Volksbühne: “Life is a dream”: Oh, you fat bag!

“Don’t look back!” was – again – the slogan at the Volksbühne in 2016/17, i.e. in the last season under Frank Castorf. Before it was replaced by the curator Chris Dercon, the saying was emblazoned on T-shirts and posters and stood in stark contrast to the self-referentiality that was artistically indulged in when saying goodbye. After that, Dercon, only for a few months, because the flirtation with the international art scene quickly turned out to be a stupid misunderstanding. This was followed by Klaus Dörr’s interim, which ended unfortunately. And then the then Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer, looked back and saw René Pollesch.

Along with Castorf, the most influential artist in the recent history of the Volksbühne took over the helm in 2021. He died on February 26th at the age of 61. Does his death signal the end of the old Volksbühne? Does anyone really look back into the past anymore? It is still too early for an answer. Since the shock, performances of Pollesch’s works have been heard to end with standing ovations and tears on and in front of the stage.

Now the first premiere on the big stage in this time of mourning is coming up. Wednesday evening. Grave lights sparkle towards you on the way across Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. At the foot of the Volksbühne, this stronghold, they hung pictures of the deceased showing him playing ball with a child. There are flowers underneath and behind them is the foyer, which looks surprisingly as always.

Clemens Maria Schönborn directs Pedro Calderón’s “Life is a Dream”. Well-known names are on the program list: Castorf veterans Margarita Breitkreiz, Silvia Rieger and Uwe Dag Berlin are there, as is Kerstin Graßmann, known from several of Christoph Schlingensief’s films. And of course Sophie Rois. Maybe this is an ideal production for the transition to day-to-day business.

Schönborn and Rois, the duo is well known to those familiar with the house. There was already a collaboration in 2011, “The Lady of the Camellias” after Alexandre Dumas. They also worked together at the Deutsches Theater Berlin after the end of the Castorf era, where René Pollesch also temporarily found an artistic home. Nothing really new is to be expected here, nothing that would disturb the sadness.

The drama, published in 1635, explores ideal images of rulers and the moral requirements for positions of power. The venue is the Polish Royal Palace. Ruler Basilius reads in the stars that his heir to the throne, Sigismund, is growing into a tyrant and then throws him into a dungeon. In his old age he changes his mind and lets his son, who has no idea of ​​his origins, be freed in order to test his character. If he proves himself worthy of being king, Basil wants to take him back. If not, Sigismund is threatened with prison again and the short episode of freedom and luxury will seem like a beautiful dream to him.

Of course, no one expects those involved to actually perform Calderón’s play that evening, as the polite staging of plots in this house is completely unthinkable. One is therefore surprised when, in the first scenes, there are actually real characters on the empty white stage. Sophie Rois is starving in the dungeon in a thin shirt as Sigismund, Silvia Rieger as King Basilius reports on her plans, diligently declaims towards the audience and lets her long cloak billow. Berlin and Graßmann soon bickered as cousins ​​who had come from Russia in the expectation of ascending to the throne themselves. And Margarita Breitkreiz also plays a decisive role in this story as a revenge-thirsty fury, or at least she could do so if the evening didn’t abruptly turn away from the plot soon.

Rieger and Rois depict the return of the prodigal son using a scene from Karl Valentin’s short film “The Confirmation” in which the two get into an argument with each other and a waiter about the size of a portion of macaroni and ham before Graßmann defuses the situation by shouts from the sidelines that now it’s time for a big treat! Even more foreign material made it into the version. Ingeborg Bachmann’s story “Everything” is quoted as well as an animal fable from Michel Houellebecq’s debut novel “Expansion of the Combat Zone”, which Rois recites on the ramp, then stares into the distance for a very long time and finally confesses: “The political thing I strive for “No pamphlet of rare poignancy emerged.”

Okay, all clear, there is no break with the Volksbühne tradition here, there is not much will to do anything here anyway, apart from presenting one’s own freedom, not least that of being able to do anything on this stage, whatever you think is right. Of course, the reference to one’s own boringness should not be missing. “So, we still have a good hour left,” Rieger threatened several times shortly before the end, when everyone had already completely broken away from Calderón.

The ensemble now meets comfortably in a red-painted living room to watch “Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella” and debate how dangerous the radiation from the television is. Graßmann, the secret humor center of this evening, reluctantly blocks it and explains: “If you also have syphilis or chancre, you are still far from being sick.” From here – keyword syphilis – the conversation develops loosely in the direction of Friedrich Nietzsche, before Silvia Rieger once again makes a great appearance when she recites drunken wisdom for several minutes, such as: “Where there used to be a liver, there is now a minibar” or “If you have courage, drink vermouth”. After two long hours it’s over. The ensemble and audience pulled off this difficult evening properly. So it’s proven: Even without René Pollesch, the Volksbühne will continue, not necessarily with great theater, but at least somehow.

Next performances: March 16th and 26th

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