Munich Kammerspiele: theater without feeling and reason

by time news

2023-04-24 15:33:38

Opinion Munich Chamber Games

Theater without feeling and reason

“Anti War Women” at the Kammerspiele in Munich

Source: Julian Baumann/Münchner Kammerspiele

Projectification and performeritis are rampant on German stages. The art of acting only plays a subordinate role. At the Munich Kammerspiele it is becoming clear where contemporary theater stands.

WIf you want to know what contemporary theater is like, you only have to look at the Munich Kammerspiele. It wasn’t long ago that Matthias Lilienthal was still raging against the “art shit” there, and a great ensemble of actors fled from the approaching performers. When Lilienthal was over after five years, Barbara Mundel was succeeded by a less boastful director, who had previously proved in Freiburg that she was entirely on Lilienthal’s line: who still needs acting? Today you do projects, research or interventions.

What was once decried as director’s theatre, namely replacing the reference to the subject with a reference to oneself, has meanwhile become more desensual. Today, dramaturge theater is all the rage: discourses romp around on stage, various communities are strongly empowered, nothing happens without clearly defined socio-political concerns. Dramatic theater is when even dramatic material comes across as a weekend seminar by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Happy were the times when it was frowned upon to run theater like a messenger service that mainly spread messages.

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It is no coincidence that – like Lilienthal – Barbara Mundel worked as a dramaturge before she managed the theatre. They are the pioneers of a development that goes hand in hand with the keywords projectification, performeritis and biennialization. As in the big art business, she relies on hardly any coded declarations of value, the detour via the work of art is avoided. Slogans such as inclusion and diversity mark above all one’s own claim to validity, the talk of change remains as abstract as that of “change” in the management seminar. At breakneck speed, dramaturgical theater has achieved what it has always criticized classical spoken theater: a stage on which there are neither people nor society to be seen, but only frozen theses carriers.

“Anti War Women” at the Munich Kammerspiele

Source: Julian Baumann/Münchner Kammerspiele

Just who wants to see that? Mundel recently had to explain catastrophic occupancy rates of around 55 percent to the culture committee. Gerhard Polt’s “A scheene Leich” is the only evening that sells out months in advance, which is the least typical of Mundel’s program – and which would probably be sold out everywhere in Bavaria. The titles in the program otherwise read more as an invitation to the English-speaking “global class”, for example the “Female Peace Palace” festival with “Assembly”, “Anti War Woman”, “Green Corridors” or “Intimacy Quarterly Playground”. The fact that the Ibsen transcription “Nora” was invited to the Theatertreffen caused the Munich audience to be rather incredulous.

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The discussion about the performance of “Antigone” in simple language is exemplary for the Kammerspiele. Five to eight words per sentence, no foreign words, but also no Hölderlin or Sophocles. Even the website of the Kammerspiele is now in simple language. A milestone of inclusion? There is no question that a city like Munich can handle such an unusual performance, and a completely different “Antigone” can be seen across the street in the Residenztheater. But the Kammerspiele is one of the most famous theaters in the country, and there are already theaters in Munich and elsewhere. In this way, the commitment to symbolic political substitute action shrinks.

Munich “Kummerspiele”

Will the Kammerspiele become the “Kummerspiele” again, as Lilienthal already mocked? In Maximilianstrasse, there is talk of a communication problem, the city council follows this presentation – subject to conditions. In the future, a “Chamber Council” that meets regularly should ensure a better exchange between city politics and theater. However, the alienated audience is not taken into account in this unusual cultural-political measure. After all, Mundel doesn’t have to tremble like Lilienthal because of her contract, which has already been extended prematurely – which is also unusual – until 2028. It looks like it should stay the course.

As before in Zurich or Dortmund, the debate in Munich also shows that the concept of art is no longer expanded by the dramaturge theater, but narrowed. Anyone who demands approval with confessions brings neither feeling nor reason into play. Anyone who squeezes everything into the scheme of identities does not put the ideologized consciousness to the test, either through fantasy or poetry. If you live by statements, you don’t need the art of acting. This is not limited to the Munich Kammerspiele, but you can see it very clearly there again.

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