When sustainability becomes more important than any claim to art
Status: 2:58 p.m
Claudia Roth at the Berlin Theater Meeting 2022
Source: picture alliance/dpa/Monika Skolimowska
The main thing is that the stage design is recyclable! At the start of the Berlin Theater Meeting, the future of theater will be discussed with Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth. This reveals frightening priorities.
“Fantasy to power”, this slogan borrowed from the Paris May 1968 enjoyed great popularity in the circles of the West German spontaneous and alternative to the Greens. But scarcely in power is it over with the imagination. Nobody demonstrates this better than Claudia Roth. The former manager of the power-break-what-breaks-you-break riot troop “Ton Steine Scherben” remains loyal to Agitprop. It used to be against the system, today you’re for it.
Art, culture, theatre, all of this is systemic because it is relevant to democracy, said Roth, who worked as a dramaturg when she was young, at the panel discussion “The Future of Theater” at the opening of the Berlin Theatertreffen. Just to swear the industry a few sentences later to the distribution battles to be expected in the near future. In the past two years, many billions of euros have been given to the theaters, and this will not go on forever, according to the new Minister of State for Culture. At the event, one could get a glimpse of what might in the future be considered worthy of support from the highest level and within the company.
It all started, how could it be otherwise, with digitization. After two years of retreat in streams and video recordings, the Theatertreffen is now taking place on site again. But will it be like before? The fact that half-empty halls predominate in the theaters at the moment suggests otherwise.
The director and Theatertreffen permanent guest Christopher Rüping, who opened the meeting on Friday with his shallow consolation-through-kitsch production “Das Neue Leben” (The New Life), recently made it public that even for premieres, hardly any tickets are sold anymore. So far, this was only known from the Berliner Volksbühne under Chris Dercon. There is perplexity about the reasons for the dwindling audience. Is it the allegedly too lax epidemic protection measures?
Conversely, for another part of the audience, the compulsory wearing of masks, which is still practiced in many places, could be decisive. Or the simple fact that with the current price increases, a theater ticket seems more and more prohibitive. Especially with what you then get to see: often teachings, rarely clever ones. You can find better entertainment with just a few clicks.
The fact that there is an aesthetic crisis in the art form of theater was hardly ever seriously discussed in the group, instead, in search of meaning and stability, people clung to buzzwords that had long since become consensual, which Roth also ticked off one after the other: democracy, diversity, sustainability.
The discussion promised a look back and a look forward, but above all remained rooted in the zeitgeist. Next to Roth were the director Pınar Karabulut, the critic Martin Thomas Pesl and the outgoing Theatertreffen director Yvonne Büdenholzer. Although there was no discussion, the consensus was too great. And the world view is too simple. For example, 2000 years of patriarchy were first shaken five years ago on Twitter. And through the famous women’s quota that Büdenholzer introduced for the director’s position two years ago.
Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth and Yvonne Büdenholzer, director of the Berlin Theatertreffen, before the opening
Source: picture alliance/dpa/Monika Skolimowska
Quotas must be “thinked ahead”, Büdenholzer added, for disadvantaged groups, cities, regions and forms, for example. What’s the point? Quota bingo à la the most sustainable East Westphalian digital production by people who have only been repeatedly discriminated against? An algorithm could do that. What it is actually about – the aesthetic judgment and the discussion about it – then no longer plays any role. And how could that be combined with the claim of the best selection or the independence of the jury? That wasn’t discussed. With a resolute gesture, the Minister of State for Culture brushed aside the argument of aesthetic quality as a pretense.
Who cares about theater as an art form? After diversity, the next trend topic followed: sustainability. The CO₂ emissions are meticulously measured, the stage design is recycled and the costumes are second-hand, the actors have to operate the spotlights themselves with bicycle generators. The future should look something like this, presented in an infantile, patronizing tone: “Sustainability can also be fun.”
Calling for the Theatertreffen jury to limit air travel while pouring billions into airline bailouts seemed like a paradox to no one on the panel. Just as little that art cannot be had without waste.
Just a few years ago, the West German intelligentsia regarded the aesthetic as a refuge for resistance against the administered world. This has turned into the opposite. A new Protestant spirit reigns. The value of art should be measured by morality. The famous theater maker August Everding once wrote about the future of the theater that it should not close itself off to the questions of the time, but should also give space to artistic adventures: “The theater is the dwelling place for man’s greatest and most beautiful gift: imagination. But there is no longer any trace of imagination, it is now in power.
The Panel Discussion “The Future of Theater – The Theatertreffen Talk“ with Claudia Roth can be seen in the 3sat media library. She runs too on May 7, from 10:05 p.m. as “Culture time extra“ on 3 sat.