THEATERTREFFEN 2016:
Ein Volksfeind / John Gabriel Borkman /
Väter Und Söhne / The Situation / der die mann
Various venues, Berlin
Opened  May, 2016
**** / ** / **** / *** / ****

The Theatertreffen is the high point of the German theatrical calendar. For two weeks each May, under the principal aegis of the Berliner Festspiele, the ten “most notable productions” of the past twelve months in the German-speaking world are invited to perform in Berlin theatres, surrounded by a programme of discussions, ancillary works, criticism and so forth. The net must necessarily be cast wide, and the five presentations I saw during the first half of the festival showed few signs of cleaving to a prevailing orthodoxy. Coincidentally, however, they fell into two camps: three of the shows originated in Berlin and were being reprised in their original venues, the other two being adaptations of plays by Henrik Ibsen originally staged beyond Germany’s borders and presented here at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Ein Volksfeind (An Enemy Of The People), from the Schauspielhaus Zürich, updated matters smartly. Ibsen’s Dr Stockmann discovers that his town spa’s waters are rendered toxic by run-off from tanneries, and his truth-telling is first championed then betrayed by the town newspaper. In Dietmar Dath’s adaptation the toxicity is due to fracking and the People’s Herald has become the blog portal DEMOnline. Stefan Pucher’s lively production climaxes with a town meeting at which Stockmann is outmanoeuvred, staged by inviting the audience to split between those keen to hear Stockmann himself, who remain in the auditorium, and those interested in the mayor’s denunciation of him, who move into the foyer, with mutual video links.

Alas, few of the same compliments can be paid to the production of John Gabriel Borkman from Vienna’s Burgtheater im Akademietheater. Australian director Simon Stone has also updated Ibsen’s story of the arrogant former bank director still hoping to make a comeback years after his dismissal for fraud. Stone, however, has paraphrased the entire script, and his staging amounts to two hours of people doing little more than shouting at each other in a constant snowstorm.

Even at four hours, Daniela Löffner’s production of Turgenev’s Väter Und Söhne (Fathers And Sons) in the Deutsches Theater’s Kammerspiele is light and compelling. Löffner uses Brian Friel’s 1997 adaptation as her basis, and adopts a minimal staging with actors in modern dress retiring to the front rows of the in-the-round seating when not on stage. Marcel Kohler walks an adept line as student Arkadij, torn between the lifestyle of his upbringing and the nihilism professed by his university friend Bazarow (Alexander Khuon). All the effects and environments seem to arise organically from the ensemble’s actions, although it’s a little disconcerting when a break between acts is signalled by a performance of Laurie Anderson’s “Big Science”.

The Maxim Gorki is the most consciously multi-cultural of Berlin’s main theatres, and a natural home for Austrian-Israeli director Yael Ronen’s piece The Situation. Ronen begins with the brilliant idea of using a series of German lessons for newly arrived Israelis and Palestinians in Berlin as springboards for illustrations of aspects of “the situation”, but is either unable to sustain this mode or mistakenly thinks that subsiding into a series of first-person testimonies will prove more effective.

I did not expect either to like or enjoy der die mann (an untranslatable title which the surtitles render as He/She Man) at the Volksbühne. I had anticipated one of the “post-dramatic” screeds characteristic of the venue, but Herbert Fritsch and his Beatle-suited ensemble of seven (plus four musicians) have created a tight, bright bundle of nonsense... deliberate nonsense, highlighting the arbitrariness and absurdity of language. Passages of gibberish (including a beautiful parody of a Schubert Lied), constant slapstick and technical jiggery-pokery combine to winning effect.

Written for the Financial Times.

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.

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