Volksbühne – Life is a game

Shortly before the premiere, the Berliner Volksbühne sent out a statement. It’s about the budget cut of two million euros, which, as the letter states, actually means that the artistic budget has been set “to zero.” “Zero”, which means there will actually be no money at all for art next year. What will they do here then? Perhaps, as former director Frank Castorf once suggested, the house will be converted into a bathing establishment after all.

In any case, you still have this looming future in the back of your mind when you enter the foyer, where a few handfuls of people are lost and waiting to be admitted to the third floor, which is the name of the really small side stage here, which is more reminiscent of an independent scene. The stage is reminiscent of the proud Trotsky Castle on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.

On this Thursday evening, however, expectations are actually high, as director Isabelle Redfern’s productions have been at least an insider tip in the city since she brought Golda Barton’s much-lauded Chekhov update “Sistas” to the stage two years ago. Further productions of Barton’s new poetry followed, but now Redfern has changed its concept. “Mama Mega” is not an adaptation, but an original piece, actually the first by the author Ava Tabita Yul, who usually works as a coach and therapist.

Not surprisingly, large parts of the action take place in a meeting setting. Here meets Dr. Wu, played by MING, meets desperate mothers (Ute Pliestermann and director Redfern) who are completely overwhelmed by life with children and are also terribly ashamed of it. The serene Dr. Wu recommends that they take time out, discover new things, and experience adventures. However, in reality these adventures should have as few consequences as possible; the mother is only allowed to get rid of her role in the game. The game, or rather the game, is called “Mama Mega” like the piece and is a simulation of being a housewife and mother.

In a second strand of the piece, Julia Boxheimer and Sylvana Seddig present it in a podcast. Excited, they rave about new versions and throw around gamer vocabulary like “level game”, “arcade mode”, “DLC” and “early access”. These passages are clearly based on the joy of role-playing prose, but not much is actually said. In “Mama Mega” you collect sleep points through clever “mom tasking”. On the other hand, if you play poorly, you will be haunted by screaming toddlers at night.

So mothers play the game to distract themselves from their failure as mothers. One can also assume that this system reflects the relationship between play and everyday life, between art and life, but the assumption remains. Because the piece tends more towards bizarreness and humor than towards depth.

Even a few deliberately used shock moments can’t change that. A completely exhausted mother announces that she can understand when mothers kill their children. Is that breaking a taboo? No, almost ten years after the “Regretting Motherhood” study, it is more a reminder of the achievements of the global debate at the time. It’s good that “Mama Mega” starts here again, but it’s a shame that the play falls short of its agenda in terms of drama. Because well, the plot is sparse in the almost hour and a half in which the women get further and further lost in the new version of the game, only to find a kind of utopian place at the end – quite suddenly – in the last issue. Strictly speaking, in the Neolithic, i.e. before humans settled down and therefore also before patriarchy. Here they raise their children in happy harmony with like-minded hunters and gatherers.

A happy ending that only the therapist doesn’t seem to fully believe in, as she speaks the hippie parent wisdom “It takes a village to raise a child” a bit overemphasised on the audience. And there is actually reason for skepticism, as the gender images here are portrayed a little too stereotypically for this production to be taken seriously as a contribution to the debate. The women are overwhelmed housewives and the men are ignorant assholes for whom jobs and sleep are more important than family life. A certain amount of humor can certainly be squeezed out of this constellation, but are these really the conditions that one would like to reproduce in 2024?

Next performances: January 4th, 5th and 9th.

www.volksbuehne.berlin