RAGE (WUT)
by Elfriede Jelinek
The attack on the editorial team of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in January 2015 in Paris caused Elfriede Jelinek to go in search of the reasons behind these kinds of destructive rage. Faced with a world in which anger seems to dominate everything and the dialogue between people has come to an end, she throws up the most troubling questions: "But if a whole community discovers killing, even the women – what next?"
Jelinek’s findings follow Greek myths like the raging Hercules, draw attention to the Iliad, whose central theme was anger, but also let the voices of jihadists, enlightened Europeans, enraged citizens and the playwright herself be heard. These elements brew to create a thunderstorm of rage: at gods, worldviews, Kalashnikovs and the production and consumption of the conflicts going on in today's dismal world.
When did it all begin? Who is the right god? Do we need one?
Jelinek’s findings follow Greek myths like the raging Hercules, draw attention to the Iliad, whose central theme was anger, but also let the voices of jihadists, enlightened Europeans, enraged citizens and the playwright herself be heard. These elements brew to create a thunderstorm of rage: at gods, worldviews, Kalashnikovs and the production and consumption of the conflicts going on in today's dismal world.
When did it all begin? Who is the right god? Do we need one?
Director Martin Laberenz
Costumes Aino Laberenz
Music Bernhardt.
Video Daniel Hengst
Stage lighting Marco Scherle
Sound Björn Mauder
Dramaturgy Juliane Koepp
Premiere on 26 February 2017, Kammerspiele
Andreas Döhler
Sebastian Grünewald
Linn Reusse
Anja Schneider
Sabine Waibel
[...] Laberenz never [lets] the evening and the text fall apart. He and his great actors want to get to the bottom of things. [...] The audience are given sporting prowess and virtuosity – with elephantine endurance, flagrant intellect and raging performances, the five stage terriers get their teeth into a host of contradictions. It takes just a few words and the confrontations already become irreconcilable. [...]
[...] Laberenz never [lets] the evening and the text fall apart. He and his great actors want to get to the bottom of things. [...]
Director Martin Laberenz thoroughly stirs up Jelinek's cosmos of anger. He does not celebrate an intellectual experiment, but actually puts the Austrian Nobel Prize winner's reflections on stage. Thus he brings Jelinek's tome to life. At the same time, the actors frequently step out of their roles and question the eagerness with which they are scrutinising God and faith, denouncing our fatherless society without home or guardian. The stereotypical separation of the seed of the man and the seed of the woman is challenged, as is the positioning of today's terrorists as surrogates of mythical holders of power. The questions gather pace with live electronic music from two consoles.
The individual emerges again and again out of the collectively possessive ''we''. Andreas Döhler proves himself to be a remarkable stage presence complete with Berlin dialect. The text is like second nature to him and he turns it into great entertainment. A reassuringly comic touch is wrung out of the far-right phantom of enraged citizens and the terror attacks. The other four ensemble members also throw themselves full force into the material as they stride down the Via Dolorosa, which climaxes in a crucifixion scene on top of a bombed-out car. But the SOS of the final chorus does promise a little hope. This interpretation of a much-performed epic is well worth watching. In two-and-a-half non-stop, entertaining hours, the dynamic ensemble reveal many different sides to anger, hate and terror – and the helplessness of dealing with them – [...] as they are found in the texts of Elfriede Jelinek. [...]
Director Martin Laberenz thoroughly stirs up Jelinek's cosmos of anger. He does not celebrate an intellectual experiment, but actually puts the Austrian Nobel Prize winner's reflections on stage. Thus he brings Jelinek's tome to life. At the same time, the actors frequently step out of their roles and question the eagerness with which they are scrutinising God and faith, denouncing our fatherless society without home or guardian. The stereotypical separation of the seed of the man and the seed of the woman is challenged, as is the positioning of today's terrorists as surrogates of mythical holders of power. The questions gather pace with live electronic music from two consoles.
The individual emerges again and again out of the collectively possessive ''we''. Andreas Döhler proves himself to be a remarkable stage presence complete with Berlin dialect. The text is like second nature to him and he turns it into great entertainment. A reassuringly comic touch is wrung out of the far-right phantom of enraged citizens and the terror attacks. The other four ensemble members also throw themselves full force into the material as they stride down the Via Dolorosa, which climaxes in a crucifixion scene on top of a bombed-out car. But the SOS of the final chorus does promise a little hope. This interpretation of a much-performed epic is well worth watching.
Martin Laberenz, who produced the piece in the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater, gets a lot out of the text. Above all, more humour than one would have thought possible. [...]
The five actors approach the subject of terror as most people do: from a distance. In evening wear, and sipping champagne, they chat about the terror attacks. But the glasses are made of plastic and the champagne is only water as Andreas Döhler realises. He starts to rant and rave – rage doesn't always need a reason. Throughout, Andreas Döhler proves to be an amazing actor. Whether he takes the stage as a Pegida speaker with a Saxon dialect, moves his arms as if his body were turning to liquid, or prances around the stage in complete self-absorption, there is always a gentle irony and youthful fun to his performance. And the others are good: Anja Schneider with incredibly precise diction, Sabine Waibel as the betrayed Elfi, Linn Reusse as an attacker, and Sebastian Grünewald as a gun fetishist. [...]
The musicians – the excellent Friederike Bernhardt on keyboards and synthesizer and a drummer on the percussion pad – show their stuff and turn up their distinctive electro sounds. In her tirade, Jelinek freely associates her way through world history, making stops in Greek mythology, the Bible and the present day, in which murders have become a medial act. It is an unusually serious text, with an underlying feeling of impotence. [...]
Martin Laberenz, who produced the piece in the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater, gets a lot out of the text. Above all, more humour than one would have thought possible. [...]
The five actors approach the subject of terror as most people do: from a distance. In evening wear, and sipping champagne, they chat about the terror attacks. But the glasses are made of plastic and the champagne is only water as Andreas Döhler realises. He starts to rant and rave – rage doesn't always need a reason. Throughout, Andreas Döhler proves to be an amazing actor. Whether he takes the stage as a Pegida speaker with a Saxon dialect, moves his arms as if his body were turning to liquid, or prances around the stage in complete self-absorption, there is always a gentle irony and youthful fun to his performance. And the others are good: Anja Schneider with incredibly precise diction, Sabine Waibel as the betrayed Elfi, Linn Reusse as an attacker, and Sebastian Grünewald as a gun fetishist. [...]
The musicians – the excellent Friederike Bernhardt on keyboards and synthesizer and a drummer on the percussion pad – show their stuff and turn up their distinctive electro sounds.
Jelinek argues and ponders, free-associates and pontificates, sometimes with profundity, sometimes sliding into absurdity. But the text is excessively demanding and it would be well to accept that only individual sentences from the wilderness of words will register in the audience's brains.
Martin Laberenz and his excellent team help out. They question and explore the text with curiosity, while holding champagne glasses in their hands. The animated party chatter turns into identification. Syrian god warriors, raging German citizens, mild Mother Marys populate the stage, without descending into caricatures. Thus the young and brilliant Linn Reusse, in her role as the jihadist, succeeds in both arguing convincingly and remaining naively neutral. In this state of limbo, the staged version sometimes seems more intelligent than the text. Elfriede Jelinek wrote this wild text in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris in 2015. [...]
Jelinek argues and ponders, free-associates and pontificates, sometimes with profundity, sometimes sliding into absurdity. But the text is excessively demanding and it would be well to accept that only individual sentences from the wilderness of words will register in the audience's brains.
Martin Laberenz and his excellent team help out. They question and explore the text with curiosity, while holding champagne glasses in their hands. The animated party chatter turns into identification. Syrian god warriors, raging German citizens, mild Mother Marys populate the stage, without descending into caricatures. Thus the young and brilliant Linn Reusse, in her role as the jihadist, succeeds in both arguing convincingly and remaining naively neutral. In this state of limbo, the staged version sometimes seems more intelligent than the text.
However much one marvels at the wonderful staging and acting, the question remains of what Jelinek's text is trying to achieve. It sheds light on our own existential state – more of an insecure and compassionate society than an angry one. The director creates an intense evening, carried by five terrific actors who all have their big moments. Andreas Döhler, Sebastian Grünewald, Linn Reusse, Anja Schneider and Sabine Waibel all get individual applause for monologues that reverberate long after the performance ends. And it is all held together by live electronic music that harmonises perfectly with the action on stage.
However much one marvels at the wonderful staging and acting, the question remains of what Jelinek's text is trying to achieve. It sheds light on our own existential state – more of an insecure and compassionate society than an angry one.