Berlin Ensemble – a guard called Hass

In order to start with the conclusion, namely the final applause after “de Profundis”, the opening premiere at the game time start at the Berlin Ensemble: such astonishing clapping of the actually applause -lazy main town tasting has not been experienced in this house for years. Of course, it is not the cause of the critic to discuss and interpret the reactions of the audience. But to determine who the cheering applies, you don’t need any special, especially not clairvoyant skills: here an acting star is greeted, who has been part of the famous ensemble at Bertolt-Brecht-Platz 1 since this season. A theater star, as he was still missing in this city and around which Hamburg and Munich had to envy for years.

The Iffland ring bearer Jens Harzer is set up in his new artistic homeland. In addition to his occasional excursions in film and television (“Babylon Berlin”), he was most recently employed at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg and occasionally delighted the audience in Vienna and Bochum.

And now he is alone on the stage of the Berlin ensemble. Calls the audience with his unmistakable voice. Let his figure struggle with the text, with himself, declamates proud, stoked, doubles, sings sadly. Each hand movement works completely naturally in this artificial space. Stilly pride, glowing contempt, disgrace against himself, this man knows how to show all of this. And Harzer doesn’t let go for this whole evening. He spent exhaustion. And this exceptional player in the floor you also feel exhausted, in a good sense.

This staging lives from and through a magnificent player. If Harzer did not know to penetrate a piece of literature with his whole body for almost two hours, little would remain from this evening.

For “de profundis” by Oscar Wilde, classic of world literature and gay icon, was chosen in the game plans on the Berlin Ensemble. None of the famous texts of the Irish writer, who died 125 years ago, none that he would have written for the stage or who even worshiped himself as a scenic basis. It is a long, 50,000 words comprehensive, which Wilde, condemned because of homosexual practices, wrote in the prison, in which he had to spend two years.

His addressee is Lord Alfred Douglas, wild lover. The letter is the indictment and assertion, self -criticism, prison signs, art -philosophical treatise and great litany. We find out Douglas, we have not comfortably made his friend in prison. And Douglas wears, lets us know wild, complicity, maybe more than that, in the situation of the detainee. Guided in the feud between him and his father, wild and not Douglas are denounced by the old man. Here he is now, a sophisticated dandy, a literary of rank and a homosexual man, incorporated under unworthy conditions.

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This letter is despite all voice violence – “the vanity had barred the windows, and the name of the guard was hate,” it says – but more literature -historical testimony than literature. That Harzer knows how to grab this text would be proven. But why was he presented to him? What does he tell us about the present?

At least wild considerations contained therein – life as art and art as real reality – can only be regarded as a shrine from the penultimate century. There is always talk of Genie, you noticed embarrassed. And it cannot be separated in a very hair, where a historical art group ends and where the kitsch begins.

The director (as well as text processing) has taken care of Oliver Reese, director of the Berlin ensemble. He lets the light shine on the star of the evening. But he cannot convey the urgency of the content of this letter to us. Some decisions, such as the puppet theater -based setting of the stage, the equipment of his soloist with a white place bag, are conceivable. However, the fact that he lets his main character rush his head, but does not find any pictures for the torture associated with the prison penalty due to inhuman work is an annoying failure.

The acting performance of a Jens Harzer is particularly remembered by this theater evening. However, it burns. If he can only come into play with the other ensemble members and in collaboration with other directors – Johan Simons! Frank Castorf! – Mayor will soon find his skills his theater happiness.

Next performances: 18., 29.9. and 6.10.
www.berliner-ensemble.de