Prison theater in Tegel: “Threepenny Opera”: The conditions are not like that

Anyone who wants to attend a production by the aufBruch Theater, this summer’s “The Threepenny Opera” by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, has to make time off. The Tegel Correctional Facility does not offer pretzels, champagne and merchandise as a welcome, but requires visitors to lock cell phones, wallets and so-called valuables in lockers.

“Expensive watches have no place here,” says an official to the increasingly nervous guests. No gossip, no gossip. A few steps deeper into the prison complex you then have to hand in your ID card and let yourself be patted down by other officers, all of whom are tall, to ensure that no one has anything in their shoes or bra. Hardly anyone who is here for the first time will perceive this procedure as nothing more than absurd theater.

Then it moves on, third phase, and a cohort is escorted around the compound between the houses – there are currently around 700 men incarcerated here. Inmates jog in circles, play table tennis, and do push-ups in the early evening. Gates are opened and closed, the guards make jokes, it’s routine, some visitors are visibly tense in their silence, others want to know everything: “Did the prisoners plant the flower beds here?” “No, the institution takes care of that.” “They did Church still in operation?”

The JVA, this special part-time venue in the north of Berlin, is not that easy to reach on the premiere day: the state visit by Zelenskyi and other gentlemen with diplomatic immunity also causes traffic chaos in the capital on the second day, and subway line 6 has been running since Years ago there was only Kurt-Schumacher-Platz, the “Kutschi”. Then you have to continue with the alternative transport. But those who made it this far, despite these hardships, belong to a lucky minority of interested parties: with the exception of privileged press representatives, they had to hurry because after about 15 minutes all tickets were already sold out.

The performance takes place in the courtyard of a now empty prison wing. This “Threepenny Opera” is now an “open-air prison theater with music.” The music comes from some members of the Berlin band 17 Hippies, who have already been part of several aufBruch productions. Director Peter Atanassow has been making theater in prisons for 27 years. Shakespeare, Goethe, Heiner Müller and Ernst Toller were already on the program.

They are classical works, foreign material, dialogues and monologues in a language that has nothing to do with everyday life. Rehearsals took place for nine weeks, four to five days a week, four to five hours a day, reveals set designer Holger Syrbe. Many of the actors were still working in one of the craft businesses at the same time. Three actors write for the only uncensored prison magazine in Germany, “lichtblick”.

In the audience are (at least) a German studies professor and a Netflix series star, some former “aufBruch” actors, relatives of the actors, prisoners, judicial officials, and the prison director. It’s cloudy, there’s a little drizzle every now and then, and birds fly up every now and then. In the approximately two hours the ensemble succeeds effortlessly; To forget about wind and weather, walls and fences, and the punishment apparatus around them. Instead of yawning and longing for your cell phone, laughter and applause from the scene.

“The Threepenny Opera” is an opera for beggars, the narrator (Muhammet) announces at the beginning, and begging, the accumulation of alms, is Mister Peachum’s business: he divides his destitute employees into different classes (war victims, industrial victims, etc. ), which have nothing to do with the life stories of the poor bastards themselves, “because no one believes your own misery.” Piecework posters are made with Bible words praising giving. He is an unscrupulous manager of pity, he is played brilliantly by Norman, who knows how to express everything that is condescending in the nature of the “doer” in his tone of voice and body language. There’s always something going on on stage. The actors are beggars, gangsters and later whores. The three trades and businesses overlap.

Gangster boss Macheath (charismatic, charming, scheming: Paul E.), better known as Macky Messer, is after Peachum’s daughter Polly (skillfully amusing, concentrated and moody played by Marco) and wants to marry her, thus gaining an advantage in the competition about making money without having to look after strangers. This was not what the perpetually tipsy Mrs. Peachum had in mind when she allowed “Captain” Macheath in. Mrs. Peachum is played by H. Peter Maier, who knows how to make the socialite of the underworld so believable, with precise timing, a feel for the smallest gestures and mean looks, that you wouldn’t miss “professionalism” for a second of this evening. On the contrary: the joy of playing, the seriousness, the tempo give this “Threepenny Opera” an intensity that is rarely seen in professionals who have to constantly reflect on their institution, the game itself, the role in the discourse, the ridiculousness of the illusion, etc.

The practical box system on stage with its many doors, several levels, and constant remodeling by the actors leaves no time for standing there empty and talking. Anne Schartmann’s costume team is constantly busy changing outfits. Choreography (e.g. a boxing match, mass crowds) and singing parts (choral and solo) bring an old London underworld to life in Tegel, which functions timelessly, does not appear dusty, but becomes a place where crimes can be staged as a question of social conditions.

There is slapstick and all sorts of drag shows; after all, the men also play the whores, as a sometimes strictly professional, sometimes bored, sometimes violent collective of seductresses. When Polly and Mackie’s other beloved lady Lucy (on point: Steffen Karehl) gossip about the guy, there is even an almost feminist sisterhood between the deceived. On the stage that evening, the prisoners become someone else; even after they say they have fun and protection, they have leeway with the role. Other laws apply.

At a long table, Mackie Messer not only appoints a priest for the ungodly marriage to Polly, but also his old army buddy Tiger Brown (boss-like: Atak), who happens to have become London’s police chief. Law enforcers and lawbreakers are united by the past in the military, and you learn skills for both activities in the military. When he later has to book his best friend in and bars become a prop, Brown longs for the clear conditions of the colonial era. But nothing will come of it. Just as little as the pirate Jenny’s wish that a ship should come and burn London to rubble – brilliantly performed by Adrian U., who can play the priest and the whore Jenny just as well.

And in the end, when the royal coronation and Mackie’s execution are supposed to fall on the same day, everything turns out differently than planned anyway. “The Threepenny Opera” by Atanasov and his team is greeted with standing ovations that last for minutes; the sky has cleared. The actors give interviews and then a buffet opens behind the stands. Visitors and actors come into conversation, are relatives, lovers, old friends. People talk to Volkan, Robin, Sven, Recep and not to inmate XYZ, who committed this or that crime. The tension that was written on the faces of most visitors as they walked through the deserted corridors, across the squares where the prisoners could actually only be seen from a distance behind bars, has disappeared.

The theater has made us forget the penal architecture in which we find ourselves – for a few hours, then we part ways, we are escorted out again and we are not supposed to stand still. The art of illusion is successful, after which the world becomes gray and narrow again. And yet, in the spirit of epic theater, we no longer only see massive, cold walls and fences topped with barbed wire “outside,” but also the architecture of social conditions.

Next performances: June 18th, 20th and 21st

www.gefaengnistheater.de