear husband and lord."

With such complicated psychosexual messes in his plays, it's as if Sternheim is the spiritual son of Frank Wedekind. In fact, Sternheim married Pamela Wedekind in 1930, becoming the great playwright's son-in-law. Wedekind was dead by that time, but still, you can't make this stuff up!

Read my next post for my thoughts of Wedekind.

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.?

Auf Wiedersehen, Recklinghausen

Today was my last day at the Ruhrfestspiele. I saw a production of Karl Schönherr’s Der Weibsteufel directed by Martin Kušej. The most striking feature of the production was the set. Massive logs spanned the stage, all jumbled on top of one another. The actors, who were dwarfed by this fallen forest, then had to walk on, climb on, and seduce each other on these massive logs, which had a few handle holds but no flat surfaces that I could see. The actors probably deserved their standing ovation just for that.

Last night I saw Bertolt Brecht’s Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit. This set had one long flat room at the back where there was just enough room for guests to sit behind a long table. There was much comic business involving people getting to their seats and squeezing past one another. Downstage from this room was a sloping platform, and then below that was the area where the dancing took place. The bride and groom went wild dancing with other people in an attempt to make one another jealous. In fact, the groom’s lascivious dancing was so outrageous, at one point he fell off of the stage and into the area in front of the audience.

Today, rather fittingly, I saw what appeared to be a bachelorette party preparing for their own Kleinbürgerhochzeit. They were in some sort of float or wagon being pulled by a tractor. One of the women on the float, wearing a pair of devil’s horns, offered to high five people as she passed. I declined.

Being There (Early)

Wednesday I attended the premiere of the Kleist-award-winning play Brandung, by Maria Milisavljevic. The play is being performed at the Ruhrfestspiele's new space, Halle König Ludwig, a converted industrial space out in the middle of nowhere. The festival supposedly runs a shuttle service, but it was unavailable for the premiere. I attempted to walk there, which according to the computer should have taken a little over an hour. After walking an hour and realizing I was clearly in the wrong place, I turned around and walked another hour back to the train station.

The taxi took a long, winding way out into the industrial suburbs, and let me off, quite early at the theatre. I (over)tipped the driver, and he proceeded to be (overly) helpful by pointing out the entrance. I knew it would be locked, but to satisfy the driver, I tried the door. Three young men stood outside.

“Können wir Ihnen helfen?” one asked.

“Ich bin zu früh,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “You’re really early.”

I asked if there was a place nearby where I could wait.

“Around here?” he said. “There’s nothing around here.”

The map showed a church and a park and what looked to be a thriving neighborhood. Well, not quite. I did check out König Ludwig Park, which more resembled a dense, woodsy area, and I did locate a lovely catholic church, which was locked. There was a grocery store with a café, both of which were clearly set up for drivers, not pedestrians. I got some food to eat in the park, however, and later came back to the café for coffee and dessert.

After waiting around a bit longer, I was finally admitted to the theatre. Who should appear onstage but the man who disparaged the local neighborhood! Only now, he was wearing a mermaid costume. The mermaid, who I have since learned is named Christoph Hart, provided live music for the piece. He also seemed to take on the character of Karla, the woman whose disappearance sets off the play. At the beginning, he is menaced by the three other performers, who all wear fox masks. Later, when we discover what happens to Karla, it is reenacted with the mermaid again playing Karla, being savaged by one of the foxes.

The most noticeable thing about this production was the set. There appeared to be a number of window panes hanging at an angle in the rear of the stage, behind which the mermaid played his music. As the performance went on, however, it became clear that the panes of glass were actually pieces of ice that slowly melted and sometimes crashed to the ground during the show. Oh, and the two other men out front with the mermaid? They turned out to be Christopher Rüping, the director, and Jonathan Mertz, the set designer.

Funny who you can meet by showing up early.

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.

Sternheim Mash-up

I have to admit, it was with more than a little trepidation that I approached David Mouchtar-Samorai's adaptation that brings together Carl Sternheim's comedies Die Hose and Burger Schippel. (In the U.S., Die Hose is better known by the title of Steve Martin's adaptation, The Underpants.)

The adaptation alternates between scenes from the two plays, with each actor taking on parallel roles. So for instance, the guy playing Theobald Maske plays Paul Schippel, and the woman playing Maske's put-upon wife also plays Thekla Hicketier in the scenes from Burger Schippel.

Towards the end of the play, the characters start to blend together. At the end, when Schippel is crowned with laurels and welcomed into respectable society, he is addressed as Herr Maske. The conceit seemed unnecessary to me, but the actors definitely pulled it off.

Adding to the production was a superb set that was filled with photographs, some in negative, of various respectable members of society from throughout history. This served as a constant reminder of the world into which Maske and Schippel wanted to enter. At the rear of the stage was a circular door through which actors could make exits and entrances.

This was a very earnest production, showing the true human emotions behind Sternheim's characters. That sometimes took away a few laughs, but it made up for it in emotional intensity.

Recklinghausen - Day Two

So my second day at the Ruhrfestspiele I saw two plays. The first was Le Navire Night, a "dialogue for voice and cello" performed in French (and cello). The music was provided by American cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, while French actress Fanny Ardant recited a story by Marguerite Duras about a passionate love affair that takes place over the telephone. There was no set and very little movement, which fit the play, which is essentially an ode to the power of the human voice.

The other play, Songs for Alice, was performed in one of the tents set up for the Fringe Festival. Figurentheater Wilde und Vogel performed scenes and songs from Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books, though in no particular order. The play alternated between English and German, sometimes with the two being spoken simultaneously by different performers. The unifying piece was "The Walrus and the Carpenter," which was sung in snatches (in English) throughout the play. Interestingly enough, they translated "The Jaberwocky" into German, which had to have been a feat. I imagine the nonsense words are only truly effective if the rest of the poem is easily understandable, thus the decision to have that piece in German.

Tonight I see Carl Sternheim's Die Hose and Burger Schippel (yes, there should be an umlaut there, but my keyboard is limited right now) in the smaller theatre of the festival house. It's a coproduction of the festival and the Staatstheater Nurnberg. (Again, sorry for the lack of an umlaut.)

Heute:Kohlhaas... heute!

I know there are people who read this blog in Germany. (At least that's what Google analytics tells me.) Well, if you are in Germany today and anywhere near Recklinghausen, run as fast as you can to see Heute: Kohlhaas for it's final performance as a part of the Ruhrfestspiele Fringe festival!

Five amazing actors perform this wonderful adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist's novella Michael Kohlhass using music, puppetry, clowning... even unicycle riding! The production, skillfully directed by Claus Overkamp, is endlessly inventive. The scene where Kohlhaas meets Martin Luther is worth the admission price all by itself.

Heute: Kohlhaas, a co-production of the AGORA Theater and Theater Marabu Bonn, is playing at 4:30 p.m. today, Sunday, June 2 in Fringezelt II. It's their final performance at the festival, so don't miss it!

Recklinghausen, here I come!

Recently, I received a Cohn-Lortel travel grant through the City University of New York to visit the Ruhr Valley Theatre Festival (Ruhrfestspiele) in Recklinghausen, Germany. I'll leave at the end of May and be at the festival for the the first week of June. It's very exciting!

As part of the travel grant, I'll be writing a review of the festival for Western European Stages, a journal that is published out of CUNY. Productions come to the festival from all over the world. I've mapped out at least 10 productions I really want to see, including a ballet from Russia, a Kleist adaptation for children from a Belgian company, a German piece inspired by Alice in Wonderland, a Brecht play done by a company from Luxembourg, and a new adaptation of Kafka's Metamorphosis.

The plane and hotels are now booked. Hopefully, I'll be able to blog live from the festival!