Theater: Life in a minor key | nd-aktuell.de

To say it straight away: The author of these lines is by no means an experienced theater reviewer. In fact, it is his first criticism of this kind. Previously known to readers as a film critic, he goes astray, so to speak, although this is entirely logical, because Axel Ranisch, who we are talking about here, is actually a film director. However, this term falls short, because Ranisch is much more than that: author, actor, film composer, opera director, writer, podcaster – and apparently a workaholic given his workload.

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In a film review here in this newspaper, the critic (yes, the same one) described Ranisch as a “prodigy” on the occasion of this year’s film “Orphea in Love”. But at least he is a solitary figure in the German film landscape. He won the hearts of audiences and critics with his unconventional films, which he directed on a low budget, often improvised and usually with the same actors from his film family. Various opera productions arose from his love of classical music, and most recently Ranisch was successful with the furious series film adaptation of his novel “Naked over Berlin,” which can be seen in the Arte media library.

The only thing missing was spoken theater, but this gap has now been filled. Together with his husband Paul Zacher, he wrote the piece “Mom, what are you doing?”, which premiered in the New House of the Berliner Ensemble. The material is not entirely new; Created as a radio play a few years ago and later continued as a more detailed radio play series, they have now further developed the piece for the stage. There is a solid reason for their continued interest: both of them are processing the history of their own relationship.

Ranisch’s characters and stories often have autobiographical references; in many of his films you feel like you are seeing the director’s alter ego on the screen. The viewer also easily recognizes the role model in the chubby Anton Hartwichsen on stage. Anton is 25, a musicology student and gay. He still lives with his mother and loves his grandmother Evelyn, whose onset of dementia is being bravely ignored. Anton is lonely and longs for true love. This hope seems to be fulfilled when his friend from elementary school, Pepe, whom he had already tentatively loved, runs into him again. However, he has become a real scoundrel who is making a useless living, has accumulated a lot of debt and is deceiving everyone around him about his real situation. His supposed job in the pharmaceutical industry turns out to be illegal trafficking in narcotics.

The paths of those involved regularly cross in the office of the apartment manager Manfred in Berlin-Lichtenberg (where Ranisch grew up) – after all, everyone has to live. Pepe’s mother, needy for love like the others, even begins a fling with him. The whole thing goes back and forth eloquently for almost two hours. Big feelings alternate with deep disappointment. In the end the choice resolves itself happily; Pepe undergoes therapy, after which he and Anton can finally find each other. Grandma is taken care of and the landlord isn’t a monster either. The dance is accompanied by some musical interludes; However, there are too few of them to turn the piece into a musical.

Sounds banal? Unfortunately it is. What sounds like a common story in the summary above doesn’t really gain any stature in the long version on stage, and what shouldn’t happen happens: boredom sets in. The material could possibly have been a good template for a film that offers other dramaturgical possibilities and allows a story to be developed and told more broadly. The piece could also be used as an opera libretto; after all, in an opera the plot is deliberately kept simple, as it only serves as a vehicle for something much bigger, namely the music.

However, spoken theater requires a different approach, a deeper level of reflection that goes beyond a story told one-to-one. On a stage that, in contrast to film, only offers limited possibilities of expression, a text must be worked differently and chains of associations must be set in motion that stimulate the viewer’s interest in knowledge. The story of searching and finding love, as presented by Ranisch and Zacher, simply does not have enough depth for the theater stage. The friction surface and the double bottom are missing. A statement like Grandma’s: “Sometimes life is in a minor key” is really not a groundbreaking insight for an adult.

Is it old-fashioned to expect any kind of social relevance from an evening at the theater? With a little effort, one could see the character of the landlord as a commentary on current events with their skyrocketing housing costs, but otherwise the piece remains trapped in private sensitivities that never point beyond themselves. The production does try to make at least a few references to current gender discourses – men’s roles are filled by women and vice versa. But in times of wokeness debates and “gender fluidity,” even this only seems comforting. Of course, the dramaturgy tries to make the best of the script; the stage design is attractive and the actors are professionals in their field. Nevertheless, as the performance progressed, the reviewers increasingly had the feeling that “Mom, what are you doing?” might be better off in a children’s and youth theater.

Next performances:
15. bis 17.12., 15.1., 16.1.

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