Here is a link to Milo Rau’s first official theory book translated from German into Dutch, French, and English: Global Realism. If you are interested in Milo Rau’s work and annoyed by the lack of English-language material (especially English-language material by/from Rau), then this is for you. The book is available in paper copy and as an ebook (so you can access it anywhere in the world). Also included is a link to the second Golden Book for the production premiering this evening, The Ghent Altarpiece (Lam Gods).
“The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” -Hegel
The following post is about the controversy and actions surrounding the initially cancelled but now de-cancelled/upcoming production Kanata, a joint project between the internationally acclaimed Canadian theatre director Robert Lepage and Paris’s Théâtre du Soleil, an organization headed by the grand dame of French theatre Ariane Mnouchkine. The initial controversy surrounding the production began – or came to the fore in the Canadian press – in July. The production was to be about the history of Canada read through the lens of the troubled relationship between the Indigenous people and the white, European colonizers. The key issue that would eventually lead to the cancellation of the show was the exclusion of Indigenous actors and input, however, four days ago it was announced the show would indeed go forward in Paris with a premiere set for December 15, 2018 with no plans announced (as of yet) for performances in Canada.
Kanata, Photo credit: Michèle Laurent
In preparation for the production Indigenous peoples were consulted to document the show and video testimonies from interviews were to be integrated into the show, however, there would be no Indigenous actors in the production. Concerned Indigenous artists and activists voiced their apprehensions about how the production would deal with themes such as the residential school system and missing and murdered Indigenous women. These, and their other concerns, stemmed from the total absence of Indigenous performers to be involved in the production, which, when one takes into consideration precisely the history that Kanata proposes to investigate, is understandable. The intent of the artists and activists was, by all accounts[i], not to have the show cancelled, but to have at least a few Indigenous actors included in the cast: Give the community the opportunity to tell their own story and to have a (visible) place in their history.
In the aftermath of the cancellation a new question emerged:
Cultural appropriation or artistic censorship?
On the side of artistic censorship (also the line taken by much of the French press), Mnouchkine stated, “The art of the actor is precisely to become the other […] Hamlet does not need to be Danish […] theatre needs distance”, and cried censorship and intimidation in the wake of the cancellation. [ii]
On the side of cultural appropriation, the Montreal Urban Aboriginal Community Strategy Network said in a statement that “First Nations are the stewards and owners of their own stories and information” and the open letter to Lepage and Mnouchkine said, “What we want is for our talents to be recognized, to be celebrated today and in the future because WE ART” [“Ce que nous voulons, c’est que nos talents soient reconnus, qu’ils soient célébrés aujourd’hui et dans le futur, car NOUS SOMMES”].[iii]
Initially, I decided not to write about the Kanata controversy, not because I didn’t have
Ariane Mnouchkine
an opinion but because I was concerned what it meant to add yet another white voice to the argument. But as the story progressed, I was increasingly underwhelmed and disappointed by Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil’s response to what was happening. It struck me as ignorant to 200 years of history and to a number of discursive shifts that have taken place over (particularly) the past ten years. The most significant of which being the concept of decolonization itself.
In the wake of the cancellation, amid cries of artistic censorship and the apparent threat to theatrical democracy, Mnouchkine swore “to respond, with the non-violent weapons of theatrical art, to this attempt of definitive intimidation of the theatre artists” [“de répondre, avec les armes non violentes de l’art théâtral, à cette tentative d’intimidation définitive des artistes de théâtre”].[iv] Two days ago, an article from La Presse announced that Kanata would indeed be presented at Paris’s Festival d’automne but under the new title Kanata – Episode I – La Controverse.
Mnouchkine has repeatedly referred to a baseless pre-judgement of the production: “after a deluge of trials of intent, each more insulting than the next, they cannot and must not accept to comply with the verdict of a multitudinous and self-proclaimed jury which, stubbornly refusing to examine the one and only piece of evidence that counts, that is to say the work itself”. So, I will make it clear here that I am not and cannot – for the very reason Mnouchkine says – judge or respond to the production itself. But, I am neither particularly interested in the production itself, nor am I responding to it, I am responding to Théâtre du Soleil’s (and to a lesser extent Ex Machina’s) dismal response to the controversy, because it signifies a fundamental failure to understand or try to understand the arguments of Indigenous artists and the continued discrimination of Indigenous persons. And in the spirit of this form of criticism and in response to the so-called “ideological intimidation in the form of guilt articles, or accusatory imprecations, most often anonymous, on social networks” [“d’intimidation idéologique en forme d’articles culpabilisants, ou d’imprécations accusatrices, le plus souvent anonymes, sur les réseaux sociaux”],[v] although I am certain no one from Théâtre du Soleil or Ex Machina (two companies whose work I do enjoy and two directors I have nothing but the deepest respect for) will read this, should they, I invite them and anyone else to contact me, I am more than happy to engage and discuss. And like the response from Canada’s Indigenous community, this is an attempt at discussion and dialogue, not an ideological attack.
The response by Mnouchkine, Théâtre du Soleil and Lepage is, in my opinion, based on a fundamental (and rather European) misunderstanding of colonialism. The thing that is very easy to ignore if you are living at a distance from former colonies and colonized (i.e., oppressed) people – although many Canadians and Americans also blind themselves from it – is that colonialism does not simply end when the colonizers leave or when we declare that we’ve entered a postcolonial age/world from within the walls of our ivory towers, it – much like a cockroach after a nuclear war – remains. But we have not entered a post-colonial age. Colonial structures and systems remain firmly in place, the insidious effects of colonial mindsets and concepts endure, and the accepted historical narrative and literature is still overwhelmingly white and colonial (although this is starting to shift and it is my firm belief that the future of Canadian literature and literary scholarship is Indigenous and queer led by Billy-Ray Belcourt). The fractures left by colonialism continue to be experienced not just in Canada, but across the globe – and this is to say nothing of the neo-colonial policies that serve as the foundation Western economies are built upon. By excluding Indigenous artists and by blatantly ignoring the chorus of Indigenous voices, Kanata cannot present a new rereading – as promised in the project description[vi] – instead, it will inevitably be just another white reading of our (Canadian) colonial past, placing the voices and experiences of the Indigenous population on the side.
As evidenced by the language in Théâtre du Soleil’s recent press release and with the cries of artistic censorship, victimhood has taken on a key aspect of their response. However, the claim of victimhood overlooks a fundamental power disbalance: first, funding. In the updated description of Kanata, it describes the production as “the framework for an encounter between two giants of today’s theatre”[vii] and they are not mistaken. Mnouchkine is a giant of the European and international theatrical landscape, as is the Canadian-born Lepage. Lepage, as a Canadian, has left an indelible mark on contemporary global theatre. It is impossible to work as a Canadian theatre-maker in
Robert Lepage
Europe without having an opinion about Lepage’s work. Both artists have received and will continue for the foreseeable future numerous multi-million dollar and euro government and other grants to produce their work. This relative wealth of funding stands in stark contrast to the much smaller pool available to Canadian Indigenous artists creating and producing work about their communities or just producing any sort of work.
The narrative of victimization is interesting is that it situates two people in a position of power as the victims of an oppressed and unrepresented group of people – a strikingly shortsighted analysis of events. It ignores the privilege afforded to these theatre-makers, which is precisely what allows them the freedom to create this and other shows. It ignores that both Mnouchkine and Lepage have had multi-million dollar careers that spread across decades and are afforded massive amounts of freedom both financially and creatively. These are all privileges that have not been given to most Indigenous artists. But something beautiful also emerges from the conflict it signals that for the first-time a (relatively) large united community of Canadian Indigenous artists are standing and working together and – and this is the important part – being heard and gaining some support from the wider community.
We witness two powerful white directors crying “Help! Help! We’re being oppressed!” completely void of irony. It is problematic because it ignores the question of agency. Although Mnouchkine/Lepage do see this as an issue of representation, they refuse to see it also as an issue of historiography. They hear the request of a group of people but do not listen to their struggle and situation – a community who have been denied the opportunity and right to write their own history, to tell their own stories. Instead, Mnouchkine and Lepage (at times with cringingly colonial language) look at the situation with a stubbornly European gaze demanding, “Why can’t they understand we can tell it better?!” It cries censorship without recognizing by refusing to listen and integrate Indigenous performers they are in fact guilty of censorship. This is about narrative agency and narrative representation – the right to tell your own story and be present in it – and the privilege extended to one group – white European theatre-makers – to once again take away this narrative agency from a group who have never truly been afforded this agency.
We must ask in the context of theatre:
Who has the right to tell and represent a community’s history?
Returning to Mnouchkine’s earlier quote about Hamlet not necessarily needing to be portrayed a Dane: In the case of Hamlet I am apt to agree, but we are not talking about Hamlet or Danish actors. We are talking about a group of people still very much oppressed and subject to systemic racism. People who were the object of a century-long campaign attempting to destroy them, their language, their culture, and their lives. We are talking about a history that exceeds the 200 years of Canada, we are talking about a cultural genocide that tore families apart (and continues to do so), we are talking about residential schools that existed well into the 90s in Canada, we are talking about a reserve system that denies people the right to live with access to clean water, we are talking about the systemic racism that remains extremely and explicitly prevalent in Canada today, we are talking about a history dominated by white voices, white words, and white representations.
The overwhelming sentiment from Indigenous artists and activists across Canada highlight that this as an issue of representation (and the letter published in Le Devoir explains this better than I ever could[viii]). their story should finally be told by them and not by another white person in a position of power. Kevin Loring, the Nlaka’pamux playwright, actor and director who wrote an open letter regarding Kanata, explains Indigenous people have endured decades of oppression, which includes representation in film, television, and novels, representations written by people with no or little understanding of the Indigenous realities and histories: “Now, at this time when there are resources for us to tell our own story and we have the capacity, the ability, the desire and the passion to tell our own story […] There are people still trying to tell our story for us. And I think we’re just at a point where we are done with that.”[ix]
The response from Mnouchkine has unfortunately overwhelming reeked of that old colonial (at times racist) rhetoric: one that is particularly troubling relates to a show her company did in Cambodia similar to the proposed Kanata about their history and the Cambodians “recognized its truth”[x]. The overlaying argument from the two artists is that theatre requires distance and watching someone else tell your story can provide a sense of catharsis – a sentiment that ignores the fact Indigenous people have not been given the opportunity to tell their own story. However, the argument for this particular form of colorblind casting is that it just ignores so much of what we know about privilege and the politics of representation, because representation is so important. This is also a me too of sorts, but in the sense that we too deserve our voice to be heard, we too have a story and we demand the right to tell our story. We are living in a 2018 world – whatever that might mean – and our theatre must respond to this, because theatre is about responding to the world around us, taking into consideration those changes – political, social, and ideological – to take part in the existing and shifting discourse.
In the conflict surrounding Kanata, there is a strange refusal to take part in a dialogue about the politics of representation in the slow beginning of decolonialism in Canada (although I want to point out that Canada is at a very shaky start of this process and it is, of course, riddled with uncertainty about what comes next). Mnouchkine and Lepage have taken a hardline approach to what theatre is and refused to budge in spite of everything.
The new description for Kanata states that “it is the duty of the artist to bear witness to the times he or she lives in,” yet the actions of the artistic direction has thus far illustrated a troublingly stubborn blindness to our time: To the slow, imperfect, shaky steps taken towards decolonialism not just in Canada, but across the globe. At the end of the day, we are (often harshly) judged by history and the hard truth is that we seldom end up the heroes of this history. It is difficult for me to understand what I see as a hard-headed and at times almost childish refusal to acknowledge one’s own position of privilege, by the seeming unwillingness to listen, look, and feel what is happening around them and ask why is it happening and what can we do. The sands of time are shifting, we either move with them or are buried beneath them.
As already stated, Kanata is rooted in this fatal misunderstanding of colonialism, because colonialism doesn’t simply “go away” and it hasn’t gone away in either Canada or France. It continues to shape cultural, political, and social relations, but if you refuse to really look at what is happening, to look at and learn from recent history, to listen to what the numerous Indigenous artists and activists have already said so much better than me, it becomes impossible. Oversimplified or even more dangerous a simiplification of the story of another – specifically the story of the Indigenous other placed in the background in yet another white savior story (and I am talking about the process and not the production). To quote Billy-Ray Belcourt, “Today, the world is just beginning,” and there is potential here for better representation, which provides a perspective that has been cut out and excluded for too long. Kanata could be unique in that it had the opportunity to listen to those voices who have carefully stated their concern and create a space for presence. And while the production will almost certainly be a grand spectacle – as Lepage and Mnouchkine always produce grand spectacles – the question is, how will we remember Kanata and what will it be? Will we remember the production as something great or will it be remembered for the artistic direction’s refusal to listen and acknowledge there is power and importance in representation? And I don’t know the answer, because I have not yet seen the “one and only piece of evidence that counts, that is to say the work itself”[xi], and so I – and everyone else – will just have to wait and see.
After much consideration about what I am saying and my argument, I realize the last word cannot belong to me in this argument. I am instead going to use another quote from Billy-Ray Belcourt, an amazing scholar and author and just one of so many examples of the incredible critical and artistic output of Canada’s diverse Indigenous population, specifically from his article “Fatal Naming Rituals” from July 2018 (link to full article at bottom):
“To tell a story of the possibility that swells up even where it is negated requires a sociological eye, an epistemological standpoint, that is borne out of experience, of knowing what it is to be a map to everywhere and nowhere. What’s more, to hear this story of compromised living, of joy against the odds, of the repeatability of a history that lives in the bodies of those who reap the spoils of colonialism, as something more than a “simple” account of a singular life, is to undergo a process of resubjectification, one that requires the abolition of the position of the enemy, the vampire, the one who describes, the settler. You need to read, to listen, and to write from someplace else, from another social locus, a less sovereign one, a less hungry one.“[xii]
Photo Credit: Nigel Blake
Articles about Indigenous Representation by People Much Smarter and Informed than Myself:
The Swiss-German art collective Zentrum für politische Schönheit (ZPS) – Centre for Political Beauty – is known across Germany for the creation of provocative, controversial, and highly political artistic actions.
“Here it is not theatre, it is the reality” – Stefan Pelzer (ZPS)
The collective’s most recent action has constructed a replicate of Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial (the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by Peter Eisenman) next door to AfD[1] politician Björn Höcke’s home. Höcke’s politics are nationalist, (right-wing) populistic, and identitarian[2] – stringent border control, limits to asylum laws, anti-gay marriage, and an advocate of abolishing sections 86 and 130 of the German Criminal Code[3]. There is also significant evidence that Björn Höcke has been writing under the pseudonym Landolf Ladig in support of the alt-right(er) party, the NPD[4] (even more far right than the already far right AfD).
ZPS’s Monument; Photo Credit: Zentrum für politische Schönheit Facebook
The ZPS’s mini-memorial is a direction response to a speech by Höcke given in January 2017 where, in reference to the Holocaust Memorial, he stated, “we Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital” (a statement even controversial among members of AfD, leading him to be called “a burden to the party”). So, ZPS constructed Höcke his very own personal “Memorial of Shame” – sein eigenes Denkmal der Schande – located right next door to his house in Bornhagen, a small village (some 270 people) located on the border of Hesse and Thuringia.
After ten long months of preparation, the action has succeeded in being highly provocative and extremely effective in getting under the skin of Höcke, who recently called the artists “terrorists”.[5] The mini-memorial does provoke – particularly members of the alt-right (the group has received numerous death threats over the past week – but what does this provocation mean in the long term? For me, there is something troubling located within this political performance. The more I watch the event as it unfolds, read media responses, and think about it, the more I must ask: what does this do in the end? What will be the end result?
I, personally, think theatre and art has the ability to change the world, or to instigate real change in the world through a ripple effect, but I am wary of these highly cynical actions.
Provocation is a short game – inescapably and undeniably temporary. A provocation does not remain a provocation, but inevitably eventually slips into something different, such as an expectation or a tourist attraction. Once the audience knows that they will be sworn at every night in a perfomrance they will prepare a response to the performer or enter the theatre with the expectation of being sworn at (as happened with Peter Handke’s Publikumsbeschimpfung in the sixties). Much more difficult is the long game, finding a way to create a sustainable systemic change.
Höcke is indicative of something very – almost unashamedly – broken in the political system, but he is – like Trumpism in the USA and like the AfD’s entry into the German parliament – is a symptom and not the cause. And I do not say this not to reduce
the dangerous stupidity attached to these symptoms, the symptom is also extremely dangerous – death is also a symptom, but it being a symptom does not make you any less dead once you have it. For the long game, the action must not just fight against the symptom but look directly at the root cause.
And, as was the case with Flüchtlings Fressen – which promised to feed refugees to the tigers on Unter den Linden in a Roman style colosseum in a reflection on refugee politics in Germany – there is a clear limit to this form of art: the refugees will never be eaten by the tigers.
We must be careful not to be reductionist and must therefore be careful with the wider implications of political action pieces such as this one. If the 2016 US Presidential has taught us anything, it is that we must take people like Trump – loud, right-wing politicians who speak to the base fears of a specific portion of society – seriously. We must take politicians like Höcke seriously, because they serve to legitimize a specific ideology: a nationalistic, populistic, dangerously nostalgic political ideology (nostalgic as in reaching back for the idyllic, but ultimately unreachable past – a past unreachable, because it never existed as imagined).
Politically active art is undeniably important, and there is certainly something contained within the piece by ZPS – any art that solicits a strong response, positive or negative, has succeeded in something. However, as spectators and participants it comes down to us to ask certain questions about the art/performance.
Photo Credit: Zentrum für politische Schönheit Facebook
What does the performance say about the real Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe? The entire action is a response against Höcke’s statements about it, but doesn’t building a new, mini memorial risk reduce the meaning of the original? What does this re-politicization of the image of the memorial through an ideological transplantation mean?
The entire event can be summarized as a debate about memory politics, specifically the place of memory in the public space. But when we repurpose a monument dedicated to the millions of Jewish victims of National Socialism to agitate and provoke, it runs the risk of reducing the significance of the original, potentially saying something unintendedly dangerous about the original – if the constructino of the reproduction is an unwanted intrusion pushed onto Höcke, doesn’t the action (which is a response to Höcke’s speech against the original) just serve to support what he said about the original?
However…
The ZPS, in preparation, spent ten months watching Höcke and, according to the founding member of the ZPS Phillipp Ruch, they know everything about him: they know when Höcke chops wood, who sends him brochures, where he goes on vacation, and how he sleeps at night.[6] It is precisely this long period of observation that has led Höcke to referring to the ZPS as a terrorist organization (“Whoever does such things is, in my eyes, a terrorist”). There is no shortage of articles from media sources recording Höcke’s statements about the harassment he is undergoing and his victimhood at the hands of the ZPS.
There is no small irony in Höcke – a cis, white, male, conservative – declaring himself to be the victim. There is just a touch of humor that the man now claiming he’s living in fear as the target of “terrorists”, is the mouthpiece of a political discourse that has made life considerably more difficult for millions and encouraged strong anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-refugees, and anti-LGTBQ+ sentiments across Germany. His ideology, his words, and his actions have actively contributed to a massive group of people to have more fear and face real discrimination.
And he demands pity? Pity for twenty-four concrete-blocks next door to his house? Pity for the ten months that the collective watched him in preparation for the event? Pity that his words have come back to haunt him?
Photo Credit: Zentrum für politische Schönheit Facebook
Shockingly, my bleeding-liberal heart does not bleed for this man. Why? Because he is not a victim. And I cannot help but find it immensely funny that he would claim to be the victim – the entire event makes me chuckle. If nothing else, ZPS has succeeded on creating a spectacle of Schadenfreude for leftist artists and intellectuals.
But this does not change the overarching question: What, when the humor subsides, will this event actually do? What does it fundamentally change? And, unfortunately, I am skeptical, because I do not think this Schadenfreude is enough.
I wonder, if, when the laughter dies down, has Höcke simply won the inevitable political gain of increased media attention? (I certainly didn’t know his name until this incident) And as was already made all too clear in the 2016 American presidential election, media attention is its own form of political capital – a little name recognition goes a very long way.
Phillipp Ruch has said: “Art must hurt, aggravate, resist. We aren’t a comfortable space. If people only clap, that’s our nightmare. We make aggressive humanism.”[7] But if art only succeeds in creating a temporary space of discomfort and not long-term change then this aggressive humanism is troublingly impotent. I believe art can foster change and I also believe art needs to be aggressive, but I don’t think I can buy into aggressive humanism.
Too often we become trapped within our own leftist microcosm as artists and left-wing thinkers. For an artistic political intervention to succeed, it must do something that outlives the event itself and escape its self-imposed boundaries. It must
Photo credit: Zentrum für politische Schönheit
reverberate beyond the temporal present and extend its message beyond its spatial eviction (ZPS will likely have to leave the Bornhagen location on December 31, 2017), not be limited to its own liminal spectacle.
For those interested here is a list of articles (mostly in German) about the project as well as a link to the ZPS’s own website:
[1] Alternative for Germany, Germany’s extreme right political party, which now for the first time hold seats in the German parliament
[2] Also called völkisch, racist, and fascist by German political scientists Gero Neugebauer and Hajo Funke.
[3] 86 prohibits the spread of propaganda by unconstitutional organizations, and 130 criminalizes the incitement of hatred towards other groups of the population
How do you create a world parliament? A transnational organization to deal with global problems? In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, why is there no effective organization in dealing with the problems that extend beyond national borders?
This is the ambitious goal of Milo Rau’s latest political action, General Assembly. Over the three days of November 3, 4, and 5, Rau and the IIPM brought together experts, activists, and eye-witnesses for roughly twenty-one hours of arbitration and political debate about issues such as
Milo Rau at General Assembly; Photo Credit Daniel Seiffert (Schaubühne)
migration, climate change, international conflict, economy, and culture. The action looks at the systemic problems of the EU, UN, and other transnational organizations and asks: how do you find an answer when there are differing perspectives and opposing views? How do we arbitrate the many issues that accompany globalization without getting bogged down in the quagmire that is international politics and governance?
General Assembly brought together people from across the globe with 60 delegates from nations in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia and in five sessions looked at a wide variety of themes as they impact us on a global level. Those audience members who sat through the entire event were given access to the various perspectives of delegates, but also the clashes of opinion, heated debates, and high-tension disagreements that inevitably accompany political movements.
General Assembly follows the logic of the Rau’s political action pieces, “what cannot be represented, cannot be imagined” (“was nicht darstellbar ist, ist nicht denkbar”). General Assembly works to create a framework for a transnational institution that does not yet exist. An institution to deal with the issues that extend beyond the local, regional, or national level; that is better equipped to explore the needs of an increasingly globalized world; and to look out for those most often forgotten and abused – those in the contemporary third estate.
Day 2 of General Assembly at the Schaubühne
The project is problematic, but it has to be.
It is very easy to criticize national and transnational institutions. It is easy to say these institutions are fundamentally broken, that many of their decisions are influenced by lobbyists and the promise of personal gain rather than the good of those they represent. It is harder to suggest an alternative, to propose, create, and perform something with the potential to be better. Even if this initial attempt does not entirely succeed, it sets up the possibility for something better to follow. The difficulties and obstacles faced during General Assembly is actually incredibly important to its broader real-world application. General Assembly was a laboratory for democracy, revealing the paradox of democracy as both intensely inspiring and deeply disappointing.
To look at General Assembly as just a performative event or just a piece of political theatre is to do the project a great injustice. It highlights the potential difficulties to be faced by future transnational institutions following in its footsteps: the challenge of selecting delegates (how do you choose delegates in a democratic way and how do you organize a democratic assembly without slipping into something inherently undemocratic), organization of time (how do you discuss important issues and potentially life-and-death situations in-depth, and variety of opinions present in a global democracy.
The lofty aspirations of the project clashed with the real world organizational realities of the event. The classically authoritarian figure of the director: delegates, political observers, and stenographers are invited by Rau and his team and not democratically elected. As well as the realities of the Schaubühne audience, a largely white, European (specifically German), bourgeois, politically left-leaning audience. Additionally, Rau and Rau’s own politics (which are at this point reasonably well known) also play an important role, both in who is invited and who is willing to accept this invitation.
“The time of the spectator is past. Remember, you are anything but an audience. You are the sovereign.”
Despite the overwhelming diversity among the delegates – with representatives from the DRC, Poland, Germany, America, Brazil, Equator, and more – there was a definite tilt towards left (particularly among European participants), which created a potentially damaging (and overly simplistic) dynamic of protagonists versus antagonists. Democracy functions because of differences of opinions. It is frustrating and sometimes uncomfortable to hear, but having these opinions present is still important.
The more time you spend thinking about democracy and grappling with the questions General Assembly raises – how do you create a forum where multiple voices and opinions are heard, but simultaneously is able actually create a charter for the twenty-first century and find concrete solutions instead of getting trapped in the endless cycle of discussion and disagreement that so often accompanies politics), the more difficult it becomes to define what a global democracy is or should be, and how to create it – is, to quote the political observer bishop Jo Seoka, more difficult than we thought. Even under what should be ideal conditions – the specifically dramaturgically arranged conditions at the Schaubühne – consensus may not be possible.
If we want to create the transnational institution Rau proposes – an institution that should already exist – it is so important to see these difficulties and challenges.
The General Assembly only succeeds if it is taken seriously.
Throughout the event there was a lot of discussion about legitimation or, more specifically, lack thereof. General Assembly was a performative event, carefully and thoughtfully planned. But, on several occasions it broke out of the purely performative and into the real. Moments of frustration, when there simply wasn’t enough time to talk about the issue or to properly revise the motion; when the entire structure collapsed on itself as both delegates and spectators could no longer tolerate what was being said by the delegate who actively supported the AKP and the group became split between whether he should be thrown out or allowed to stay. When the group demanded to know why he was allowed to speak three times when many delegates only got to speak once? When both delegates and spectators demanded that Milo Rau come onto the stage and explain; when several participants explain, “this is theatre and I am only playing a role here!” In the moment when one delegate yells across the floor, “THEATRE! THEATRE!” and another delegate responds, “This is not theatre!”, then this is the moment the performative has collapsed into the real and the real has come hurdling forward with the confused, forceful, conflicting, angry tenacity of the political, social, and emotional actuality of the plurality of reality.
Translators at General Assembly; Photo Credit: Daniel Seiffert
Watching General Assembly and now writing about it, I have become increasingly distressed and frustrated with my own failure to find the correct words and terms to describe and explain what happened. This is combined with frustration that a transnational institution like Rau’s global parliament doesn’t yet exist. And the frustration at the end of the project, at the end of three days invested in this project that everything outside the theatre remains the same as it was, but it is also fundamentally different.
Robert Misik, one of the stenographers for the project, read a tweet in his closing statement that said it was impossible to watch General Assembly without becoming incredibly depressed and overcome with the feeling that the world was a terrible place and would never get better. I disagree. Yes, the world can be a dark, dismal place, but we can do something, even if that is only something small!
Secretary and assistant to President, President Kushi Kabir, Vice-president Bernardus Swartbooi, and Vice-president Diogo Costa; Photo Credit: Daniel Seiffert (Schaubühne)
The triumph of General Assembly is that it succeeded in creating something. Yes, this something was flawed, trapped within its own intellectual trappings, sometimes at odds with the very democratic principles it sought to create, but it was there. For three days, there was a world parliament and a framework slowly started to emerge. It pointed to what worked and what didn’t work, and created a dialogue among the delegates about the issues and about the clash of issues presented to the delegates[1].
However – as was repeated throughout the closing statements – General Assembly was only the first step. General Assembly must be continued. It must extend outwards to reach more people and become a legitimate institution. Only through repetition, through adjustment, through improvement, and through continuation can the General Assembly – the first world parliament – succeed. This must be the first meeting of the General Assembly and not the last.
To quote the Belgium dramaturg Ivo Kuyl, Rau’s work does not work to represent [representeren] but to present [presenteren]. It is not about representing an institution that is already in place, but presenting an institution that is not yet there. To present how it could be and create this “could be”. It is about creating rather than copying. Milo Rau works in the concrete, and while it may seem utopian to believe that theatre can change the world and be a part of this change. To create something that is, even just for a moment, real. Bringing people from across the globe together to discuss, disagree, and create a charter for the twenty-first century to be presented to the Bundestag and other governmental institutions across the globe. To create a moment of solidarity. Solidarity marked in the meeting of about 200 people in front of the historical government building in Berlin on Tuesday (November 7) to as a group storm the Reichstag.
The only way to properly conclude is with the final statement of General Assembly’s manifesto:
“The world is a community of fate, beyond all nationalities, periods, and forms of existence. We finally need an instrument that can regulate the world market and direct ecological developments into the right channels. Let’s escape the spiral of exploitation, destruction and violence! Let’s enter the ‘General Assembly’!”
Storming the Reichstag; November 7, 2017; Photo Credit: IIPM Facebook
[1] For the representative from the DRC Prince Kihangi it was unimaginable to talk about the rights of Great Apes or animal rights when hundreds if not thousands of people are dying in the Congo alone every day in a Civil War that has been going on for more than 20 years.
LENIN; Berliner Schaubühne; Photo Credit: Thomas Aurin/Schaubühne
LENIN
Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz
Premiere
October 19, 2017
*Because I am writing my dissertation about Milo Rau (and I am more than a little overly thorough/slightly obsessive/highly enthusiastic), I engaged in extensive research in preparation for LENIN and have included a few pages of this research underneath the post
*Please also note there is so much more that could be said about this production
“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences.” –Karl Marx
In Milo Rau’s new production LENIN, at Berlin’s Schaubühne, Rau, his team at the IIPM [International Institute of Political Murder], and the Schaubühne Ensemble explore one of history’s most controversial figures: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. LENIN, as is the case in many of Rau’s productions, works to represent the unrepresentable. The figure of Lenin is completely intertwined and inseparable from his political theory and the subsequent hundred years after the
Ticket plus flea market Lenin pin
1917 Revolution: the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War, and the demonization of Communism. Lenin is an icon, a plasticine idol sleeping in a crystal crypt. With hundreds of biographies and thousands of analyses written about Lenin, his image has been used and reused to serve the political and ideological purposes of both communism and capitalism. Yet the real Lenin, separate from the interpretation of his work and politics – the man who was according to sources shockingly uncharismatic and underwhelming normal – is notably absent from the clashing historical representations of Lenin. On one level the production engages with this complicated historiography, asking: Who is Lenin?A monster? An enemy of democracy? A hero? A mass murderer? An intellectual? A man of the common people?
An icon.
Ursina Lardi; LENIN; Photo Credit: Thomas Aurin/Schaubühne
“During the life of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed class and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.” – Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)
The Palimpsestic Iconography of a Revolution:
LENIN breaks apart the icon that is Vladimir Lenin – the man whose image was placed alongside Marx and Engels, and whose likeness decorated businesses across the Soviet Union. Instead of looking at the heroic agitator and revolutionary, the production looks at a frail, ageing, dying, post-stroke Lenin hidden away from the Soviet people and the world in his Gorki villa.
The Kammerspiele structure of LENIN breaks up the production into four acts: morning, afternoon, evening, and night. This final day in Lenin’s life illustrates the construction of the Lenin-icon. This transformation from man to icon is mirrored in actor Ursina Lardi’s transformation into Lenin. The choice cast a woman in the role of Lenin has several fascinating implications such as the sexualisation of the figure and adds to the illustration of Stalin’s lust for power in actor Damir Avdic’s interactions with Lardi – cumulating in a passionate kiss. It also allows for an extreme transformation into Lenin. Lardi begins the production with long blond hair and modern clothing – quasi-out of costume – but with the steady addition of costume and makeup throughout, the eventual addition of a bald cap and Lenin’s moustache and beard, Lardi becomes the easily recognizable iconic image of Lenin.
The other actors also continue to add to their costumes, adding wigs and makeup – becoming more and more the historical figures (Lunacharsky[1], Krupskaya[2] , Stalin, Trotsky, and Lenin’s household staff). As the historical figures become increasingly concrete and outwardly identifiable, the documentary realism established in “Morning” (the first act) becomes gradually surreal and dreamlike as the play progresses – like the memory of a stroke victim, which blurs and runs together, confusing itself.
When Lardi resembles Lenin the most in “Night”, Lenin is the least himself. Lardi no longer speaks clearly or moves easily. Rather, the words slur with the difficulty of someone who has had a stroke and Lenin is unable to move by his own volition, but
Nina Kunzendorf, Veronika Bachfischer, Ursina Lardi, Felix Römer, Lukas Turtur; LENIN; Photo Credit: Thomas Aurin/Schaubühne
is carried and forced into the wheelchair he so bitterly rejected in the first act. Lenin has been reduced, his control lost. Overtaken by his own iconography, he becomes a picture alongside Marx and Engels, his voice is now weak and distorted by illness and age. His theories, his stark critique of his comrades, and the overwhelming awareness of the failings of his revolutionary ideals catch in his throat and his power is overtaken. Lenin is rewritten by the imposing figure of Stalin.
The revolution has failed.
A Choreography of Stage and Screen:
One of the most striking features of the production is the stunning visual dramaturgy and careful choreography between cinematography and onstage action. The production plays with an extreme level of intermediality and intertextuality, a live film unfolding simultaneously on stage and screen. The steady movement from documentary naturalistic realism to surrealist horror – a powerful man trapped
My own research
within both a body and political mechanism he can no longer control. His image – his face, his hair, his beard – becomes synonymous with the misappropriated ideals of a failed revolution in a rotting, corrupt system. The shift in language (German to Russian), music (the increased distortion of Bach), and color (from color film to black and white) all indicate a movement away from the realism established in the “Morning” into the dark surrealist atmosphere of “Night”. What began as hope has shifted towards a darker future.
Anton Lukas’ truly stunning stage design – a replica of Lenin’s villa on a revolving stage – creates a self-contained, closed off world, isolating Lardi’s Lenin from the outside. Parts of the villa are inaccessible to the audience, meaning certain spaces are only visible via the livestream from the two onstage cameras (manned by the two hardest working cameramen in the German theatre). One of the greatest strengths of the production is the seemingly seamless choreography between camera and actor: the effortless transitions between cameras (fades to black using dimly lit areas of the stage, movement from actors to set, and the steady camerawork of the cameramen), the brilliant use of sound throughout to highlight and compliment the visuals, and the contained, understated but simultaneously absolute fullness of the acting.
This filmic aesthetic carries throughout the performance, with an opening sequence introducing the actors and production crew and closing with end credits as the actors take their bows. Rau’s careful direction and the hard work of the entire team create what could exist solely as either a theatre performance or film, but together produce something truly exceptional. The dance between these two elements defies description, in no small part because just I don’t have the vocabulary to describe it. LENIN, on a performative and cinematic level, is a seamless, effortless visual triumph. Dark, contained, pessimistic, and beautiful.
Design: Anton Lukas; Image from: LENIN von Milo Rau & Ensemble (Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag, 2017), pp. 66-67.
Was tun? – What is to be done?
Throughout Milo Rau’s theatre, the past reverberates into the present. “The revolution is dying,” Trotsky (Felix Römer) asserts, “don’t you see that?” LENIN describes a starving and dying nation, its old hierarchy replaced by a new even more ruthless regime. The once young, idealistic revolutionaries have become greedy, old men and the lofty ideals of the revolution are dead and replaced by a new hierarchy. Lenin has been reduced to likeness next to Marx and Engels in a painting, his theory “robbed of its substance”. The image of a time and hope past. The revolution failed to create any real change – people are still starving and the wealth is still in the hands of the few.
How it is, Rau asserts, is not sustainable and it is cannot remain. We are also heading towards a disaster; collapse is inevitable if we – and this statement is directed to Schaubühne audience – do not change. “What is happening?” asks Lenin. “I don’t know,” replies Krupskaya and, with a fittingly beautiful cruelty, Leonard Cohen’s Who by Fire (derived from the Hebrew prayer sung on the Day of Atonement) brings LENIN to a close as the fates of the revolutionaries is revealed and the credits roll – the revolution turned and devoured itself.
“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.” –Alexis de Tocqueville
LENIN is a beautiful piece of theatre and not to be missed. It is a pessimistic, but powerful ending and demands action from its audience. However, the audience is offered a refuge in the curtain-call. It is an exceptionally strong piece of theatre and I would have loved to see it break with the German curtain-call tradition, because this moment allows the audience to excuse themselves from the piece’s socio-political implications and wash their hands of their own – our own – failure.
That said, LENIN is the first act of a much larger project by Rau and the IIPM. Whereas LENIN offers a pessimistic view on the revolution, the forthcoming General Assembly (November 3-5, 2017) will look to provide a concrete example of how change is possible, because “so wie es ist, kann es nicht bleiben” (“As it is, it cannot remain”). Perhaps this moment of catharsis in LENIN is acceptable, as it is during the next act is when the real work begins.
Stay tuned for more on General Assembly in November…
“History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.” –Marx
Creative Team: Milo Rau (Director); Anton Luka and Silvie Naunheim (Stage and Costume Design); Kevin Graber (Video); Stefan Bläske, Florian Borchmeyer, Nils Haarmann (Dramaturgy); Gleb J. Albert (Research); Erich Schneider (Light)
[1] Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933), Soviet People’s Commissar of Education (responsible for education and culture)
[2] Nadezhda Krupskaya (1869-1939), Lenin’s wife and deputy minister of education
Context book 1Context book 2Context book 3
“I want to burn with the spirit of times. I want all servants of the stage to recognize their lofty destiny. […] Yes, the theatre can play an enormous part in the transformation of the whole of existence.”
Kroniek oder wie man einen Toten im Apartment nebenan für 28 Monate vergisst [Chronicle, or how a dead man is forgotten in the apartment next door for 28 months]
Director: Florian Fischer
NT Gent at Volkstheater’s Radikal Jung Festival (Munich)
Florian Fischer’s production explores (as the title suggests) the case of 53-year-old Michel Christen, a Swiss man who died in his Geneva apartment in 2003 and wasn’t found for twenty-eight months. Christen, a cancer patient, had a daughter, an ex-wife and was fairly well known among his neighbours, but whose death and absence went unnoticed. When the police finally went into the apartment in 2005 they only found a skeleton, the rest of the corpse had decayed and rotted away.
The production has two central focuses: first, what happens to a body as it decays —following the Buddhist belief in the temporary nature of the physical world and the eighteenth century Japanese watercolour illustrations Kusozu: the death of a noble lady and the decay of her body—and second, the question of how can someone simply disappear and be forgotten? Following the Kusozu illustrations, the three actors break down the stages of decay and the philosophy of decay, as well as reforming and re-remembering Christen (reversing decay and forgetting).
Panel 9/9; Kusozu: the death of a noble lady and the decay of her body
Maarten van Otterdijk’s stage is small and simple. Two televisions at the back of the stage, a houseplant (which, like a small tub, two large flags, and a white sheet and body bag, is moved on and off the stage throughout the performance), and large Japanese or Asian inspired fabrics as the curtains containing the stage on three sides decorate the stage.
The production is both a beautiful examination of a man who just disappeared from the world for twenty-eight months without a single person, including his family, noticing, simultaneously gesturing to the spectators’ and actors’ own mortality. Fischer and his three actors imbue the production with a quiet, respectful quality, asking how do we remember a man who was so easily forgotten? The production is built on a series of interviews trying to find the man who slowly melted away.
The spectator is invited to both contemplate their own morality, while also becoming part of the memorializing process for Christen. The production employs a mixture of text, movement, audience interaction and improvisation to contemplate death and the loneliness that accompanies death. A small stage with three actors and a close relationship with the audience throughout the performance serves to highlight that we are united in this loneness.
Kroniek; NT Gent; Charlotte Vanden Eynde, Oscar Van Rompay, Bert Luppes
The production plays with what I can only assume is a universal fear of being forgotten. While death and mortality are certainly frightening enough alone, the concept of being forgotten, or worse not being noticed or acknowledged in death, is both terrifying and heart wrenching. Doesn’t everyone deserve to be remembered? How can a person, who was friendly and by all accounts enthusiastic and full of life, not be remembered or missed? Kroniek is a beautiful memorial to Christen, which carefully forms a collage of the life of a man who just disappeared only to reemerge as bones. It certainly hits slightly too close to home for those of us who live alone and whose rent and other bills are automatically transferred into the proper accounts.
Kroniek; Director: Florian Fischer; NT Gent
Perhaps the most memorable and disturbing part of the evening was the fans handed out for the spectators to pass around. Fischer and his production team had a special perfume that replicated the smell of the apartment where Christen lived and died. Actually two separate smells: first, the apartment itself—the smell of the floor boards and the lavender floor polish, of old wood furniture and musty curtains—but the second smell was the smell of a man who had died, decayed and disappeared… the distinctive scent his neighbours must had smelled coming from his apartment and chose ignored.
When you are handed a fan and told the fan will smell like a corpse if you wave it you have two options: (1) Don’t wave it, or (2) Wave it. I, initially, thought when presented the opportunity to smell a corpse I would politely decline, in all honestly because of the fear that I might have smelled it before and not realized it was, in fact, a corpse I had smelled. Many people… in fact most people in the audience did not wave the fan and thus chose not to fill the theatre with the smell of a corpse. I, however, learned something about myself. When presented with the opportunity to fan a corpse fan, sitting in a small theatre (between two people who not to wave the fan because they presumably did not want to smell corpses), holding the fan in my own two hands, there is only one course of action. This corpse smell is strangely sweet but extremely unpleasant and, like most unpleasant smells, lingers. That being said, by waving the fan I forced my neighbours(and potentially the entire audience) was forced to share the experience with me.
Check out Kroniek‘s accompanying Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eendodeman/
Lost Dramaturgin International 