A word in which the letter "a" appears seven times? No problem: The "Loaaaaaange Night of the Authors" at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. Three world premieres and ten Berlin premieres were shown with guest performances from Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hamburg, Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Cologne/Düsseldorf, Bern, Basel, Zurich. In addition, a day of new drama and a reading course took place. This festival was invented in 1995 by Ulrich Khuon and his team at Schauspiel Hannover. They then also took place at the next stations of his artistic career at the Thalia Theater Hamburg and, since 2010, at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. That's where Khuon ends for summer, which is why the festival, striving for cheerfulness, is nevertheless surrounded by slight melancholy.
But theatre people are "farewell artists", according to the Swiss playwright Lukas Bärfuss (born in 1971). He opened Khuon's Berlin directorship in 2009 with "Oil", and he has now concluded it with a new play: "Seduction". Unfortunately, this work is full of good intentions and bad drama, under-complex and over-constructed at the same time: an impostor who is about to be released from prison after six years manipulates his therapist, his alleged daughter who has suddenly appeared, and probably prefers himself. The women are also familiar with such psychological games. Are they also keen on the never-found seven million euros that he swindled from a mistress whose family amassed a fortune in the Third Reich? Or did he possibly give the loot to a cult guru?
Clever girlie
András Dömötör stages this brisk threesome as a shabby chamber play with an open horizon of meaning, which, however, is only moderately convincing. For Ulrich Matthes as an impostor, this role is too tightly calculated. He does not succeed in creating a character who stumbles over his own contradictions. Julia Windischbauer has it better as his presumed daughter, she figures with verve and deceit as a cunning girlie. She presents the detailed account of a contemporary witness about a massacre in which more than 1945 forced laborers were killed in 1000. In the overall context, the scene in which the little psycho-ping-pong play is linked to a National Socialist atrocity seems rather isolated. Politics as seduction? Fascism as an investment? Despite the author's best intentions and despite a committed ensemble, this calculation does not work out.
Indestructible people
The constellation in "Gaia am Deutschen Theater (GÖ)" by Nele Stuhler is similarly overambitious: inflated, strained, silly. Gaia, the personified creation in Greek mythology, wants to make the people, who are almost always called "people", disappear. It almost works, but a few are indestructible – namely the audience: "There are still some there, yes," you cackle and let your eyes wander around. Not only through the hall, but also through history.
Nele Stuhler, born in Saxony-Anhalt in 1989, touches more on a few important events of the house than inspires them: Benno Besson's production of Yevgeny Schwarz's "The Dragon" in 1965 or the preparation of the large protest demonstration on November 4, 1989 on Berlin's Alexanderplatz, as well as ancient tragedies, the didactic plays of Bertolt Brecht, feminism, the navel-gazing of the theater and the city of Göttingen, in which all you have to do is exchange a letter and it would be called "goddesses". One could go on and on for quite a while about what is thematically touched upon – but a good piece would not come of it. It's just an over-the-top Schmock with extra length. Nevertheless, Sarah Kurze stages it with fervor and an exaggerated ensemble around Maren Eggert, Lisa Hrdina, Bernd Moss and the youth club of the Deutsches Theater. Why all this and why the effort? Outside, there are warnings about wasting energy, inside people indulge in it thoughtlessly.
At least the play "Dem Marder die Taube" is to be hoped that it will reach other stages beyond the premiere. Caren Jeß, born in Eckernförde in 1985, juggles biographies, places, times, truths and experiences in an amusing and irritating way, featuring people, animals and a fictitious punk band. In Elmshorn near Hamburg, a "friendship with question marks" (Jeß) develops between two very different women. Anja Schneider, a former curator who takes care of pigeons in retirement, and Linn Reusse, a nurse who lives with her parents, play confidently and touchingly. Which of these is true remains open, but looks fabulous in the floating, dazzling production by Stephan Kimmig and in the futuristic stage design by Katja Haß.
Paradoxes of life
Paul Grill as Mr. R. comments suggestively cheerfully from a kind of traffic pulpit on what is happening, which cannot be comprehended, but only looked at. These are the paradoxes of life and art that the outgoing Ulrich Khuon spoke of in his opening speech. With a little more luck, they will become theatre that is worthwhile. In any case, his successor, Iris Laufenberg, apparently wants to continue the festival.