Christoph

Schlingensief s Kunst
und Gemse, A. Hipler,
Berlin, acc.
Photo: David Baltzer
9
Betti na Brandl-Ri si
The New Vi rtuosi ty
Outperforming and Imperfection on the German Stage
Heres the problem: How can television actor Tobias Moretti, who plays a well-known,
longtime inspector accompanied by a German shepherd dog named Kommissar Rex
(also the series title), be presented in Heinrich Breloers new ctional documentary
about Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer (the docudrama Speer und Er) in the role of Hit-
ler in the presence of a German shepherd, without making the audience think about
Moretti and Kommissar Rex? The solution: Never show him with a German shepherd;
otherwise the television audience will be distracted from believing him to be Hitler.
Berlin, January acc6: playwright-director Ren Polleschs new production pre-
mieres at the Prater, the studio venue of Germanys Volksbhne am Rosa-Luxemburg-
Platz. As could be expected, Strepitolino I giovanotti disgraziati takes up an ongoing
dialogue with the previous and subsequent Pollesch pieces, at least those in the current
season, harkening back to Cappuccetto Rosso (acc), which begins with this dilemma
involving Moretti, Kommissar Rex, and Hitler. On video monitors, a German shep-
herd repeatedly jumps toward Moretti as Hitler a montage, of course. Pollesch, who
is responsible for programming the Praters entire season, sends three actors onto Bert
Neumanns uninspired- and average-looking set, a facade of a middle-class bungalow.
Live video feeds of long scenes taking place behind the wall stream over several moni-
tors onstage; the performers throw fragments and statements from theoretical dis-
courses of various provenances (including Giorgio Agamben) the audiences way, with
actions relating to stories or lms (here to Godards Le mpris) in a totally incoherent
manner but, as always, amusing and ironical, comical and political. Polleschs Italian
season, in which all the productions bear Italian titles (two refer to fairy tales: Cap-
puccetto Rosso, or Little Red Riding Hood; and Strepitolino, or Rumpelstiltskin) reects
the directors new obsession with representation itself as a problem any theatrical act
must confront. His seasons motto is Heterosexuality, representation, middle class . . .
and everything else which has not yet been marked as a problem! Among the actors
is Martin Wuttke, formerly the starring actor and artistic director of the Berliner
Theater ,:. uoi .c..a./c.6.c,,-acc6-cc,
acc, by Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre
brandl-ri si
1 0
Ren Polleschs
Cappuccetto Rosso,
Salzburg, acc.
Photo:
Thomas Aurin
Ensemble, where he excelled in roles such as Arturo Ui (in Heiner Mllers legendary
nal Brecht production, which still plays to sold-out houses), and who now cultivates
his own acting virtuosity within an ambience of deliberate imperfection.
A similar scenario was set up in Polleschs Cappuccetto Rosso, which premiered
at the acc Salzburg Festival. When Sophie Rois, one of the divas of Frank Castorf s
Volksbhne and also a sought-after lm actress, enters, it raises as a cinematic reference
point Ernst Lubitschs .a lm To Be or Not to Be. Lubitschs lm depicts Polish actors
staging Hamlet in the theater during the Nazi reign of terror, nally playing Nazis in
real life in order to survive. Pollesch uses this as background to question the status of
theatrical representation. His constellation gets ever more complicated since Sophie
Rois herself appeared in another of Breloers docudramas as Erika Mann. Polleschs
other performer-characters accuse her, ironically, of portraying Erika Mann with Bre-
loer one day, and fooling around with some notorious potato salad at Frank Castorf s
Volksbhne the next. Rois obviously speaks certain lines of Lubitschs character, Maria
Tura, deploring the loss of her magic. But, of course, Sophie Rois herself has not done
so. She does not play the part of Maria Tura, and Polleschs performers would never
embody anything like a character. Instead she screams lines like I lost my magic!
or I hope I wont have to deal with this bourgeois inspiration shit now! in her own
incomparable, hysterical, ironical, hoarse way of speaking, with her own drastically
exaggerated body language and self-assured presence onstage. Her adversary, Christine
Gro, an actress long favored by Pollesch, acts as an antagonist in the proper sense
of the word; she cultivates what Pollesch has established since the early .cs as his
sound a not very well articulated, monotonous way of speaking that goes beyond
empathetic acting and usually means that the actor has to speak huge amounts of text
at a high speed, making the presence of an onstage prompter a prerequisite. This is not
at all brilliant acting; rather, it is a style of deliberate imperfection, in itself so aston-
the new vi rtuosi ty
1 1
ishingly dierentiated and exaggerated that it appears to be a kind of virtuosity in its
imperfection.
Polleschs recent stagings point to an essential question emerging on the con-
temporary German stage: Is seeing virtuosity intrinsically mixed with imperfection
simply a random experience, or does this aesthetic have greater signicance for the
theater? What about Frank Castorf s Volksbhne category of acting, famous for tonal
oscillations between seemingly private canteen ways of speaking and more overtly the-
atrical ones? What of Christoph Marthalers intentional refusal to satisfy spectators
expectations, the slowness of his productions, which are full of mishaps and failures
yet amazingly moving in their imperfect-perfect moments of singing? Or Christoph
Schlingensief s performances, which always present his own very special group of per-
formers nonprofessionals, disabled people, and people with special abilities as well
as lm and theater stars? And what about the productions of the performance group
Rimini Protokoll, with nonprofessional actors who are, nonetheless, experts on their
own lives and in their own professions? And does the German ostinato, the obsession
with recent history, have anything to do with that? To what extent is this new virtuos-
ity a political statement?
1
The Drama of Perfecti on
Virtuosity, as applied to artistic phenomena during the past two hundred years, has
never been a neutral term. Describing a performance as virtuoso always indicates an
intense reaction to what has been witnessed be it enthusiasm or disgust. This seems
to me quite telling, since these moments of approval or disapproval point to performa-
tive strategies that either function very well or do not function at all. Virtuosity serves
as an indicator of a new articiality and artistry in theater production, which is trying to
preserve theaters signicance and relevance in times of new media and the lm indus-
try, and in light of an ongoing theatricalization of everyday life. Taking into account
the degree of perfection that lmmaking has brought to the representational means
of realism and naturalism, theater now has a need to concentrate on its own means,
displaying its intrinsic articiality and the act of representation itself. Dramaturg Carl
Hegemann, who works with Frank Castorf and Christoph Schlingensief, is radical
in his statement about theaters future: If you try to conserve the half-naturalistic
aspect of theater, you will probably not be able to save theater at all.
2
The common notion of virtuosity is that of a virtuoso performance, which sur-
passes standards and expectations by producing a perplexing and excessive dierence.
In the course of such a transgression, the virtuoso stages himself both as the subject of
the performance and as the object of the amazement this performance evokes.
Virtuosity as an aesthetic concept can be traced back to the courtiers in the Ital-
ian Renaissance, who excelled in the arts and sciences as nonprofessionals in the
virtues, in the original sense of the word.
3
The use of virtuoso in reference to an
artistic quality, with special focus on technical skillfulness in the execution of music,
brandl-ri si
1 2
became the predominant meaning of the word during the eighteenth century at the
latest. The problematic dimension of virtuosity began only in the nineteenth century,
when composition and execution became mostly separate aairs, and composers and
dramatists began to ght their wars against performers autocracy. At the beginning of
the industrial era, driven by specialization and an increase in performance and eec-
tiveness, performers and spectators alike were fascinated and repelled by the mechani-
cal, which was evident in the performances of instrumental virtuosos, opera singers, or
ballet virtuosos. Virtuoso performances had huge, enthusiastic audiences. A vertiginous
feeling of admiration gave way to an aesthetic experience of virtuosity, as did the cre-
ation of an aura or charisma around the performer. Enraged critics and producers, as
well as certain members of the audience, reproached the performers for their lack of
artistic potential, for their superciality and inanity, for transforming art into circus, for
having no other aim than to display their own abilities and personalities, and for taking
center stage at the expense of the work and the other performers.
Theatrical virtuosity was an important feature of nineteenth-century Western
theater and was intrinsically linked to the emergence of the bourgeois individual as a
model for theatrical embodiment. The modern character can be seen as a prerequisite of
virtuoso performances, but in an era when actors strive to identify with their character,
virtuosity also functions as an obstacle to theatrical representation. Theatrical virtu-
osity is much less a matter of the artistic mastery of technical diculties than of the
search for a performative surplus in exaggerations of a dierent kind: the creation of a
detailed individual style with recognizable bodily actions, special gestures, expressions,
and pronunciations. Furthermore, virtuosos have to rely on a carefully manufactured
and maintained charisma. Typically, a perceived virtuoso would be identied with a
few specic roles or rather, the roles would be identied with his or her personality.
Think of Sarah Bernhardt, who was perceived as an outstanding character (in real life)
and in some cases even attributed with demonic qualities.
But it is precisely this, the virtuosos reliance on physical individuality and pre-
senting the material aspects of acting the virtuosos tricks and quirks (Virtuosen-
mtzchen) that point to a certain distance between the virtuoso and the character he
or she seeks to embody, bringing into question the representational framework of acting
itself. A virtuoso represents only him- or herself and his or her technical abilities, not
something else the role thus preventing the illusion of a unity of performer and
character, of the performer vanishing behind the character he or she represents. The
idealistic system of representation is thus endangered: Virtuoso acting is a sign of crisis
within that system, revealing the contestability of the system itself.
4
It is questionable, though, whether the history of virtuosity ends with the nine-
teenth century. Instead, I suggest looking for its relocations and scope in the pres-
ent, examining its role in the logic of outperforming and success, and the relationship
between virtuosity and perfection, imperfection, and failure.
the new vi rtuosi ty
1 3
The performances discussed in this article combine several concepts of virtuosity:
virtuosity as outperforming, and at the same time its negation, which I would like to
call virtuosity as/in imperfection, meaning performing in an outstanding manner, or
outperforming others in a particular way, while questioning traditional ideas of virtuos-
ity and negating such outdoing of others. In these performances, astounding technical
perfection in voice and language and stylistic overdetermination in writing and repre-
sentation can coexist with staged dilettantism and failure; both become topics in the
plays and performances themselves.
Imperfecti on
Berlin, January acc6: Dutch video artist Jaap de Ruig shows his new video, The Power
of Imperfection. Imperfection seems to be booming.
Contemporary theater artists are nding a rewarding challenge in undercutting,
not overdoing, in lessening instead of surpassing standards, in playing with dilettantism
and not overtaxing the audience. By not being professional, or at least pretending not to
be, these performances play at the threshold of dilettantism. Richard Maxwells produc-
tions are a good example of this strategy, which Shawn-Marie Garrett has convincingly
labeled as producing and exposing awk-
wardness.
5
Though employing imperfection
to an emphatic extent, Maxwells aesthetic
shows a form of imperfection unconnected to
virtuosity and separated from the questions
of technique and the tension between sur-
passed and undercut standards.
Bodily imperfection characterizes
certain other contemporary performances,
notably choreographer Meg Stuarts ongoing
reection on the monstrosity and normality
of the body and William Forsythes recent
contemplations on this subject (You Made Me
a Monster).
6
A strong focus onto the human body
and its imperfect appearance can also be witnessed in productions that purposefully
use nonprofessionals, creating a new form of documentary theater. In what Jens Roselt
calls working the nonperfect, the fact that the performers are untrained concentrates
the spectators attention mainly on their biographies and the presentation of their bod-
ies, which, because they are untrained, become especially convincing or embarrassing,
destabilizing the audiences perspective and risking failure and embarrassment.
7
When Rimini Protokoll (a group of young German theater artists centered
Rimini Protokoll
(Stefan Kaegi,
Helgard Haug,
Daniel Wetzel).
Photo:
Christian Schnur
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1 4
Rimini Protokolls
Wallenstein:
A Documentary
Staging, Mannheim,
acc.
Photo: Dieter Rchel
around principals Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel) stages Wallenstein: Eine doku-
mentarische Inszenierung (Wallenstein: A Documentary Staging, acc), we see real soldiers
and real politicians representing both themselves and a version of Schillers play at the
same time. To call the performers laymen would not be accurate; they are experts on
their own lives and specialists in their own elds. Wallenstein was Rimini Protokolls
rst attempt to use a canonical text from the dramatic repertory; earlier productions
revolved around inhabitants of a retirement home (Kreuzwortrtsel Boxenstopp, Frank-
furt, accc), people in the funeral business (Dead Line, Hamburg, acc), and individuals
aected by the bankruptcy of the airline Sabena (Sabenation, Brussels, acc), to name
just a few scenarios.
In Wallenstein, the performers establish a complex layering of reality (narrated
onstage and authenticated by their own biographies) and a ctional plot superimposing
the biographical narrative and acted scenes
upon passages from Schillers drama. The
cast features a police ocer, an astrolo-
ger, a woman who operates a dating ser-
vice, veterans from the Vietnam War, and
a German soldier who reports about the
Kosovo mission. The soldiers narrate their
traumatic experiences of training and war,
and they not only represent their emo-
tions but partly relive them, also making
this experiential fact into a theme (This
is really hard for me). A local politician
reports quite soberly on his machinations
and cheating in the election campaign,
recounting how his fellow party members
ganged up on him and nally asking the
audience if they would reelect him in the
future. A Schiller acionado who works
as an electrician and has for many years
found delight in memorizing verses from
Schillers works here recites them with
awkward pathos; his enthusiasm is discon-
certing and moving at the same time.
In a coproduction by the National-
theater Mannheim and the Deutsches
Nationaltheater Weimar the tradition-
laden survivors of the German national
theater movement of the eighteenth cen-
tury Wallenstein shed light on German
history and made a special contribution
the new vi rtuosi ty
15
to the acc German celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of Schillers death.
In Rimini Protokolls version, the ethical dimensions of agency and responsibility for
individual action is examined through various historical perspectives, from the Schil-
ler scenario to the disastrous wars of the twentieth century to more recent political
entanglements in Eastern and Western Germany. The fragility of these nonprofessional
actors the awareness of imperfection, of not being able to hide behind a role is cen-
tral to the companys concept of performance at the threshold of authentication of the
characters and theatrical representation. Their research into the dividing line between
art and life, between professional and nonprofessional, is a special manifestation of
Roselts phrase working the nonperfect.
Rimini Protokolls
Sabenation. Go home
and follow the news,
Brussels, acc.
Photo:
Christian Enger
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1 6
But other, ostensibly traditional, theatrical concepts also rely on professional
actors, who nevertheless employ and display imperfection, especially imperfection in
dialogue with virtuosity. Indeed, instead of aiming only at self-armation, virtuos-
ity can no longer be conceived of without its counterparts: not succeeding, technical
imperfection, dilettantism, failure. Just as astounding technical perfection does, staged
dilettantism and calculated failure transform the virtuosos scene into a potentially cata-
strophic scenario. But in contrast to the aesthetic of the nonperfect for example, in
displaying untrained bodies to an audience, making the spectators feel uncomfortable
about the situation imperfection resonates the norms and ideals of perfect execution
at any time and toys with the staged and displayed undercutting of standards. The
imperfect is challenging but never embarrassing. It can overtax the performers body, as
in the case of Pollesch, where the sheer speed of speech necessitates taking slips of the
tongue into account in any conception of the text, and where the prompter, who must
cope with the huge amount of text each performer utters, becomes another performer
onstage. This style of speaking requires performers to go beyond the limits of vocal
resilience and asserts that hoarseness caused by screaming is just another way of speak-
ing. Imperfection does not only display the materiality and obstinacy of the body, nor
does it use bodies only as virtuoso instruments that should be completely under control.
Polleschs performers oscillate between both poles in their bodily techniques.
In imperfection, professional performers use dilettantism or undercut their profes-
sionalism deliberately. Polleschs actors, and Castorf s too in certain respects, undercut
their abilities to act in an ordinary more or less naturalistic way, while performers
in Christoph Marthalers productions, like the acting musician Jrg Kienberger, pur-
posefully neglect their professional abilities. Instead of playing the recitative sections
of Mozarts Le Nozze di Figaro in the accepted professional manner on standard key-
board instruments, Kienberger chooses to be a dilettante and play the accompaniment
on such nonstandard instruments as partially lled beer bottles. His performance is
not at all embarrassing but, rather, touching and splendid in its virtuosity which at
the same time is imperfect, as the objects cannot act as proper instruments. In some
cases, the nonprofessional or nonperfect can interfere with professional imperfection.
This is true, for example, when Christoph Schlingensief confronts his regular group of
performers with famous German actors, such as Sepp Bierbichler and Irm Hermann,
as well as when, from the other end of the spectrum, he engages neo-Nazis willing to
abandon their extremist backgrounds for his acc. performance of Hamlet in Zurich, a
production that caused a huge amount of public attention well beyond the theater world
because of its deliberate, yet not unambiguous interference in German and Swiss politi-
cal debates about how to cope with right-wing tendencies in both countries.
the new vi rtuosi ty
1 7
Ren Pollesch and Hi s Box of Tri cks
Polleschs early work allows insight into his manipulation of virtuosity as a means of
treating language, dramaturgy, and acting styles. Pollesch, who since . has worked
principally at the Volksbhne, was rarely so explicit in this regard as in Three Hysterical
Women (.). His stage directions provide a whole programmatic prologue: Capital
letters indicate loud passages alternating with the relaxed ones also the hysteri-
cal sections. . . . Ceremonial speed, ceremonial hysteria. Haul this block of text into
your brain and dont identify with it. Paradoxically, the loudness comes about with
relaxation. Hysterical position: Let the body be taken by the loudness; dont force it.
The body remains in a fairly relaxed position, as relaxed as the screaming allows you
to maintain.
8
The performances come to life from the tension, from the clips and
dialogues, from short action scenes and word battles, stationary bodies and an excess
of action. Polleschs plot structure has operatic features (aria versus recitative, as the
author calls it), in which the change corresponds to the shortness and speed of pop
songs: You want songs that last six hours? Well, then go and listen to operas.
9
Despite
all the speed, Pollesch calls the functional mode of his plays rushing loiter, a gure of
thought that reminds us of Paul Virilios racing or rapid standstill.
10
Ren Polleschs
Insourcing des
Zuhause. Menschen
in Scheiss-Hotels,
Berlin, acc..
Photo:
Thomas Aurin
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1 8
Pollesch labeled older works as Splatter Boulevard (Theater am Turm, Frankfurt,
.a) and Pool Snu Comedy (Theater am Turm, Frankfurt, .), using media aesthet-
ics in his generic terms. These Theater Soaps are inspired by the tempo of the con-
versation, the gags and corny puns in comedies, as well as by movies. Polleschs theater
has been called a marriage between the stage and B-movies. He actually tries to fuse
theater and lm: lm projections are incorporated into the plot, and actors alternate
between the stage and the movie or get lmed while acting onstage. Pollesch uses lm-
like features in his performances. The movie element denes his performance style:
The cuts take place within the actors and cannot be traced anywhere else. . . . The
personnel have incorporated their cuts within their sensorium.
11
Insourcing des Zuhause. Menschen in Scheiss-Hotels (Insourcing at Home: People in
Fucking Hotels) premiered in Berlin in October acc., shortly after /... Though address-
ing the question of how to dierentiate between work and life under the conditions of
telecommuting, Insourcing at Home incorporates references to then very recent events
and experiences (as always with Pollesch), including some direct references to the catas-
trophe of /..: a television set with images of the Taliban and a replaying of Coppolas
Apocalypse Now, featuring a helicopter war to the music of Wagners Ride of the Val-
kyries (using ordinary props, such as a swivel chair turned upside-down and Frolic
brand dog food functioning as bombs). It was staged within a Living Room Stage
consisting of several containers open to the public, forming a sort of apartment sur-
rounding the audience in a U-shape, with the audience sitting in the middle of the space
on swivel chairs. The three female performers discuss the social and economic condi-
tions of service providers and the demand for eciency and virtuosity in communica-
tion and collaboration that telecommuters face:
There is this hotel, and people do not only sleep there; they all work there.
In this hotel and it looks like a multistory oce building and there you
can sell your subjectivity via notebook. And write some e-mails to your sta or to
your punters, if you ARE A WHORE! Or to STAFF OR OTHER SUBORDI-
NATES, IF YOU ARE A WHORE!
And it oers all these services which allow you to work in this hotel.
C And the furnishings look frigging ugly, but all other oers are attractive. All the
stu you dont see. This factory which produces an idea of home.
All services here are somehow attractive. And real. They are all so REAL, THE
FEELINGS WHICH ARE SHOWN FOR ME AND THE PERSONAL
SYMPATHY! FUCK!
I am in this hotel, and there are these uent transitions between living and
working!
And everybody works there, in this hotel. And they plug their notebooks in, in
these ISDN-hotels!
Although the hotel oers home or produces it, everybody works here.
Insourcing of labor and home in hotels!
12
the new vi rtuosi ty
1 9
Ren Polleschs
Cappuccetto Rosso,
Salzburg, acc.
Photo:
Thomas Aurin
These texts must be spoken rapidly. Pollesch calls this speaking on cue (auf Anschluss
sprechen).
13
It produces a great deal of the impression of virtuosity you get from these
performances. The voices no longer mark bourgeois subject positions; they sound, as
it were, above the bodies, and jump from one body to the other, seize one body after
the other. About themselves, the characters say that they scream like a freaked-out
N actor.
14
In performance, the sound is dened by amplication, the fast change
between amplied and nonamplied voices, generated with and without technology.
The resulting speech melody is sometimes similar to the German synchronization of
cheap sitcoms or American nonstop commercials, especially in the inimitable emotion-
less Oh, my God! (OH MEIN GOTT!). Polleschs style jumps from manifesto
passages or quotes from movies and songs, as well as theoretical jargon, to platitudes
or a montage of clichs and bon mots, linked only by puns or associations and charac-
terized by exaggeration, redundancy, parody, and incongruence. Pollesch oers noth-
ing akin to realism onstage, especially not where perfection in speaking is concerned.
The prompter is always visible and always busy, sometimes even taking an active part
in the performance. Pollesch lets his characters speak with the awareness that every-
thing has already been said before. They are all ventriloquists not only those in the
performance Harakiri at a Ventriloquists Conference (Harakiri einer Bauchrednertagung,
Theater Bremen, accc).
Polleschs playwriting method could be called self-plagiarism: He repeats themes,
characters, and texts, carrying them over from play to play. Each Pollesch work consists
of variations on a theme (or a movie, a soap opera, or a telenovela), full of repetitions,
permutations, and loops.
15
Each piece produces and perpetuates the Pollesch sound
and the Pollesch discourse: a mixture of sociological and feminist discourse, economic
theory and criticism (especially dealing with post-Fordist work life or globalized cities),
transferred to rst-person utterances. As Diedrich Diederichsen has written, concepts
and ideas are the heroes in Polleschs plays.
16
Theory and everyday life are not contra-
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20
dictory, or opposed, as Pollesch sees it: But this, this is my theory-friendly everyday
life. It is intense and it is gradually becoming capable of theory! . . . and not that art shit
or shit like that!
17
In order to notice virtuosity as such, it is vital to be familiar with the
standards that virtuosity surpasses. In Polleschs case, familiarity with theoretical dis-
courses is essentially a prerequisite for sensing how this discourse constitutes a virtuoso
performance. (Polleschs audience is highly literate in such matters.)
If virtuosity exposes the materiality and mediality of the employed theatrical
means (the voice, the movement), it also indicates rst and foremost a desemantization,
a pleasure in the masterly control of technique, in excessive play with repetitions and
variations, in an aesthetic of the supercial. In this respect, Polleschs performers are
true old-fashioned virtuosos. Like traditional acting virtuosos, they disrupt the amal-
gamation of actor and character by not representing anything but their own abilities
as Pollesch actors; they always maintain a distance to anything that could be called a
character or role in his scenarios. The performer implements his or her subjectivity into
the act of representation: not in the traditional sense of having a great personality, but
in their distinctness within a more general tendency toward emotionless deindividual-
ization. The quirks they cultivate, the yelling they succumb to between long speaking
passages these are Pollesch trademarks that further point to uniformity. They consti-
tute a performance style or technique of their own, one that deviates from naturalistic
representation as a whole without being individualized, as traditional virtuosos did.
Confronted with the prevailing search for authenticity in speaking and acting
to which most trained actors aspire, Pollesch aims to push speech methods to their
limits through acceleration and excessive speaking on cue, resulting in a strict techni-
cal formalism and his own virtuoso technique. But it is a kind of virtuosity as (and in)
imperfection, never fullling the expectation to exceed yet another limit.
When Frank Castorf s diva, Sophie Rois, runs into Polleschs protagonists in
Cappuccetto Rosso, the status of the actors becomes the subject. He builds all his produc-
tions upon a structural principle of tonal shifts. The divas virtuosity bumps into the
virtuosity and imperfection of the Pollesch sound; the diva doubts herself as an actress
lacking magic and mocks the representation of Nazis onstage (Oh, a Nazi, what shall
I do?).
The performers do not hide behind a character and often are not even related
to something approaching a character. The fucking bourgeois inspiration is ver-
bally rejected and in the productive contradiction so characteristic of Polleschs
work used at the same time. Pointing to their own bodies, Rois and Caroline Peters
rant and yell: How for heavens sake could they import anything like a bourgeois sub-
ject into this shit, since there is no Hedda, no Kriemhild, no Nora any more, all
gone, at least their bourgeois variants. Indeed, Shakespeare, Kleist, all gone, eaten by
a fungus. But at least they say that they can rely on the belief that these devices with
which we go on stage will not abandon us, a kind of physical apparatus living a life of
its own. Yet Pollesch hints that other assumptions about the performative setting may
be uncontestable: All of them . . . have an idea of what theater is like, that we can rely
upon, too.
the new vi rtuosi ty
21
Frank Castorf s Di vas
Of course, not every aspect of such work is to be taken seriously. But certainly these
artists question some assumptions about the validity of the theatrical agreement. This
is also true for Frank Castorf s work at the Volksbhne in former East Berlin, where
he has been the artistic director since .a. His actors are famous for their digressions,
asides, and sudden switches to a canteen way of speaking, a tone oscillating between
seemingly private and more theatrical modes. Castorf makes the status of actors
and their virtuosity an overt theme, although stepping out of roles is always contained
within a (more or less) clearly marked frame of reference: They embody a character
and digress from this representational act within a mostly recognizable scenario, based
upon a dramatic text or another pretext, like a Dostoevsky novel giving the production
its title.
Following his aesthetic credo in postreunication Berlin to watch out meticu-
lously, to transform the focuses of this diseased national body of Germany as viciously
as possible into the object of theatrical work, and to trigger a feeling of uncertainty,
18

Castorf staged Carl Zuckmayers Des Teufels General (The Devils General ) in .6.
At the time, this play was notorious not only for its attempt to justify the German
Wehrmacht as essentially apolitical (calling them decent boys), but also because
it was former chancellor Helmut Kohls favorite drama. Bringing Nazi Germany to
Frank Castorf s
Dmonen, Berlin,
accc.
Photo: Thomas Aurin
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22
the stage, Castorf cast in the leading role the ex-GDR lm diva Corinna Harfouch
and Volksbhne star Bernhard Schtz alternating as Luftwae General Harras in the
course of the performance. Corinna Harfouch would ironically refer to her celebrity
and outsider status by suddenly remembering, Oh dear, I have to leave for the B.E.
now, since she used to play Eva Braun in a ninety-minute monologue at the Berliner
Ensemble at the same time.
One of the most remarkable scenes in Des Teufels General shows Bernhard Schtz
and Sophie Rois as General Harras and Ptzchen. In the beginning, Ptzchen tries, in
a rather serious manner, to convince the completely confused Harras that he could mas-
ter all his problems easily, being the born leader, a real man whom she admires and
desires. Bernhard Schtz, though, can utter only I have so many problems, problems,
while staggering over the stage like a drunkard, stumbling over his armchair and then
with the armchair toward the audience, nally vomiting over Ptzchens attempts to
appeal to him sexually. After a long and virtuosic ght with props and each other tir-
ing out both actors and audience members yet making us laugh until we cry the per-
formers change places as if nothing had happened and continue the conversation in
an almost naturalistic mode of acting. Then, all of a sudden, a country-and-western
tune prompts both actors to jump up from their seats, dance a twist and, after turning
around to the projections of aerial combats (possibly from World War II) in the back-
ground of the stage, interrupt their dancing with a scream and the refrain, Problems,
problems, problems. In the same unmotivated and abrupt way, Schtz and Rois then
suddenly sit down on their armchairs and carry on with their dialogue.
Clearly, actors stand at the center of this theater, not the characters they repre-
sent. Ultimately this is what links the antinaturalistic style of acting that Castorf s
actors cultivate to the virtuoso actors of the nineteenth century. All of them are divas
in their own right, with their very special personalities and quirks. The virtuoso and
star from the Berliner Ensemble, Martin Wuttke, who has been gradually integrated
into the ensemble of the Volksbhne and excels in virtuoso epileptic ts, physically
overtaxes himself. Henry Hbchen, another very popular television and lm actor, has
as his trademark slapstick scenes like those in Dmonen (The Possessed, .), in which
Frank Castorf s
Dmonen, Berlin,
accc.
Photo: Thomas Aurin
the new vi rtuosi ty
23
he has an ongoing ght with a deck chair at the pool of Bert Neumanns container-like
bungalow.
Virtuoso performance points to a lack of coherence in character as well as to a
deconstruction of coherent actions. Castorf s performances, which often last more than
four hours, feature insertions of texts alien to the original, free associations, and sec-
tions performed in languages other than German. Focusing in recent years on adapta-
tions of Russian novels (Dmonen, Erniedrigte und Beleidigte [The Insulted and Injured]
in acc., Der Idiot in acca, and Der Meister und Margarita [The Master and Margarita],
also in acca), Castorf applies a staging method he describes as forced eclecticism.
19

Exaggerations and triviality in speech, voice, or bodily actions result in a way of play-
ing that Gitta Honegger describes ttingly: Insanity at the Volksbhne has become
the norm, a freewheeling, hyperactive performance mode and a way of life unmodied
by Prozac.
20
Being hysterical, freaking out, going to the limits with body and voice
indicate both the actors virtuosity and its complicity with imperfection. Displaying the
materiality of the voice is one of their main tasks: With Castorf, man speaks truth only
when squealing.
21
What Castorf and his cast search for is not the perfect or cultured
mother tongue, but slurring, stuttering, and getting into a muddle, which destabilizes
the linguistic smoothness of representation. Castorf s actors toy with imperfection and
the noncalculable risk of stumbling or slipping on the literally insecure ground the
Volksbhne stage often provides. Improvisation and an awareness of possible failure are
vital to certain moments when performers are required to interact with the audience.
Performances can sometimes dwindle almost to nothing unless a random spectator
intervenes with a comment, allowing the actors to recommence with a scene under-
taken before this intermezzo.
Castorf s excessive use of video during recent years has only intensied his
research into the status of acting. The omnipresence of live video lming, displayed
on screens and monitors onstage, diminishes the presence of the live performers while
at the same time intensifying those rare moments when the virtuoso actors do appear
live onstage. Theater critic Robin Detje describes the appeal of Castorf s theater to his
audience as a kind of reprogramming:
Castorf changed the Look how fabulously I can have deep and complex feelings!
attitude, so characteristic of the late bourgeoisie theater of empathy, to such an
extent that dramatic art will not recover for years. . . . Because they [Castorf s
actors] are so good at it, they run roughshod over . . . huge parts of the classical
theater of empathy and of the intellectual values we associate with theater and its
noble traditions of the legacy (Erbe), as they called it in the GDR. These
actors broke character so beautifully again and again, until they succeeded in reedu-
cating the audience. The spectators now wait for the beautifully executed breaking
character and regard it as the true cathartic moment of the evening.
22
brandl-ri si
24
Chri stoph Marthalers Perfect/Imperfect Musi ci ans
If the performers in Castorf s stagings display their virtuoso qualities in exuberant and
splendid digressions, the performers in Christoph Marthalers theater undercut this
standard of complexity. But Marthalers performers are virtuosos, too, playing in their
own league. Marthaler makes them do less, and he makes them sing.
In a recent production at the Volksbhne, Marthaler a Swiss director, theater
musician, and temporary artistic director of the Zurich Schauspielhaus used elderly
actors, in all their physical imperfection, to represent opera singers and singing. Die
Fruchtiege (The Fruit Fly) (Volksbhne, acc) can be perceived, to a great extent, as a
review of his debut at the Bayreuth Festival acc with his staging of Wagners Tristan
and Isolde. Die Fruchtiege reects upon virtuosity and imperfection with respect to
emotion, to nineteenth-century theatrical and operatic repertoire, and to musical execu-
tion. In one scene, classical concert-hall virtuosity becomes thematic: The pianist, who
most of the time has to be content with merely accompanying the singers and actors,
bursts into Tchaikovskys rst piano concerto. The other performers line up behind
him, mimicking the bodily motions of a piano virtuoso his nodding and swaying,
the way he throws his arms about. The visual and theatrical dimension of classical
virtuosity becomes evident once more. But the actors only mimic this concept of virtu-
osity, while the pianist truly does quite a perfect job performing the virtuoso piece. In
the end, excess and ridicule, perfection and failure become one: The pianists gestures
become increasingly extravagant and amboyant, until he nally hits himself in the
face and abruptly abandons the piano. Here, virtuosity literally stumbles over itself.
Music is the most important ingredient of any of Marthalers productions, which
often resemble recitals: Songs, German Volkslieder and Kunstlieder, often sung a cap-
pella (an entire performance is dedicated to Schuberts Die schne Mllerin, Zurich,
acc.), and also opera, including stagings of entire operas like his Tristan und Isolde
(Bayreuth, acc) as well as contemporary music. Among his productions are staged
dramatic texts like Chekhovs Drei Schwestern (Three Sisters) (Volksbhne, .) or
Goethes Faust Wurzel aus z+: (Goethes Faust z+:) (Hamburger Schauspielhaus, .),
but he primarily creates his own arrangements of text and music.
Marthaler has a very special obsession with, and love for, what is outdated, old-
fashioned, and marginalized. He and his stage designer, Anna Viebrock, nd their
inspiration and their characters in the ruined and shabby ambience of existing or
found spaces and situations, such as bars or restaurants in railway stations. The scen-
ery for Marthalers performances exclusively represents such interiors.
While searching for good singing actors for his rst production at the Volks-
bhne in . the long-running Murx den Europer! . . . (Finish o the European! . . . ),
the directors German-theater breakthrough he cast, and thereby reactivated the
careers of, some of the older actors of the Volksbhne, for whom Castorf no longer had
any use.
Marthaler has assembled a small group of devoted actors who excel in bringing
the new vi rtuosi ty
25
bizarre gures to stage life, wearing unattering, shabby costumes that often are too
small or too tight. These provisional characters often come equipped with the man-
ners and movement vocabulary of bygone times, showing acrobatic outbursts, slapstick
scenes, clumsiness, mishaps, or battles with objects such as folding chairs, which can
take on a will of their own. They face failure very often and in many dierent situa-
tions, and from time to time they abruptly drop to the oor or fall asleep. During the
performance, their actions onstage do not (usually) build coherent characters; instead,
they allow for situations in which performers interact for a limited time span and then
separate again, or sometimes even do solo acts (Seemannslieder [Shanty Songs], Gent
Christoph
Marthalers Die
Fruchtiege, Berlin,
acc.
Photo:
David Baltzer
brandl-ri si
26
acc, Die Fruchtiege). In contrast to Pollesch or Castorf, men play the leading role in
Marthalers theatrical universe; men appear in the collective, displaying a stereotyped,
infantile, inhibited, macho masculinity. The performances create an atmospheric
mlange of melancholy, sadness, and comedy at the same time, of awkwardness and
dirty jokes, but, again in contrast to Pollesch or Castorf, there is very little talk and very
much silence. Only occasionally does an action erupt, often in a quite inarticulate way.
The gures never succeed in contacting the other sex, their reactions being either too
shy or too eruptive.
Marthalers themes exhaustion, apathy, waiting, loneliness, silence, failure,
slowness, standstill, repetitions also take on further historical and political dimen-
sions, reecting bygone eras and disturbing presences. Virtuosity becomes an issue
when performers repeat senseless movements or gestural tics with great seriousness
until they burst into slapstick and inane behavior, exposing the quirks for what they
are. In this context, Marthalers theater has been described as the product of Samuel
Beckett and Buster Keaton.
23
Marthaler intentionally dees his spectators expectations for theatrical satis-
faction, but from the slowness of performances weighted with mishaps and failures,
amazingly beautiful moments often emerge in song. Singings transformative power, its
emotional expressiveness, can also reveal a utopian potential: Music touches aspects of
life hidden behind damaged human existence. As Matthias Lilienthal, Marthalers for-
mer dramaturg, has said: Alain Resnaiss On connait la chanson indicates, there is much
more belief in the truth and longing hidden behind worn-out popular songs (Schlager)
than in many intellectual reections being critical of ideology.
24
In his singing sec-
Christoph
Marthalers
Goethes Faust z+:,
Hamburg, ..
Photo:
Matthias Horn
the new vi rtuosi ty
27
tions, Marthaler works with both
trained singers and actors with good
voices, creating moments of fragile
beauty, moving precisely because of
their imperfect perfection.
But there is yet another aspect
to the dominance of singing in
Marthalers stagings: Whenever
actors start to sing, there is a clear
structure that goes beyond psycho-
logical acting.
25
One of Marthalers
favorite actresses, Olivia Grigolli,
remembers Marthaler giving only
one instruction to the actors dur-
ing the rst rehearsal for Horvths
Kasimir und Karoline (Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, .6): You should simply
stand, not act, and just speak your text. If you wanted to imagine an atmosphere, then
do as in the lms of Aki Kaurismki where the actors simply stand around. . . . You
ought not try to color the texts, but to accomplish the degree of un-professionalism
characteristic of Kaurismkis lms. . . . You should not try to act in a perfect way, but
to bear simply standing around.
26
Virtuosity and imperfection turn out to provide a
fundamental engine for Marthalers theatrical concept: While undercutting the stan-
dard of acting perfection on one hand, Marthalers scenarios also demand a display of
virtuosic abilities, be it virtuosity in failure or in just standing around and waiting.
If his aging ensemble excels as perfectly imperfect musicians, we should see it as
part of the directors continuing quest to resuscitate the theatrical corpse. Marthalers
ironic ambivalence nds a mirror in one of his mini-scenarios for the stage: Music.
The curtain rises. Nine cons onstage. Music out of silence. The lid of the seventh cof-
n opens. A corpse slowly sits up straight. Corpse: I have been producing live/lifelike
theater for thirty-ve years. (Con lid closes). CURTAIN.
27
Fai lure as a Chance: Chri stoph Schli ngensi ef
Like Marthaler, Schlingensief uses a production at the Volksbhne to work through
his experience with Wagner and the Bayreuth festival, in this case reecting upon the
debut of his Parsifal in acc. In Kunst und Gemse: A. Hipler (Art and Vegetables: A.
Hipler, acc), he questions Theater ALS Krankheit playing with references to
Theater as Disease and Theater Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Disease, an associa-
tion fed by the recent scandals surrounding German artist Jrg Immendor. Immen-
dor suers from ALS and was dismissed as a professor of painting after his much-
criticized orgies with cocaine and prostitutes. Schlingensief weaves a scenario of
Christoph Marthaler
in Salzburg.
Photo: Bernd Uhlig
brandl-ri si
28
Christoph
Schlingensief s
Kunst und Gemse: A.
Hipler, Berlin, acc.
Photo: David Baltzer
very distinct references through live performance, music, lm projections, installation,
speech, and writing, drawing from Schnbergs opera Von heute auf morgen; Wagners
Parsifal; Wagner family gossip (including Schlingensief s ban from Bayreuth in the
year following his premiere); Godard and Bachs Saint Matthews Passion; and Adolf
Hitler and the Holocaust. Opera singers and professional musicians interact with Sch-
lingensief s special cast consisting of people with very unique charisma and abilities,
adding a disturbingly dierent avor to the stage actions. The most upsetting moment
probably comes when Angela Jansen, a woman suering from ALS, lies in the middle
of the auditorium in her hospital bed, assisted by a person functioning as her nurse.
Jansen is not able to speak or move but communicates via an apparatus which identies
her eye movements and transforms them into writing. In this situation, doing less has
a very dierent signicance than it does in Marthalers scenarios. This is not a matter
of deliberate artistic limitation, but of displaying physical limitation and its inherent
artistic potential. Schlingensief s radical use of the nonperfect here is characteristic, as
the new vi rtuosi ty
29
is his belief in failure as a chance and his willingness to accept the risk factor involved
in creating situations that abandon the securities of the fourth wall and could spin out
of control. Watching Angela Jansen, we are confronted with limits limits that also
reect the traditional notion of spectators restricted to more or less passive perception
and participation, even as Angela Jansen is announced as the true director and initiator
of the entire production.
Kunst und Gemse is in fact one of Schlingensief s more moderate productions,
especially compared to a number of public scandals he produced, for instance when
he made a public appeal called Ttet Helmut Kohl! (Kill Helmut Kohl!) at the
., Documenta. In addition to his theater and lm directing, Schlingensief initiates
public events and interventions, performs, and has even served as a talk-show host
for various television networks. Since .,, he started to work outside of theater, with
huge projects like his Chance :ccc, a political party founded in order to challenge and
question the established party system, and especially Helmut Kohl, in the Bundestag
elections .. Here theater and politics become inseparable in such a way that no one
can tell where art ends or life begins: Audiences are called to join the party, delegates to
the party conferences are referred to as part of the hugest theatrical performance of all
time, and newspapers cannot decide whether to publish their reports in the Politics
or Culture sections. (The election ended with a total of a,cc votes nationwide for
Chance :ccc.)
After this experience, Schlingensief returned to theater, also seeking to withdraw
from the heightened degree of publicity that threatened to turn him into a political
instrument. He stopped the series of performances of Berliner Republik at the Volks-
bhne (about Chancellor Gerhard Schrder and his wife) when the war in Kosovo
began, then traveled to Kosovo and tried to bring war refugees back to the Volksbhne.
In ., he started his Deutschlandsuche (Quest for Germany) and as a result, performed
the Deutschlandversenkung (Sinking of Germany) on the Hudson River (at P.S. . in New
York, .). Schlingensief again created controversy with another large-scale project,
the Viennese Aktion entitled Bitte liebt sterreich! (Please Love Austria!, accc), in which
the public voted asylum seekers out of a container, just as they voted participants o
the then-popular Big Brother reality-television shows. Controversial to the German and
Swiss public alike, his acc. staging of Hamlet at the Zurich Schauspielhaus cast real-
life neo-Nazis who were willing to abandon their radical backgrounds. He went on to
stage Quiz ccc: Du bist die Katastrophe (Quiz ccc: You Are the Catastrophe, Volks-
bhne, acca) and the Church of Fear (Venice Biennale, acc). In his latest work (Area
,: Matthusexpedition [Area ,: Saint Matthews Expedition, Vienna: Burgtheater, acc6),
Schlingensief created a walkable performance installation on the stage and auditorium
of the Burgtheater, a new version of his traveling Animatograph, a kind of centrifuge
of myths between Hitler, Leni Riefenstahl, Michael Jackson, Hermann Nitsch, and
Joseph Beuys, drawing associations from all dierent media and materials, languages
and cultures.
brandl-ri si
30
Schlingensief s dramaturg, Carl Hegemann, believes the directors radical trans-
gressions hold signicance for a contemporary evolution of theater. In his view, only
Schlingensief (and at eye level with him, late German director Einar Schleef) have
developed theater further and revived that which is specically theatrical in a way
which cannot be substituted by
electrically powered or celluloid-
equipped media machinery. The
fourth wall shakes, collapses, and
stands up again. Distinctions are
deconstructed and reconstructed.
28

Even in his rst production at the
Volksbhne, zcc Jahre CDU: Spiel
ohne Grenzen (One Hundred Years
of the Christian Democratic Union:
Games without Frontiers) in .,
Schlingensief had formulated his
attitude toward theater and the audience in a programmatic prologue: I know that
your concept of theater will not be altered and it also should not be, because everyone
has his very own concept of theater, and this is a good thing. But we can give you sup-
port! Please give us support, too!
29
Schlingensief challenges our preconception about theater by presenting his very
special group of performers, nonprofessionals, disabled people, and people with spe-
cial abilities, together with movie
and television stars. A profusion of
materialities, associations, and ci-
tations converges onstage, like the
results of frenzied channel-surf-
ing. He refers to politicians, artists,
and celebrities, to popular culture
and trash, thus producing comedy,
irony, and seriousness as well as
embarrassment: Sometimes you
hardly know where to rather not
look at.
30
There is always live and
spontaneous interaction onstage, and in between stage and audience. The performers
reect upon the mise-en-scne during the performance and proceed to change it, some-
times radically. In many cases the audience gets involved directly in the performance,
crossing the traditional boundaries bourgeois theater once relied upon. As a Schlingen-
sief spectator, you have to question your own attitude toward the performance at any
given moment, assessing your own experience. Thus Schlingensief s work is an exercise
in the ability to bear unclear and unstructured situations,
31
an ongoing project yield-
Christoph
Schlingensief in
Bitte liebt sterreich,
Vienna, accc.
Photo: David Baltzer
Christoph
Schlingensief s
Bitte liebt sterreich,
Vienna, accc.
Photo: Paul Poet
the new vi rtuosi ty
31
Christoph
Schlingensief s
zcc Jahre CDU,
Berlin, ..
Photo: David Baltzer
ing a widened concept of theater (a formulation reminiscent of Joseph Beuyss wid-
ened concept of art). His task is to transform life into theater or as Schlingensief
himself puts it to re-stage the staging of reality.
32
Schlingensief always tries to speak out and go beyond any concept of political
correctness, not as a simple provocation but rather as a challenge to the mechanisms,
ideologies, and taboos he breaks. One of these taboos, at least for Germany and its
neighbors, is to open the stage to neo-Nazis and skinheads. And that is exactly what
Schlingensief did in his acc. Hamlet in Zurich. Here my argument concludes where it
began: the question of recent German history and the interrelations of Nazis, repre-
sentation, virtuosity, and politics. If Pollesch discusses the impossibility of actors rep-
resenting Nazis in his dialogue, and whereas Castorf uses actors to represent Nazis by
employing every virtuosic means of preventing illusion, then Schlingensief does some-
thing signicantly dierent: He does not have actors representing Nazis, but he does
make neo-Nazis represent actors. In the acc. production, the actors among Shake-
brandl-ri si
32
speares dramatis personae were nonprofessionals: West German neo-Nazis willing to
withdraw from their extremist background. Beyond the simple staging of the drama,
the project makes public interventions: Schlingensief and Torsten Lemmer, one of the
neo-Nazis, founded an organization for neo-Nazis willing to renounce their belief sys-
tem. Schlingensief also interfered in Swiss home aairs and started a campaign for
banning the right-wing nationalist Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), which correctly identi-
ed as one of its enemies the Zurich Schauspielhaus and also sought to prevent the pre-
miere. (Christoph Marthaler was artistic director of the Schauspielhaus at the time.)
Schlingensief s staging also raises questions about the relation between the-
ater and politics, especially theaters relation to the Nazi regime, by replaying and
thus pointing to the eras aesthetics. Schlingensief does not stage Shakespeares play
(whatever that would have looked like) but rather stages Gustaf Grndgenss staging of
Shakespeares play and his portrayal of what Grndgens called his most important role.
Grndgens, one of the most inuential directors of German theater in the twentieth
century and an admired virtuoso actor, was artistic director of the Prussian State The-
ater in Berlin from . to . and has been accused by the emigrant Fritz Kortner of
cultivating the Reichskanzleistil (Reich Chancellery Style), pointing to his entan-
glement with power. Schlingensief s version of Hamlet uses soundtrack recordings of
Grndgens and his mise-en-scne of Hamlet, sometimes through vocally redoubling
the taped voices and sometimes through playback. Sebastian Rudolph, in the role of
Hamlet, seems to be a revenant of Gustaf Grndgens in the .6 Hamlet, wearing a
costume resembling Grndgenss original, adopting the earlier actors trademark poses
and movement style as well as imitating the virtuosic quirks and peculiarities for which
Grndgens became famous.
As Jrg Wiesel has shown, Schlingensief s decision to do this production at the
Zurich Schauspielhaus was especially convincing because between . and . the
theater became home to all those emigrants from Nazi Germany who then tried to
establish their own theatrical style, directed against the representative Reich Chancel-
lery Style relying on more quiet and intimate play.
33
(The reference to Grndgenss
.6a staging further reveals the startling aesthetic continuity between the state theater
Grndgens cultivated between . and . and the artistic approaches of his inuen-
tial position in postwar Western Germany.)
In a scenario with a deliberately unclear structure, the relation among theater,
politics, representation, and the issues of virtuosity and imperfection gets vertiginous.
Consider political actions like the directors agitation against the nationalist party and
his public welcome of the neo-Nazis when they arrived at Zurichs main station, on
one hand; on another, the inclusion of the neo-Nazis in the theatrical staging itself; the
dialogue between the nonperfect nonprofessionals and the perfect professionals; the
necessary imperfection in the replaying of a historical performance; the citation, rep-
resentation, and reection upon Grndgens; or the virtuosity of Sebastian Rudolphs
the new vi rtuosi ty
33
mimicking of Grndgenss earlier virtuosity. Ultimately, there is the moment in the
performance when Schlingensief seems to cede the stage to the neo-Nazis singing
an unbearably dull hymn to Germany from the neo-Nazis musical repertoire. When
the music and lyrics of skinhead rock take over the stage, no counterbalance remains
in sight. Can we stand such a situation? This is the moment when the performance
becomes uncontrollable, audience members revolt against what they see and hear and
start to boo and yell against the neo-Nazis onstage, who scream back, resulting in a
general melee.
Vi rtuosi ty and the Poli ti cs of Representati on
Paolo Virno, the Italian philosopher and former activist, argues that virtuosity in
a broader philosophical meaning has two main characteristics: it is an activity
without a nished product, and it requires the presence of others.
34
This formulation
could dene theater or performing arts, but it applies, in Virnos context, to the ser-
vice economy of post-Fordist production: activity nds its purpose within itself and
requires extensive collaboration a new prototype for wage labor. In Virnos sense,
virtuosity refers to communications and linguistic competence. Pushing this juxtaposi-
tion further, what might it mean for theater in post-Fordist or service economies? In
other words, how might a performance an activity-without-a-nished-work dier
from other forms of service or immaterial labor? If the service economy brings steady
pressure to perform intelligent communications and to be creative, what is at stake
for theater? Once a unique quality requiring a singularly gifted individual, virtuos-
ity might be seen as an economic momentum. As immaterial production, intellectual
labor requires virtuosity, but transforms it into servility. Virno asks if virtuoso qualities
can be used in a nonservile way, and whether a general intellect can be freed from wage
labor and act as momentum for political action.
Surely Ren Pollesch (and the other directors discussed here) would reject the
notion of artist as activist, but he does overtly and actively claim political responsi-
bility. Although the Volksbhne, home to the majority of the productions mentioned
in this essay, engages in community work such as theater projects for underprivileged
youngsters or mobile theater vans that travel to the suburbs of Berlin, the artists aes-
thetic decision is to work within the institution of professional theater, with profes-
sional actors in a stable, established playhouse. The Volksbhne is regarded as one of
Germanys most important theaters, funded with a remarkable amount of money by
the city of Berlin.
If you were to take everything that you hear in one of these productions seriously,
it could become unbearable, but there is no naturalism employed in what you encoun-
ter. It is virtuoso theater, amusing and explosive, while at the same time serious and
ironic, comical and political. Social criticism in a bourgeois format disgusts Pollesch,
brandl-ri si
34
who has said: The problem is that political theater is still being produced as a the-
ater of representation, in which criticism is based upon agreement but does not have
a critical attitude within the process of production.
35
Accordingly, he aims to reect
actual cultural market mechanisms in the context of neoliberalism, especially the role
of the artist as an exemplary worker. Pollesch adds: We are willing to exploit ourselves
totally and to fulll the maximum requirements. Furthermore, we sell our subjectivity
as a product in theater. The question is: Where are the practices of resistance?
36
As
Patrick Primavesi has claimed, Pollesch does not see himself in the tradition of politi-
cal theater (in the tradition of, say, Brecht), but he wants to make theater political, that
is, to make theater in a political way.
In each performance you witness a very specic multiplication of virtuosities as a
critique of virtuosity: It is outperforming and imperfection, talking about it and doing
it. His aesthetic program shows virtuosity of language as well as virtuosity of imma-
terial production (acting as a form of immaterial labor) on subjects dealing with this
immaterial or servile labor, from the prostitute to the oce assistant. By intermingling
style and practice, the performances perform and represent the virtuosity of immaterial
production in a critique of contemporary concepts of labor.
If, as Virno proposes, virtuosity requires the presence of others acting in a vir-
tuoso manner and perceiving each other as such, then what kind of community does
virtuoso theater create? Polleschs short-lived themes and stylistic limitations have been
much criticized, as has the fact that his audience appears to belong to some sort of club
culture, consisting almost completely of insiders (fellow performers and artists, jour-
nalists, theater scholars). While this is true to some extent, his theater is not a matter
of preaching to the converted but an attempt to proliferate ideas about alternative
communicative spaces and about theaters responsibility within social and political life.
By putting events and circumstances shaping our daily lives into alternative contexts,
Polleschs performances open up a space in which communicative abilities are acted
out; they convey an idea of what nonservile virtuosity and a new mode for political
action might be.
The problem is, it is still theater Pollesch is producing, not political action of
the kind Schlingensief created to challenge the political establishment in Chance :ccc.
Where is the subversive potential? In the artists virtuosity, a connection between sub-
version and subvention becomes evident. A certain degree of professionalism guar-
antees that this theater will serve as a reliable space, where not everyone is playing
theater a reassuring feeling in light of the general theatricalization of everyday life.
Institutional limitations reduce the possibilities of realizing Virnos call for embracing
the revolutionary potential of a new virtuosity.
the new vi rtuosi ty
35
Sati ri c Postscri pt
Germany, February acc6: A theatrical scandal shakes the country Gerhard Stadel-
maier, a notoriously conservative theater critic from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zei-
tung, was attacked by an actor during the premiere of Ionescos Jeux de massacre at the
Schauspiel Frankfurt, a production by Sebastian Hartmann, one of the directors who
has been frequently working at the Volksbhne Berlin. The actor, Thomas Lawinky,
interrupted his execution of the mise-en-scne to address the critic directly by throw-
ing a swan (a prop) onto his lap, and then grabbed Stadelmaiers notebook and insulted
him. After the critic had left the auditorium under protest, the mayor of the city of
Frankfurt made the artistic director of Schauspiel Frankfurt dismiss the actor. The
critic expressed his feelings of being violated and humiliated and, being infamous for
his rejection of any violation of the fourth wall, declared the actors breaking character
to be an actionable violation of the theatrical contract. Yes, there is still a long way to
go, but training virtuosity might well be a rst step in the right direction.
Notes
.. My research is carried out within a larger project on virtuositys place in Western
conceptualizations of agency, a collaborative research project on the notion of
virtuosity under the title The Virtuosos Stage: Performance at the Limit, within
the interdisciplinary research project (Sonderforschungsbereich) Kulturen des
Performativen at the Freie Universitt Berlin. See www.sf b-performativ.de/seiten/
b.a_vorhaben_engl.html. I would like to thank Gabriele Brandstetter, Kai van Eikels,
Lucia Ruprecht, and Hans-Friedrich Bormann as well as Christel Weiler and Jens
Roselt for their discussions and comments.
a. Carl Hegemann, Das Theater retten, indem man es abschat? Oder: Die Signikanz
des Theaters, in Pldoyer fr die unglckliche Liebe: Texte ber Paradoxien des Theaters,
z,8c :cc, ed. Sandra Umathum (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, acc), .a. All quotations
from German texts are my translation.
. A more elaborate account of the historical and theoretical aspects of virtuosity can
be found in Gabriele Brandstetter, Die Szene des Virtuosen: Zu einem Topos von
Theatralitt, Hofmannsthal-Jahrbuch .c (acca): a. , and Bettina Brandl-Risi,
Virtuositt, in Metzler Lexikon Theatertheorie, ed. Erika Fischer-Lichte, Doris Kolesch,
and Matthias Warstat (Stuttgart: Metzler, acc), a .
. The historical concept of virtuosity in theater is discussed by Jrg Wiesel in Zwischen
Knig und Konstitution: Der Krper der Monarchie vor dem Gesetz des Theaters (Vienna:
Passagen, acc.).
. Shawn-Marie Garrett, The Awkward Age: New Yorks New Experimental Theater,
Theater ., no. a (acc.): .
6. Yet a dierent focus on bodily imperfection stimulates Doris Koleschs considerations
of the aesthetic quality of other bodies onstage. Her concept of the imperfect
brandl-ri si
36
draws onto the fundamental imperfect of the human, in its duplicity of a body
being faulty, not normal, disabled, and simultaneously (in the linguistic sense of an
unnished past) pointing to lifes historicity itself, which may never be completed (das
Unabschliebare), and nally indicating theaters status as transitory form of art.
Koleschs main interest is those bodies which dier from a notion of perfection because
of their age (actor Marianne Hoppe in her late eighties or aging dancers) or because of
specic qualities (Socetas Raaello Sanzios use of obese and anorexic actors, of bodies
lacking extremities or wearing signs of surgery). Cf. Doris Kolesch, Imperfekt: Zur
sthetik anderer Krper auf der Bhne, in Einbildungen, interventionen ., ed. Jrg
Huber (Zrich: Edition Voldemeer, acc), . ac6.
,. See Jens Roselt, An den Rndern der Darstellung: Ein Aspekt von Schauspielkunst
heute, in Seelen mit Methode: Schauspieltheorien vom Barock-bis zum postdramatischen
Theater, ed. J. Roselt (Berlin: Alexander, acc), ,6 c. Roselt is one of the few critics
also addressing the status of the actor in the so-called postdramatic theater, referring
to the concept of virtuosity only as far as the virtuoso potential for transformation in
dramatic theater and the virtuoso body instruments of the actors are concerned. See Jens
Roselt, In Ausnahmezustnden: Schauspieler im postdramatischen Theater, in Theater
frs :z. Jahrhundert, Text + Kritik no. .. (Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, acc), .66 ,6.
. Ren Pollesch, Drei hysterische Frauen/Three Hysterical Women/Trois Femmes
Hysteriques (Reinbek: Rowohlt Theater Verlag, .), . a.
. Ren Pollesch, Heidi Hoh (Reinbek: Rowohlt Theater Verlag, .), .
.c. See Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater: Essay (Frankfurt am Main:
Verlag der Autoren, .), a.6.
... Pollesch, Drei hysterische Frauen, a.
.a. Ren Pollesch, Insourcing des Zuhause: Menschen in Scheiss-Hotels, in Wohnfront
:ccz :cc:: Volksbhne im Prater; Dokumentation der Spielzeit, :ccz :cc:, ed. Bettina
Masuch (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, acca), ..
.. Ren Pollesch, quoted in Bettina Brandl-Risi, Verzweiung sieht nur live wirklich
gut aus: Ren Pollesch, in Stck-Werk : Neue deutschsprachige Dramatik; Arbeitsbuch, ed.
Christel Weiler and Harald Mller (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, acc.), ...
.. Pollesch, Heidi Hoh, , .
.. See Diedrich Diederichsen, Denn sie wissen, was sie nicht leben wollen: Das
kulturtheoretische Theater des Ren Pollesch, Theater heute, March acca, 6 6.
.6. Ibid., 6..
.,. Pollesch, Pablo in der Plusliale, in Zeltsaga: Ren Polleschs Theater, :cc :cc,, ed.
Lenore Blievernicht (Berlin: Synwolt Verlag, acc), ..
.. Frank Castorf, quoted in Sandra Umathum, Ich geb euch kein Leitbild! Christoph
Schlingensiefs Volksbhnenberschreitungen, in Zehn Jahre Volksbhne: Intendanz
Frank Castorf, ed. Thomas Irmer and Harald Mller (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, acc),
,a.
.. Frank Castorf, quoted in Thomas Irmer, Leitbild, Glauben, Depression und
Erniedrigung: Frank Castorfs Volksbhnenarbeit ab Mitte der neunziger Jahre, in
Irmer and Mller, Zehn Jahre Volksbhne, a.
the new vi rtuosi ty
37
ac. Gitta Honegger, Theater in Berlin: Last Stop. Amerika and the Volksbhne
Experience, Plus New Voices and Ekkehard Schall, Theater a, no. (acca): ..
a.. Robin Detje, Castorf: Provokation aus Prinzip (Berlin: Henschel, acca), .,c.
aa. Ibid., a.
a. Klaus Dermutz, Christoph Marthaler: Die einsamen Menschen sind die besonderen
Menschen (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, accc), ..
a. Matthias Lilienthal, Eine untergegangene Welt ein letztes Mal imaginieren, in
Dermutz, Christoph Marthaler, .a.
a. Ibid., .ac.
a6. Olivia Grigolli, quoted in Man hat gesagt, er ist ein Spinner: Gesprch mit der
Schauspielerin Olivia Grigolli, in Dermutz, Christoph Marthaler, ...
a,. Christoph Marthaler, Ruf der Wildnis oder Ein besserer Herr, quoted in Dermutz,
Christoph Marthaler, a.
a. Carl Hegemann, Schle. und Schli., in Umathum, Pldoyer fr die unglckliche Liebe,
.c.
a. Christoph Schlingensief, quoted in Umathum, Ich geb euch kein Leitbild! , ,..
c. Christoph Schlingensief, quoted in ibid., ,.
.. Carl Hegemann, quoted in ibid., ,6.
a. Christoph Schlingensief, quoted in Schlingensief! Notruf fr Deutschland: ber die
Mission, das Theater und die Welt des Christoph Schlingensief, ed. Julia Lochte and Wilfried
Schulz (Hamburg: Rotbuch, .), .
. Regarding Schlingensief s complex dialogue with the Hamlet of Grndgens, see
Jrg Wiesel, Reich Chancellery Style in Switzerland: Christoph Schlingensief s
Hamlet, Western European Stages ., no. (acc.): . The production, in all its public
resonance, has been documented in a Suhrkamp publication: Thekla Heineke and
Sandra Umathum, eds., Christoph Schlingensief s Nazis Rein/Torsten Lemmer in Nazis raus
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, acca).
. Paolo Virno, Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus, in
Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, .6), . a.c. See also Paolo Virno, A
Grammar of the Multitude: For an Analysis of Contemporary Forms of Life (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, acc), , ,..
. Ren Pollesch, quoted in Wir sind ja oft so glcklich, wenn wir berhaupt
Reaktionen bekommen: Ein Gesprch zwischen Ren Pollesch und Theaterformen
acc/REpublicACTION, in Blievernicht, Zeltsaga, .c.
6. Ren Pollesch, quoted in Patrick Primavesi, Beute-Stadt, nach Brecht: Heterotopien
des Theaters bei Ren Pollesch, Brecht-Jahrbuch a (acc): ,a ,.