2023-09-09 17:18:30
“Are you one of those people after all?!” The question is repeated louder and louder and – as if the message wasn’t clear enough – shown randomly to the audience. There it is, the famous pointing finger, which today is once again seen as a radical political gesture, despite the well-known realization that social criticism is not a question of character. But the premiere audience in Hamburg’s Thalia Theater doesn’t have to fear anything more than a pleasant shower. Someone like that? Never! Otherwise you wouldn’t be here at the premiere of “Still awake?”, the successful MeToo novel by Benjamin Stuckrad-Barre. An important topic, without a doubt, and not just as a backdrop for moral poses.
Christopher Rüping’s production initially seems like one of those many theater evenings that retell a novel for an audience that either no longer reads books or lets them be retold anyway. At the same time, the director tries to use all means of stagecraft – some better, many clumsy – to squeeze a political message out of the by no means revolutionary book, which is of an almost Maoist simplicity. As is well known, the “Grand Chairman” said that one must draw a clear dividing line between oneself and the enemy – i.e. us or “someone like that”. However, you then have to ask yourself whether it is the right line.
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Who is “that guy” is promptly named: Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Woody Allen, Donald Trump, and Till Lindemann. In this illustrious circle, all differences disappear behind the diffuse label “perpetrator”. And – as is now being asked – isn’t just writing misleading messages the ticket to this circle of hell? One could consider the unlimited blackmail of wage earners in a world of work without boundaries to be the bigger scandal, but the evening is not interested in that.
Instead, the audience is invited to join the fighting collective “against these disgusting guys”. Nothing is simpler – and therefore more damaging to knowledge – than that.
“Still awake?” in Hamburg’s Thalia Theater
Source: Krafft Angerer
What “Still Awake?” is about is well known – another problem. With its media-hyped but ultimately meager novelty value, the book could be marketed as a revelation about supposed or actual events in the Springer household, but six months later it can no longer score points in the theater. So a non-serious tone creeps into the acting on stage: people are telling things that have long been known – but in the slightly ironic tone of something new. In fact, the evening has nothing to say about MeToo that doesn’t already fall within the scope of those who are subject to consent. And the audience? This is a great way to enjoy being pampered with voyeuristic indignation.
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Woody Allen, Polanski, Besson
Instead of a startling story about reality, the evening prefers to tell a political fairy tale (why such fairy tales are preferred to reality today is a topic of its own) – in a dark vampire castle. Hans Löw, the owner of the station and friend of the protagonist in the book, roams between the coffins as the top bloodsucker with his coat flowing. Far from diving into the contradictions of this metaphor – like Julian Radlmaier with his film “Bloodsuckers” – what is being invoked here is a mere schema. In its archaic gesture, this helps with identification, but undermines the material: the book is about “new working worlds” – bright, transparent and with “feel-good managers”.
Despite the good actors, the characters fit into the Playmobil setting in their one-dimensionality. Maike Knirsch plays the heroine Sophia as an Instagram fool on a “Buffy” mission, but without any trace of her own desire or emotional depth. In a mirror image, Nils Kahnwald gets a few laughs as a caricature of the editor-in-chief before the character is put in a coffin – and stays. The protagonist of “Still awake?”, who suddenly finds himself as a MeToo fighter, is given the plural with changing roles, including Cathérine Seifert, Oda Thormeyer and Julia Riedler.
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The message that is written into the textbook (a Monica Lewinsky biography) for the MeToo protagonist remains intact: “Don’t be an asshole!” Be an ally, an ally. The production makes this its own with a brilliant video collage towards the end, which, with the unusual costumes and the singer Inéz, conjures up a colorful revolt of the imagination against the vampire castle. And just before the curtain falls, the evil empire is stormed in a kind of cuddly toy uprising, to the tune of the feminist classic “It should rain red roses for me”. Colorful diversity against dark bloodsucker castle, the evening’s criticism of power reaches Frida Kahlo or Documenta level.
“Still awake?” in Hamburg’s Thalia Theater
Source: Krafft Angerer
It’s not just annoying that 3 hours of boredom are garnished with 15 minutes of political kitsch, it’s especially annoying that the absurd message can only be conveyed to the man or woman by being more confused than feminist theory has long been. “Clarity in this regard is particularly important for contemporary feminist thought because there is a strong current in feminism that understands the problem of domination as a drama in which female vulnerability falls victim to male aggression,” writes Jessica Benjamin in “The Bondage of love. Psychoanalysis, Feminism and the Problem of Power”. A book that would be worth reading again because it is a sharp criticism of stupid fairy tale worlds.
Shallow jokes instead of deep thoughts
The central theme of “Still Awake?” revolves around the question of power, without actually getting to grips with it. It disappears into an ocean of indeterminacy or – see vampires – becomes an occult event. Exchange, both sexual and economic, appears to be a problem, but the fact that some always come out as winners and others as losers is not explained by the exchange, but by the unequal conditions on which it is based. But instead of deeper thoughts, you get shallow jokes: “I hope you didn’t use the break to harass someone.” Or: “That’s enough now.” What’s almost funnier is how the stiff Hanseatic ladies in the stalls react to the word “Fickbus”. burst out laughing and mutter the word under his breath several times, quietly and almost dreamily.
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The final point of Rüping’s production is a celebration of empowerment – and a self-celebration of the “Allies”, one might add. Significantly, the only sentence with a false bottom in Stuckrad-Barre’s book falls victim to this, namely the final sentence: “No, we didn’t notice anything.” This refers to the tyrannized employees in the Californian luxury hotel where the Hollywood chic celebrates their parties . In other respects, too, the production does not get beyond the book’s weaknesses – including the blatant lack of narrative dramaturgy for the stage, which can hardly be corrected even through extensive cuts.
Investing everything in reinforcing the book’s moral message on stage proves to be unconvincing, as some boos in the final applause show. Surprisingly, even the grand finale is undermined by the production, because the most touching moment of the maximally distanced evening is, of all things, the scene in which the protagonist and his friend frolic through the pool to “Keep on Dancing” and tie themselves in knots – grotesque, ridiculous, human. In contrast, the “Pink Tank” of those affected behaves like a bachelorette party on the Reeperbahn. Are you one of those people in the end? Or something like that? Behind the clear political message lies sheer confusion.
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