Comrade Shakespeare: Fool and people

In Brandenburg, it is rumored with concern in the capital, the people will elect their state parliament at the weekend. There are big doubts as to whether the Brandenburger will do this to the satisfaction of all traffic light men and committed press representatives.

Recently I also traveled to the March, which surrounds Berlin, this island of the Galão blessed, like a turbulent sea. And – what can I say? If you don’t stay in a very sophisticated place in Potsdam like Jauch, Scholz and Baerbock, you quickly come to a simple realization: It would have been better if those who were afraid of being voted out had not closed down the last alternative youth center, you wouldn’t have had to take a half-day trip to the nearest family doctor, The money saved by those receiving citizens’ benefits would not be used for armaments.

But even if hope is rare, as we all know, art is always being made. And sometimes it even helps. In Strausberg, for example, “The Other World Stage” works on the old post office site, surrounded by deep forests like the one in Birnam, and counteracts the excessive stupidity – of the government, of the governed – with some art. This used to be called folk theater and no, that doesn’t mean under-challenging, but rather that what happens on stage happens cleverly and quickly and wildly.

So it’s no wonder that the Strausbergers have put Shakespeare on the schedule. And because the old story of Romeo and Juliet invites misunderstandings and prematurely brings to mind kitsch and musicals and the young Leonardo DiCaprio, one would have done well to make do with Thomas Brasch’s version, which has the clever title “Love Powers Death ” carries. In this triad, power is the concept that the stages often forget.

Director Paul Spittler, who also works at major theaters in Vienna, Berlin and Dortmund, forgets nothing here, but rather follows the text of the eloquent social analyst Brasch and his old teacher, Comrade Shakespeare. It is not uncommon for two people to love each other. It happens that things don’t go well with love. But the fact that the House of Montague and the House of Capulet want to prevent something that nobody can actually do anything about is politics – and it still concerns us today.

In post-pandemic times – whether Covid, AIDS or pestilence is ultimately irrelevant – social life is still shattered, despite all the preaching of optimism. The whole thing is carried out in the style of folk theater using the simplest of means, but convincingly. A delightful amateur choir is performed by the people who witness the intrigues of power. The verses fly towards us with crude humor and striking figure drawings. Theater can sometimes be so close, so current (instead of boringly updated), that Berlin sometimes looks like a province.

Still drunk from the theater, I go to the train station after the performance and indulge in the dream thought that theater would be a mass medium again like in Shakespeare’s days. Then a guy, half child, half man, with a half-empty bottle of vodka in his hand, out of nowhere gives me a sharp kick in the shin, only to beg me for a cigarette fifteen minutes later. Sometimes art has to hurt.

»You are the people. It is I who incite you. / My name is: The Fool. “That won’t be translated,” Brasch added to Shakespeare. I still want to believe that theater can make people smarter (just not everyone).