I'm with the Village Voice

A GIANT Message for Berliners

No longer able to make my way through the crowded streets of Unter Den Linden on my bike, I lean it against a building and set out on foot through the hoards of people sporting accessories from strollers to canes. I can't help but feel a sense of honor to be walking among thousands of people who came together to see a piece of theater. The power that this art has on the citizens of Berlin is evident as I inch by under the Linden trees that the street is named for. A sense of excitement and anticipation is building as the climactic moment approaches. Not knowing exactly what or when this moment would be is pleasantly putting me over the edge. I need to know.

I get off the now stand still street and after taking a side street to get around Pariser Platz (the Plaza where the Brandenburg Gate stands) I find another crowd of people behind a barricade. With one flash of my press pass, I am welcomed through the gate. Looking back at the curious Berliners stuck behind the metal barricade I can't help but feel a sense of irony in keeping the crowd of Germans behind a wall amidst the festivity. Practically alone on the empty street, I work my way to the press stand. The crowds are thick around Brandenburg Gate, but my spot up high in the press booth allows me a clear view of the entire west side of the plaza and the thousands of people gathered there.

The Berliner Festspiel invited the premiere French theater company Royal de Luxe to bring their "creation theater" to the streets of Berlin as a gift to the city and as part of the city's 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Royal de Luxe, founded and directed by Jean Luc Courcoult, has been creating street theater for over thirty years around the world. The company chooses to bring their theater to public places because of their belief that people can be touched more easily in the street than they can inside a theater. For their production in Berlin, Royal de Luxe created a fairy tale in which two giants--the Little Giantess and her uncle The Deep Sea Diver--reunite after being separated by land and sea monsters who wall up the city. The two giants will travel through the streets of the city for four days at the beginning of October. This, the third day of the performance, is German Unification Day and also the day that the giants meet along their journeys.

From high above the crowd, nothing seems to be happening and no giant puppets are in sight. Finally after about half an hour and as the wind picks up chilling us all under darkening and threatening skies, the video display in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate shows us live feed of the giants beginning to wake from their naps and move down the streets. Approaching from the East is the Little Giant, and on my side of the gate, the Big Giant is slowly walking down Straße de 17 Juni from the Tiergarten of the west.

As the Big Giant works his way into my view, I finally get a good view of how these gigantic puppets move. Over 30 people are involved in making the 30 foot tall, 2.5 ton Deep Sea Diver puppet walk. For each step he takes, TWO "Lilliputians" (these are the Royal de Luxe actors/puppet masters dressed in red velvet uniform) must jump from a platform 5 feet off the ground hanging from the lines that lift his size 45 feet. He moves at about 1 km/h. Each giant has about 20 different lines connected to pulleys that the Lilliputians use to control their various body parts. I do love a good pulley. The most impressive and life-like feature of these puppets is their terrifyingly realistic eye movements. Not a moment went by when either giant forgot to blink or wasn't completely informed about their emotional state through their eye movement or gaze. The sparkle in the giants' eyes combined with their amazingly agile movements left me with no doubt--at least during the "performance"--that these giants were real. And damn good actors.

Finally, the Big Giant arrives in front of the gate with great fanfare--literally, a live band follows behind him on a mobile bandstand filling our ears with the original orchestrations for the reunion of the long separated giants. Next, the Little Giant comes into view as she walks (a bit more quickly than her larger uncle) through the Brandenburg Gate. As she does so, I come to realize the actual implication of what is happening here. Just over 20 years ago, what this fictional giant-little girl was doing was not possible. Many--if not most--of the people in the crowd here today remember this time. Perhaps the events of today are moving to me, but I cannot imagine the emotions the long time residents of Berlin must be going through.

With the two giants now reunited, the celebration began. I suppose I should have expected it, but as Thriller blasts over the loudspeakers and the Big Giant is persuaded by his Lilliputians to moonwalk, I realize that Jackson mania is still everywhere--even in Germany. The Little Giant did her own dance routine, and then this section of the fairy tale ended with the Little Giant coming to rest on the lap of her uncle, the Big Giant.

At the end of the day I realized that while the giants had been utterly fascinating, perhaps more interesting to me were the masses of people who gathered around these strange oversize creatures to witness a story that was created just for them as a fairy tale version of their own experiences. No one went through any violence or persecution today, but the emotional needs of the giant characters and of Berliners provide the same message--one of hope, love, healing, and connection. The giants came together fantastically in their tale, just as East and West Germany did twenty years ago, and just as we did today.