NUDITY! FAIRIES! QUEENS! HITLER! AND A LIVE CHICKEN!
This is what you get when you see the Berliner Ensemble's rep production of George Tabori'sMein Kampf. No this is not the infamous A. Hitler's Mein Kampf (My struggle/fight), though you will find him onstage here...in one form or another. Entering the Probühne behind the main playing house of the BE, an actor is sweeping the stage under a sweeping ceiling scrim. The play starts with a snow storm upstage accompanied by sweeping music. Here is where the sweeping stops. Tabori's "kampf" is that his FARCE gets bogged down with tedious, high brow German humor and only finds traces of farcical style that will "kampf" its way in later in the evening.
As the play begins Shlomo Hertzl and Lobkowitz chat about Shlomo's book and settle on the title Mein Kampf as Adolph hitler arrives in traditional Austrian attire looking for a place to stay. He insults the two Jewish men, but the diatribe is generally light hearted and he is offered a bed to sleep in. Hitler goes to look for a job--without pants, thanks to Sholmo--and is disappointed when no one will give him employment. The following day, Hitler is sent out of the house while Schlomo receives a visit from his close friend Gretchen who arrives and promptly removes all her clothing. Schlomo resists any contact because of his religious guilt, even when Gretchen offers him the opportunity to fondle her hymen. Soon we realize that the two are good friends as Gretchen offers him a gift of a live chicken, Mitzi.
Here is where the performance began to show its slack for me. I've always been told that when you put a live animal on stage it immediately distracts from the action going on, so I decided that now would be a good time to test this theory. Results: chickens like to shit, alot. They also have four talons on each foot. They are not particularly frightened by people though they prefer to stay away from bright lights. Perhaps animals on stage do provide some solace to theatergoers not prolific in the language of the play.
In the second act Death comes to visit. In this play Death is a real Drag--literally a drag queen in this production--and she comes to collect Hilter. He manages to escape because he happens to be in the bathroom "taking, apparently, the hardest shit since Luther saw the devil in the privy." Death leaves vowing to return, and in the next and final scene, Schlomo awakens to a dream in which Hitler, Gretchen, and five Hitler like henchman present him breakfast in bed and ask for his completed book, Mein Kampf. Schlomo cannot produce the book because he hasn't yet written it and as payback for his shortfall, the one of the Hitlers prepares "Mitzi Schnitzel" in a monologue that combines home cooking shows and torture in a hilariously dark and uncomfortable performance. Death returns just in time to take Hitler away and the play ends as Lobkowitz returns, takes a bite of chicken, and makes a crucifixion joke.
Hitler is certainly a hot topic for any visitor to Germany, and this play afforded me many opportunities to think about how he is portrayed. In the play he was often times depicted as a fool--from drinking/spilling problems to choking fits and ridiculous noise making. Quite regularly Hitler was played as Homosexual as well--whether stomping in his long johns or "short shorts" or wrapping his legs around Schlomo with slight thrusts whilst he gets a shave. Somewhere in all this I was led to believe that perhaps Germans really enjoy watching Hitler mocked and made fun of--hell I was right there with him. I couldn't help feeling a little bad for the actor--talented though he is--who must daily walk the streets of Berlin resembling the leader of the third Reich.
During intermission, I spoke to the girl sitting next to me who happened to be the prompter for this production. I was fascinated to hear that at every production of the Berliner Ensemble a prompter sits in the first row and follows along the script. Often the actors help each other on stage, but in the case of complete forgetfulness, this prompter will actually call out a line (or perhaps mouth it?). In any case, this fact only reinforced my fascination with the fantastic company that is the BE. Each play is only produced three to four times a month and it must take an incredible crew to make the daily changes necessary in sets, lights, costume transport, signage and advertisement, and overall mentality. Not to mention the actors. In the four plays I've seen here now, I've managed to make connections of an actor to another show in each different production. The intricate web of jobs must be an amazing one, and no easy feat to carry out so as not to run into any problems. I truly admire their system, especially when considering the quality of their work.
Having read Tabori's Mein Kampf I know that it is rich in humor and allusion. I know that in the end their are connections made between the Jewish faith and people and their involvement in Hitler gaining power despite their strength. I know that the play is deeply touching and ultimately silly. Farce is the form that I understand this play to be on paper, but something about the energy coming from the actors (and from the audience, to be fair) didn't bring this play to the heightened level at which it could have been performed. Everything felt and looked very late 1920's/early 1930's but when Schlomo pulled out a modern electronic thermometer to take Hitler's temperature, I shouldn't have spent more than five seconds pondering why this prop stuck out among the fairly consistent design up to this point. Somewhere among the numerous captivating directing choices, the director lost his sense of farcical edge and depended too much on the language without directing the action. The result resulted in moments of flat performance.
I'm always taken for a ride during curtain calls in Germany. No matter the quality of the production (at least as far as I have seen), the audience claps in apparent appreciation for at least three minutes solid--sometimes more like eight--and the actors, in turn bow over and over collectively and always individually as well. In this sense, German theater is hugely a give and take relationship between actor and audience, and that is of the utmost importance for theater in my opinion. So, as I clapped for a good five minutes, I held back emotional tears not necessarily for the play, but for the respect the players and their patrons had for each other.
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