german version +-----------------------------------+ | Affirmation as a starting-point | +-----------------------------------+ Jan Wenzel The Ensemble at the TAT in Frankfurt/ Main | |
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A group of actors only appears like a clearly-defined entity from outside. Creative exchange between its members is 'simultaneously reigned by disunity and the obsessive desire for unity' [Octavio Paz]. Shared success, similar inspirational impulses or aesthetic pursuits may serve to fortify cohesion within the group, but each new production may also force it apart. Before the ensemble, centred around the two producers Tom Kühnel and Robert Schuster, moved to its own theatre at the Frankfurt TAT [Theater am Turm] in 1999, its members had already collaborated at other theatres for a number of years. In Frankfurt, the TAT was established as an experimental theatre. It was known for its productions by directors such as Robert Wilson, Jan Fabre and Heiner Goebbels. To clearly mark its detachment from avant-garde theatre of the '80s and early '90s and to disclose their artistic agenda, the young ensemble published the text 'Die Gesellschaft des Theaters' ['The Society of Theatre'] before their first season at the TAT. This distinguishes the ensemble from two authoritative theatrical traditions: on the one hand, the classical canon of the 'theatre of great words' that does not relate to reality, and on the other, 'critical theatre', that through its characteristic representation of 'harsh, uncompromising, brutal and evil situations' [at best achieving a clichéd reflection of social reality] ultimately ossifies in a gesture of vacuous protest. The TAT Ensemble seeks an alternative approach. It conceives of the performing arts as an 'affirmative' medium. In an attempt to reintroduce social reality to theatre, TAT applies conscious naivety and stylisations to make complex relationships appear simplified. TAT argues that:'nobody would claim that an atom is as simple as the model of an atom in a physics lesson. In fact, an atom has no appearance, and that's why we require a model. The model makes the unobservable tangible. We are only able to comment on the real via a model. The flow of capital taking place within glass bank buildings is similar: it cannot be heard or seen, and yet it influences our daily lives just as much as atoms do. Society, with its inherent entanglement of contradictions, may only be reflected by means of simple models. The strategic inanity of the theatrical model is precisely predetermined to represent complex processes.' This text is written by Soeren Voima. Critics often muse about the author's identity. Voima is a pseudonym, under which the ensemble [in differing configurations] has written various texts. Soeren Voima has published two plays to date: 'Das Kontingent' ['The Contingent'] and 'Deutsch für Ausländer' ['German for Foreigners'], as well as a variety of adaptions of plays and translations. The collective pseudonym has often been taken to indicate the group's sense of artistic homogeneousness. Perhaps Voima can best be interpreted as the common denominator of a multifaceted author. The name appeared for the first time on the programme of Tom Kühnel's and Robert Schuster's 1996 production of 'Antigone', which also featured several actors of the present TAT ensemble. Back then, all were students at the Ernst Busch School of Performing Arts in Berlin. The production's success was already based on the fortunate cross-over of varying artistic concepts. Although numerous actors initially contributed to the concept, the group's overall approach, seen from an external viewpoint, was above all associated with Tom Kühnel's and Robert Schuster's collaborative effort. 'Looking back, it's somewhat mysterious that Tom and Robert were able to co-direct for such a long period of time', says TAT dramaturge Bernd Stegemann, 'for essentially, the two have opposing concepts of theatre. Tom has a particular predilection for objects such as dolls, masks and veils, that enable the depiction of de-emotionalised states, in other words, processes in which objects/props become animated, or in which the actors animate themselves as objects. The actor's human identity is concealed by the mask and thus he must reanimate his own silhouette. Robert is quite the opposite, preferring actors to exude an emotional, highly physical presence on stage, fully embracing their respective role and acting it out with heated intensity. When their collaborations are successful, the resulting performances are charged with emotion and packed with tricks. Tom does the tricks and Robert creates the emotional impact - the result is really intriguing.' The two became aware of the effect of their creative relationship at the Berlin School of Performing Arts while they were studying Brecht's play 'The Measures taken'. Both were in the same directing class, and were already interested in the play independently from one another in 1994. They decided to co-direct 'The Measures taken' and to put on two versions of it on the same evening. Robert Schuster reports of the rehearsals, 'Tom and I each directed one version. But we also always attended each other's rehearsals. Originally we hadn't planned on collaborating that regularly. But the production was so successful that we were from then on always offered work together'. Brecht's heirs were invited to the dress rehearsal at the BAT, the school's studio theatre. At that time, the possibility of the play's public presentation depended entirely on their consent. In 1956, Brecht explicitly enforced a ban on the public performance of 'The Measures taken'. He was afraid that the text might be exploited to the ends of anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War. The plot revolves around the death of a young comrade. In spite of the ban, Brecht described the play shortly before his death as representing a 'future form of theatre'. In the early 1930s, when Brecht wrote 'The Measures taken', he associated an entirely new concept of performance with it, a concept he himself never put into practice. The play, combining elements of antique tragedy and Christian lyric drama, was not originally intended to be performed to an audience, but rather was aimed at educating the actors. The members of the cast alternately assumed the role of the actor and of the spectator: an arbitrating choir is given the task of judging a young comrade's death. The Party had commissioned him to prepare the Revolution together with three agitators in China. Numerous situations illustrate how the young comrade's spontaneous decisions violate the Party's strategic pursuits. The central conflict arises because he attempts to help the sufferers he encounters - out of pity. Through his actions he becomes a threat to the other agitators. In their predicament of extreme persecution, they perceive no other way than to shoot the young comrade, with his consent of course. It is crucial, for a correct understanding of Brecht's artistic intent, to take into account the flexible relationship between actor and part. For each individual actor successively plays the part of the young comrade, performing to the others the conflict between spontaneous feelings of compassion and a rigidly prescribed scope of action. Brecht intended this morality play to be an exercise in materialism - a model promoting both emotional experimentation and objective analysis. In their dual production, Tom Kühnel and Robert Schuster also assume such a distanced, analytical viewpoint. In an attempt to intensify the play's tragic component, yet not its didactic message, they maintained a playful distance to its strict, autocratic style: In the first part of the play, actors and dolls appeared on stage. Each actor was assigned a doll that resembled him/her in appearance. On the stage's lower level, the actors performed the conflicts that were commented and outlined by the dolls' gestures on the upper stage. The second version of 'The Measures taken' was decidedly minimalist. The actors were seated on a two-stepped platform. Rhythmic switching from monologue to choral rhetoric as well as minor body movements were the only dramatic instruments used to establish relationships between the various personae. The production was a tremendous success, even though it was not - as Brecht's heirs hesitated to revoke the production ban - performed publicly. Whilst they were in the same class at drama school, Kühnel and Schuster had the idea of founding a small theatre or performing arts studio after graduation; rather than trying to make ends meet at some municipal theatre or other, they decided to continue working together. Much discussion went on about the direction that their collaboration should take. They saw no future for their work in a post-modern, deconstructive form of drama or destructive use of language that were being celebrated by producers such as Frank Castorf. Thus, they were intent on working in the opposite direction. Initially, they considered appropriating historic forms of drama and to perform their attempts at reconstruction. They wanted to render past dramatic concepts publicly accessible, yet with a similar distance as that between the visitor to a museum looking at a work exhibited in a showcase. The group sought to disclose 'the connections between individual modes of dramatic expression and content'. The outcome of their research was later to be applied to more current subject matter. Fellow drama students were also involved in the plan's initial stages of how such a theatre should be organised. Their initial idea was based on Peter Stein's Ensemble Theatre and 1970s concepts of democratic participation. However, the students also had Konstantin S. Stanislavskij's or Evgenij B. Vachtangov's studios in mind. In Russia in the early 20th century, groups of actors from drama school often founded their own theatres. At the beginning, such plans appeared utopian and unattainable. In the meantime however, the original group has split up into two ensembles both influencing contemporary German theatre: apart from the group around Tom Kühnel and Robert Schuster there is also the Thomas Ostermeier ensemble, first performing at the DT-Baracke, and since 2000 at the Berliner Schaubühne. Thomas Ostermeier proclaims a 'non-cynical form of theatre', overtly inspired by the 'drastic realism' movement in contemporary British theatre. Both ensembles seek to re-politicise the audience. First performed in February 2000,'The Contingent' by Soeren Voima, a co-production of TAT and Berliner Schaubühne is an exemplary production in this connection. It depicts a UNO contingent's intervention in the year 2035. The main protagonist is an American called Bill, who is sent on assignment in crisis areas to enforce human rights. According to the Resolution of the Nations the UNO contingent is committed to neutrality and limited action. Bill is thus implicated in an inner conflict as his motive of implementing good will and concrete aid is not compatible with his obligation to neutrality. He ultimately runs amok and is shot to death by his own comrades. The plot's precursor can hardly be overlooked. And the term 'remake', taken from cinema, is irrefutably applicable here. 'The Contingent' is a contemporary version, an 'updated plot'; its cast, plot and musical accompaniment are modelled on 'The Measures taken' by Brecht. Soeren Voima is a subversive inverter of stories, deploying specifically Brechtian means of expression: a dramaturgy based on the oratorio and the 'alienation effect'. The dramatic concision, stylised use of language and the songs of 'The Contingent' create a similarly artificiality to 'The Measures taken': critical distance and passion, observation and enthusiasm coincide. 'The Contingent' is an example of how aesthetic concepts evolve through long collaboration. There are no analogies in terms of content however. The 'Party' has not simply been replaced by the more contemporary authority of the UNO. Apparent formal parallels nevertheless contain fundamental differences. Precisely these account for the play's political content. The relationship of the individual to the collective is defined differently than by Brecht. Rather than pursuing a didactic goal, 'The Contingent' presents the tragic paradox of being forced to action even though there is no reliable basis or greater design supporting it. Even though the production, in its demands to society and formal function, is linked to the tradition of modernism, it also offers a critique of this tradition's ideological self-certainty. The plurality of truth is maintained; the word is still not uttered arbitrarily. In its second season at the TAT, the ensemble continued such enlightened self-reflection in the production of 'Europa'. The play recounts the story of Oedipus. The treatment of this theme is of great significance in terms of the TAT ensemble's aesthetic pursuits: Oedipus is the first human to experience the tragedy of the modern age. He is forced to realise that he cannot achieve a position in which problems do not affect him: he is not an unassailable external critic of society, but himself a part of it. This configuration may also function as a metaphor of the theatre at the TAT. For the ensemble is consciously pursuing precisely this position in their 'affirmative analysis of reality': not to hover above reality but to look it straight into the eye. |
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