“Tarifzone Liebe”: BVG musical: Public transport also has feelings

One might think that the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) has already done enough marketing nonsense. A sneaker with a built-in ticket, a video with Frank Zander as head of marketing and last but not least, his own BVG clothing collection. But no. That’s not enough, because the appearance of the Irish stadium rockers U2 in the U2, Kazim Akboga’s “I don’t care” and the rewritten O-Zone hit “Dragostea din tei”, which ultimately became “Free jobs here, free jobs” – Anthem mutated, the BVG were right: There is more.

More, that means: more music, more (bad) puns and more public transport design. All in all, it’s called a musical. “Tariff Zone Love – The Feelings Drive a Tram” by director Christoph Drewitz celebrated its premiere on Monday evening in the completely sold-out Admiralspalast. At 29 euros, the tickets were cheaper than the Germany ticket, including public transport in the AB area. Anyone who wanted to travel to the “Love tariff zone” for free watched the live stream on Monday.

2,600 fans met over two days to watch and listen to public transport. If you were lucky, you even got to go home with a BVG jute bag. The good thing: This design never goes out of style because it was never fashionable. Last year, BVG released this “diversity” design. If you look closer, you will see lots of colorful people in red, blue, black and yellow. Keith Haring in trashy. The Only the BVG can.

The situation is similar with the one-hour musical, which aims to be self-satirizing and casual. Admittedly, one or two puns hurt a lot or, to put it in the BVG slogan, are pretty lame. The name of the protagonist Tramara (Jeannine Wacker), who falls in love with the passenger Alexander (Jendrik Sigwart), alone suggests something bad. Does that really have to be the case? Yes, it has to, because the BVG has a subscription to exactly this type of humor. The fact that one of the best lyricists, Jung von Matt, worked on the musical is part of the marketing plan that BVG sales and marketing manager Christine Wolburg and her team devised.

Also on board: co-author and musical writer Tom van Hasselt, whose credits include the queer musical “Brigitte Bordeaux” and the bittersweet musical comedy “Mamma Macchiato”. Well, this time it’s a love story between the tram Tramara and its passenger Alexander. It’s no longer a big surprise that the friends of the tram are also called Bus-Tav (Gino Emnes) and U-Laf (Luca Went). This is exactly the right choice for Berlin public transport ultras, because here they can find great inspiration for the names of their future children: Ber-Tram, U-Snelda and U-Schi are already looking forward to it.

The musical, which consists of nine songs composed especially for the evening, likes to use irony. Because dissatisfied passengers are as much a part of Berlin’s local transport as ticket inspectors with a Berlin snout. But before that happens, the show-like intro “Arrival” welcomes the guests in front of a red curtain with spotlights. It’s self-explanatory that soon everyone will be standing on the street or on the platform, and then it starts with techno music, including the tinkling of trams. Many a “tram-like” hit like “Because I love him”, Alexander’s piano-accompanied ballad “Kein Fahrbetrieb” and the duets “Einzelfahrt ins Liebesglück” and “Tarifzone Liebe” would probably have a chance in the usual way – albeit without a tram outfit and without a ukulele Hit parades. Everyone’s emotions are probably overwhelming.

Of course there’s not just the passenger Alexander. For example, the marketing type who actually wants to hand every person his business card, a grandma in leopard leggings with a dog or the love-loving I-always-wanted-to-see-Berlin couple who get lost in the vastness of possibilities and finds again. Great tip: Bus line 100 is said to be quite good for tourists. Thank you, BVG-Musical, without you no one would have known this. *Wink.

That would all be good and entirely believable so far, but the musical goes one step further because a whip, an Eiffel Tower and a set of teeth also sing along. Why? Well, it’s like your best friend or best friend in movies. Most of the time they are just a means to an end. For example, the three of them – all found from means of transport – free Tramara from her tram outfit.

The head of the three friends (Tramara, U-Laf and Bus-Tav) is each held in a kind of driver’s box, the legs are either stuck in the subway shell, race around on a self-propelled board as a bus or roll on roller skates instead on a tram track. Simple but effective. When the tram swaps its roller skates for high heels, the expression “breaking a neck” takes on its true meaning. Maybe that’s why the musical is only performed twice. Because Tramara’s stiletto steps don’t look particularly safe.

A nice trick for the three public transport friends: instead of stops, their names are displayed above their heads. That would be really nice for some bus, subway or tram acquaintances. Very practical: the costumes can be quickly disassembled. Not an unimportant factor at many celebrations.

There is a suitable song in the musical for every driving situation. In “Complain,” with dramatic strings at the beginning and complaint rap in the middle, the passengers complain all the time. The hit “Delay in operations” should get a lot of views pretty soon, because the colder the temperatures, the longer the waiting times. They say. It can always be worse, as “The City Stands Still” proves. But even if that were to happen, BVG still has an ace up its sleeve. Two songs in the musical were created with the help of the Maltese Choir for refugee children and adults from Ukraine in the Tegel Arrival Center. Together they sing, among other things, the nothing-works-anymore song “The City Stands Still” – and that makes everyone’s heart warm.