2024-09-03 14:24:12
German capital always prefers to avoid Goethe’s “Faust”. But now you can see the classics in Berlin – played by former prisoners, with the slang of Neuköllner Straße. Why is this a good fit?
Goethe’s “Faust” is not easy. Once required reading, the classics were banned from many school curricula. You rarely see a speech made in the theater. The mustiness of ossified academic preoccupation seems to weigh heavily on this work, even if it is about breaking out of the watchtowers of scholarship. That’s what we say today: “Fack too, Göthe”. The AufBruch prison theater group is currently presenting in Berlin that “Faust” is not only for senior teachers and educated citizens.
Even in Berlin it has been a long time since people saw “Faust”: almost ten years ago Herbert Grönemeyer and Robert Wilson played a concert at the Berliner concert, two years later the then director of the Volksbühne Frank Castorf said goodbye with a stone a memory “Faust’s corruption, which disappeared into the orc of history with his release from Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Unfortunately. And since then? It seems that people in the capital want to avoid “Faust”.
It is more surprising that the AufBruch group, which plays theater with prisoners in Berlin prisons, dares to face the epic under the title “Goethe’s Faust”. Union: ex-prisoners and prisoners, i.e. single people, supported by two actors. The venue: A forgotten open stage outside the S-Bahn ring in Jungfernheide, which has been partially reclaimed by the plant life. The natural theater of the wild is the soul of the naturalist and lover of Goethe.
The Holger Syrbe level design gives the green vegetation significant height and depth with a few metal level features. This means that God and a group of angels can climb the treetops, while Mephisto approaches through the rows of audience for the decisive bet. Haemin Jung’s costumes set strong accents: expressive red and black for the demons, Prussian weight and muted colors for Faust, a bright dress for Gretchen. Nothing more is needed.
Mephistopheles and Faust appear three times. Three taps for hallelujah? There was even a singer. Faust is not an attractive individual, but a very person hungry for experience who has to protect Wagner’s unattractive education with his leather bag to hurry from study to the bar. “Wine or not wine?”, people advise. This is not Goethe, but Manfred Karge’s “Faust. Banquet”, one of many strange words.
But the romantic logic will not be very hot to people, but it can be good to Gretchen, who tries to win on the first contact. Contrary to expectations, you are motivated by unexpected improvements. He tried 50 Shades of Stalking, inspired by Mephisto. The empty room is sniffed through and the jewelry is moved. A lot of illiteracy has been corrupted. He flirts in a German way, i.e. unnecessarily, but with success.
The highlight of the evening, which was shortened to 90 minutes, was the choir’s a cappella version of Roland Kaiser’s “To Love You”. He pushes her out in a warm way, he says: “My love, your warmth, your closeness.” Without question: Faust wants to love. But can he do that? Or will – as in Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister” – the educational method of the male subject, his eternal effort, be right with the dead women? Faust wants Gretchen, but is he still willing to save her from her shame? Rather not.
Juliette Roussennac as Gretchen is the highlight of this production. He manages to create an illusion of influence and resistance to it at the same time. A young woman who strives for the best in a hostile environment yet suspects that in the end she will be the one who has been betrayed. His adversary is, above all, Nehad Fandi who has physical strength as Mephistopheles, recently seen in the great production “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in the Plötzensee prison, who twists his way through the set stage here
The director Peter Atanassow and his motley ensemble manage to subvert the lines of Goethe’s verses in a beautiful and very frequent way. Here “Faust” also takes some of the slang of Neuköllner Straße or is broken by a non-native language – with a beautiful result of classical and everyday life is better than expected. Is Goethe a popular poet, especially for the immigrant society of the 21st century? It seems so.
In the end, Grete stretches her hand to heaven, but she judges herself – placed in her cell. A reference to the high number of suicides in Berlin prisons, which is underlined by a few lines from “Ulrike Maria Stuart” Elfriede Jelinek. In this way, it is also possible to build a bridge to the reality of life for many artists, which is different from AufBruch’s work. This is also the classic. But you won’t be able to see this “Faust” for long, only until mid-September.
#Faust #Shades #Stalking