From Kitsch to the Stars
Theater audience comes to see star artist Jonathan Meese finally fail
Eds Notes: One of the stars of the Berlin and world art scene, Jonathan Meese, made his debut last week as a theater director at the Volksbuehne, one of Germany's most famed theaters. It took place right after the Berlin tabloid B.Z. awarded him its Prize for Culture, to which Meese remarked he would never accept an art prize from a panel of experts, but a "people's prize" thrilled him.
The self-proclaimed cultural exorcist predictably shunned a story line in "de Frau," abandoned dialogue for monologues, littered the stage with cultural and pop icons, and used repetition in a piece in which he calls for an art revolution in 2023. Meese himself is on stage in lederhosen and what one critic calls a "SS haircut." His revolution is apparently styled after the French one, with one cynic remarking the 37-year-old and fellow German art star Neo Rauch (guillotines show up in Rauch's latest works) seem to think those French radicals looked cool, like uh, '60s pop stars with their long hair and tight breeches.
Our critic says the play finally gets vey good _ after the final curtain falls...
In the overcrowded foyer (where I scribble these lines in my little notebook) I ask myself, why people came here today and I think they came to see Jonathan Meese finally fail.
To make a long story short: Exactly like most people would have expected, it happens: Meese wanders around on the stage somehow forlorn and appears beside Volksbuehne regular Bernhard Schuetz, who manages somehow to get through the whole evening, and a charming Kathi Angerer, who is pale in a strange way. Meese takes a bit here and there, most of all from the Frank Castoff style, but without reaching his aesthetic consequence and intelligence.
Add to this, an edition of the BZ (Berliner Zeitung) has been placed on every chair (more on that later).
The piece is slapstick theater without any depth. In order to camouflage the absence of content, now and then fog is used and much too constructed pop. Without this, one could see nothing is happening in front of the audience. The two or three ideas are simply too thin for filling the time. When the sentence rings out: "The first article of the Grundgesetz (constitution) consists of six unknowns. The. dignity. of the. human. is. sacrosanct." one could write a semiotic treatise or recommend a bit of Peirce reading matter, but let's not go there.
After about two and a half hours of Castorf-and-provincial Christmas fairy-tale crossover Meese starts a text loop, an endless seeming repetition: "1910, 1920, 1930..." A large number of the audience take to their heels.
But then something thickens and wins a curious force. Time and again the play seems to be concluded, time and again the red theater curtain is closed. The audience leaves the room in small groups. The cleaning ladies appear and start cleaning the stage, the dismantling of the set starts and now when perhaps one-tenth of the seats are occupied a magic starts, which is indescribable.
Beckett wrote during his whole life in order to be able to be silent, he always wanted to extinguish and to come to an end and then could not end with the ending _ it is the same here. Finally a video that was taken the day before at the awarding of the BZ culture prize is inserted: Meese performs a dervish dance behind German singer Udo Juergens, Kathi Angerer sings "Happy birthday, dear Meesident" and is kissed by Meese in a way that she falls to the floor. FDP politician Guido Westerwelle is evidently trying hard to keep his distance. Meese shakes hands with Westerwelle and falls to his knees. Meese at his best.
It is only then that one grabs the BZ, where people can read about the events in the video. The audience has long since gone, the critics included. Even the cameraman shooting the performance stripped down his camera and disappeared: Exclusivity which works without excluding anyone. A great performance just for a handful.
It is half past midnight when the wardrobe mistress hands me hat and coat. "How long was the performance supposed to last?" I ask. "To us," the wardrobe lady says, "they said it will last between one and four hours."
What is one supposed to think of that? I hope and believe and think they will skip the structured part and henceforward reach for the stars right from the beginning.
From the same author:
Do we need a World Constitution
Volksbuehne, Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin-Mitte. Tickets: 030/ 24 06 57 77.
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