Whether he wants it or not, Frank Castorf is a long time to become an established brand. Who hired him, would often buy a piece of the glory of the folk stage, at the Castorf from 1992 to 2017 the Director was and he led to international fame. Since his contract was not renewed, he travels as a busy freelance Director across the country and his profession in accordance with the aesthetic premises, which made him and his company, once so successful. But this success is not without problems.
Because the Actresses and actors of the Volksbühne, transposing his intentions are often the most powerful effect, are scattered in all directions, and he has to work with the actors of the theatre, which has him committed. The number of guests he may bring, for cost reasons, limited. Nevertheless, there is everywhere the explicit expectation that a Castorf’s staging does not have to be loud and flashy and weird and a minimum of four hours ‘ duration, so that the Directors and the spectators feel cheated. Castorf with knits as fast, though not every Ensemble can cope with such a strain and to not fill it self-you always can. Watch ugly this Crux is now at the Berliner Ensemble, where his latest production was released: “Galileo Galilei. The Theater and the plague. From and after Bertolt Brecht with music by Hanns Eisler“.
Nagging and moaning, sweating and screaming
Because Brecht referred to therein, among other things, the outbreak of the plague, were installed in the texts of the French author Antonin Artaud (1896 to 1948), which dealt with the artistic boundaries and the analogy of plague and theatre. Could fit, would you say, then show me! Castorf shows, however, here a little, but monologue authorize, lecturing, at the mercy of declaiming. Aleksandar Denić has asked him for this time, quite conventionally arranged theatre the revolving stage with a huge telescope, a two-storey cottage, a tent with plague of the dead, a Church tower along with the bell as well as video walls. The Ensemble roars for hours with all his might and often does so in hidden corners, from which the party via Live-camera.
if You look in close up-minded, well-nourished city theatre, to performers, as you nagging and moaning, sweating and screaming, romping and trampling, all of the goings-on, what they consider as a counter-image to the “bourgeois art of entertainment” and as radically advanced civilization critical. The plague, which has meant Artaud (“because, by bringing people to see themselves as they are, allows the mask to fall, reveals the lie, the weakness, the meanness, the hypocrisy is on”), which is in no way comparable. Similarly, banal and provocative, allowing himself Castorf, a couple of unsavory sequences, with fresh “Poop” in a tin pail, and stuffed in greedy mouths, and with festering boils to be scratched, and bitten. The audience endures this stoically with a few people who stay away after the break.
New
2,95 FAZ.NET completely
access to all the exclusive F+surplus, and thus to a diversity of FAZ.NET for only 2.95 euros per week
The role of Galilei in the piece, 46 years old, plays Jürgen Holtz, the 1932 was born and, therefore, considerably older than his character is. He speaks with a bright, clear old man’s voice, and with a sharp mind, this story is at least a bit plausible. For the circuit to him, Castorf has not deleted the original settlement of the scientist with his life and his Failure (“I have betrayed my profession”). Thanks to the brave prompter Christine Schönfeld Holtz gets engaged and emphatic, although there were in-between from the hall of laughter because of the involuntary Comedy, as it was too bumpy.
