Tape

by Stephen Belber
German translation by Mojca Megusar and Ulrich Gehmacher

Vince is a volunteer firefighter and a drug dealer. Jon shoots promising low-budget films. The two men were good friends in high school, but haven’t seen each other since graduation. Now they meet again in their hometown of Lansing, Michigan. Jon has returned to show his debut film at the local film festival. Vince comes because he wants to find out – once and for all – what really happened between his true love Amy and Jon.
Director Stefan Pucher
Co Stage Design Nikolaus Frinke
Set Stefan Pucher
Costumes Victoria Behr
Music Christopher Uhe
Video Stephan Komitsch (impulskontrolle), Felix Johannes Lange (impulskontrolle)
Dramaturgy Claus Caesar
Premiere June 11, 2011
Felix GoeserVince
Bernd MossJon
Nina HossAmy
Stephan Komitsch / Moritz GrewenigLive-Video
Felix Goeser
Vince
Bernd Moss
Jon
Nina Hoss
Amy
Stephan Komitsch / Moritz Grewenig
Live-Video

Tape

Trailer
Deutschlandfunk
Michael Laages, 12.06.2011
Pucher places his trust in his trio of actors: Felix Goeser is the coke-snorting fireman, Bernd Moss the film director who confesses his guilt, while Nina Hoss does a pretty terrific job at pulling off the utterly puzzling role of Amy. It’s also thanks to her that the play’s actual ’truth’ remains completely unknown. When she goes, everyone is left with his own version.

And then they make music, too: Hoss on vocals and guitar, Moss on bass and Goeser on the drums. This is also not obligatory, but it’s great: Pucher has ventured beyond the parameters of ordinary life and stagecraft, searching for that distinctly American aura of self-delusion, just as he did recently while directing Arthur Miller. He’s on the right track and has succeeded in making a respectable return to Berlin. […] But the star of the show is the magnificent script by a dramatist hitherto unknown in Germany. Maybe he hasn’t come up with anything since that’s as clever as Tape, but this one play by Stephen Belber will become a regular fixture in German theatre repertoires. Hopefully. Pucher places his trust in his trio of actors: Felix Goeser is the coke-snorting fireman, Bernd Moss the film director who confesses his guilt, while Nina Hoss does a pretty terrific job at pulling off the utterly puzzling role of Amy. It’s also thanks to her that the play’s actual ’truth’ remains completely unknown. When she goes, everyone is left with his own version.

And then they make music, too: Hoss on vocals and guitar, Moss on bass and Goeser on the drums. This is also not obligatory, but it’s great: Pucher has ventured beyond the parameters of ordinary life and stagecraft, searching for that distinctly American aura of self-delusion, just as he did recently while directing Arthur Miller. He’s on the right track and has succeeded in making a respectable return to Berlin. […] But the star of the show is the magnificent script by a dramatist hitherto unknown in Germany. Maybe he hasn’t come up with anything since that’s as clever as Tape, but this one play by Stephen Belber will become a regular fixture in German theatre repertoires. Hopefully.
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Berliner Morgenpost
Katrin Pauly, 14.06.2011
What a find! Stephen Belber’s Tape, a chamber play in real time that was written over a decade ago, has never really played a major role in German theatre repertoires. Now director Stefan Pucher has pulled the play out of obscurity for his first production at the Deutsches Theater. He also deserves respect for his impeccable timing. That’s because, in the weeks since the cases surrounding [Jörg] Kachelmann and [Dominique] Strauss-Kahn, there has been extensive public discourse about the boundaries between sexual consent and sexual assault. And that’s precisely what Tape is all about. What a find! Stephen Belber’s Tape, a chamber play in real time that was written over a decade ago, has never really played a major role in German theatre repertoires. Now director Stefan Pucher has pulled the play out of obscurity for his first production at the Deutsches Theater. He also deserves respect for his impeccable timing. That’s because, in the weeks since the cases surrounding [Jörg] Kachelmann and [Dominique] Strauss-Kahn, there has been extensive public discourse about the boundaries between sexual consent and sexual assault. And that’s precisely what Tape is all about.
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Der Tagesspiegel
Andreas Schäfer, 14.06.2011
The way Belber works with mirrors and triple layers of meaning, etching out one facet of the conflict after the other is simply fabulous. […] And in his often conventional – in the best sense of the word – psychological production, Stefan Pucher manages to present the three versions of events side by side, like transparent worlds: crystal-clear yet mysterious. The way Belber works with mirrors and triple layers of meaning, etching out one facet of the conflict after the other is simply fabulous. […] And in his often conventional – in the best sense of the word – psychological production, Stefan Pucher manages to present the three versions of events side by side, like transparent worlds: crystal-clear yet mysterious.
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nachtkritik.de
Anne Peter, 12.06.2011
Bernd Moss comes up with ever-new gestures to convey the writhing and embarrassed cringing of his squeaky clean, up-and-coming, low-budget film director Jon: the upper body that rocks from side to side when he speaks, the hands jammed into his pant pockets, the fingers clawing the edge of the bed. […] Felix Goeser plays the drug-dealing volunteer firefighter like a pubescent child. He furrows his brow ironically, lolls about cross-legged sporting tennis socks, turns somersaults on the hotel bed and otherwise […] works out his aggression by purposely jumping around. […]

Nina Hoss [...] completes the ideally cast trio and lets her seemingly superior Amy rise above the men’s cockfighting. As the ravishing and self-confident leader of the band, she sings Liz Phair's Chopsticks, accompanying herself on electric guitar, with Moss on bass and Goeser on drums: "I met him at a party and he told me how to drive him home/ He said he liked to do it backwards/ I said: ‘That’s just fine with me/ That way we can fuck and watch TV’." Bernd Moss comes up with ever-new gestures to convey the writhing and embarrassed cringing of his squeaky clean, up-and-coming, low-budget film director Jon: the upper body that rocks from side to side when he speaks, the hands jammed into his pant pockets, the fingers clawing the edge of the bed. […] Felix Goeser plays the drug-dealing volunteer firefighter like a pubescent child. He furrows his brow ironically, lolls about cross-legged sporting tennis socks, turns somersaults on the hotel bed and otherwise […] works out his aggression by purposely jumping around. […]

Nina Hoss [...] completes the ideally cast trio and lets her seemingly superior Amy rise above the men’s cockfighting. As the ravishing and self-confident leader of the band, she sings Liz Phair's Chopsticks, accompanying herself on electric guitar, with Moss on bass and Goeser on drums: "I met him at a party and he told me how to drive him home/ He said he liked to do it backwards/ I said: ‘That’s just fine with me/ That way we can fuck and watch TV’."
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Frankfurter Rundschau
Ulrich Seidler, 14.06.2011
Felix Goeser demonstrates the effects of different drugs on speech and motor skills in a most believable and differentiated fashion. Bernd Moss's repertoire of 'What do you want from me' looks and 'I really mean it' poses is inexhaustible. And, with her impeccable masquerade, Nina Hoss does a marvelous job of leaving the audience hanging, too. Felix Goeser demonstrates the effects of different drugs on speech and motor skills in a most believable and differentiated fashion. Bernd Moss's repertoire of 'What do you want from me' looks and 'I really mean it' poses is inexhaustible. And, with her impeccable masquerade, Nina Hoss does a marvelous job of leaving the audience hanging, too.
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With English surtitles

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by Heinrich von Kleist
Director: Anne Lenk
Deutsches Theater
20.00 - 21.30
Tickets
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