I'm tempted to first get over as fast as possible with the "et al.", so that I could then give myself fully up to the joy of telling you about Hermanis' Fathers and his theatre on the whole. However, I'm afraid that such an approach would make you give up reading any further: so sadly petty-at times simply superficial, at times outright pointless-are most of those "et al."
With its establishment, in 1996, the biannual SPIELART Festival (a financial offspring of BMW and the Munich Municipality) announced that its goal would be to walk the unbeaten path; that it would focus on the new types of theatre, i.e. shows coming not from the big institutions. "We are not interested in theatre that tells stories," was the mantra repeated by the organizers of, and the participants in, its last, 7th edition as well. This obsession of many European Festivals (and especially of the financial bodies backing them up) with the alternative art, alas, very often translates into granting uproarious applauses to the "new emperor's clothes".
Well, about these seemingly "new clothes" later on. Now about the big exception in the representative survey of my five festival days from the otherwise two-week program of SPIELART: the Zurich production Fathers. An exception not in regard with the form-it's, to a great extent, not only unusual but really new-but in regard with everything behind it.
What happens between this show and the audience, what it provokes during its three-hour duration and, what's more important, long afterwards (!), could be defined with one word only: love! Love in its broadest and most sublime meaning: as a desire to do good; as an irrational inner urge to become a better human being. Love as harmony. Love as beauty-and not just overt beauty at that! I don't know, is there anything more classical and respectively less alternative-in life, aesthetics and philosophy-of all that?!
"Fathers", by Hermanis, as a generator of love
The fathers are, actually, of three men (two actors - a Latvian and a Swiss of Polish descent, and one more Latvian who has studied for an actor but has never practiced the profession) who gathered together with the world-famous Latvian director in Zurich, at the invitation of the local Schauspielhaus, to create a typical Hermanis show-i.e. non- based on a "regular" play but on stuff from the "regular" life. In the course of three weeks the four men were simply sitting and telling each other stories. The stories they grew up with. The stories which made them what they are now. And in which the main heroes-the heroes of their childhood, youth and life on the whole-are, naturally, their fathers.
Then Hermanis made a literary collage out of the concrete stories of the three sons, intertwining in the new entity something from his own memories. His assistants too added to the collage something from their own experience. And all together fantasized and coined up the final version both of the stories and the characters of the six men in the future show-the three fathers and their three sons. Because, in the end, "this is not a documentary theatre," Hermanis likes to underline. "This is fiction." Although, again according to him, the most improbable stories in the show are those which have really happened in the real life and have no additional "make-up."
It's exactly this never-ending and always amazing dance of the facts and fiction-both in life and in art-that is of interest to the young Latvian director. And the rare moments of the real embrace between them-when one can't tell them from each other!-are the alphabet of his unique theatre language. Actually, according to Hermanis, every man's life is a material for a show. A year ago, in Berlin, he bet that a show could easily be made about the first five people entering a bar, if it were to tell their real stories. Again there he bewildered the participants in a discussion with the statement that "what's important for a theatre-maker is not so much to be interested in theatre as much as it is to be interested in life."
Fathers is his hat-off to Life as the greatest playwright in whose dramas we so convincingly play throughout our lives.
"My name's Oliver Stokovsky," the Swiss announces, standing center-stage. "And this is an exact replica of my dressing-room," he points to the screen which opens behind him. Painted on it are a make-up mirror, a sink and several sparse objects. Then one of the Latvians parks himself to the left of him: "My name is Gundars Abolits� and I'm an actor of the New Riga Theatre." Behind him another screen unfolds, again representing a dressing-room. Only there are so many objects painted on it-a heavy old-fashioned radiator of central heating, a sofa, a big sink, windows, chairs, photos, and thousand of other things-that one has a feeling they'll weigh down and fall on the floor any moment. "What you see is an exact replica of my dressing-room in Riga," he informs us. In front of both actors there are real tables with real objects on and around them. While quite aside of them, near the very walls of the premise (since this is not an ordinary theatre and there's no real stage) there are real dressing-rooms tables and mirrors framed with small shining lamps. It's there where the third son waits his turn. He waits for the typical theatre dialogue the two have started to come to an end. "My name is Yuris Baratinski� I'm an expert in art forgery," he introduces himself afterwards from center-stage. And, as the other two, he too speaks directly to us, literally searching for an eye contact.
Behind then, next to the painted dressing-rooms, appears a portrait of an elderly man who bears a striking resemblance with one of the men on stage. Then a second portrait appears - obviously the father of the other man. Stage hands fold the dressing-rooms screens and at their place put more portraits. One of the sons brings on stage a big nylon bag and starts slowly taking out of it different belongings of his father, the second one brings an old bag, and the third an old-fashioned shaver. And they start talking about their fathers-to each other and to us. And their fathers' stories unfold one after another, one interrupting the other, or all together, as if literally giving hand to each other-via the themes or the objects mentioned in them or the time when they take place in. The three of the sons shave at the same time or eat or drink (there's a third table on stage too) or do washing or undress to feature funny old-fashioned bathing suits, when the stories take them or their fathers to the beach. One of them showers with ice cubes - a ritual of his father, and, later on, the small whitish transparent blocks on the floor mix with bright red strawberries from another story about another father. Behind them the portraits alternate with more portraits or photos turned into portraits or simply photos - with faded colors and old-fashioned white curly frames� Music from the 60's and the 70's resounds: "Yesterday", "Obladi-Oblada", "Matilda"� It smells of home. It feels cozy and warm. The people in front of us are natural, nice, funny, and touching; they are dressed informally, at times in full negligee, as they would be in their homes - after all, isn't the home the place where most of the childhood memories take place?!
In the beginning they talk about their fathers so to speak in an actors' manner - they outright enact them. Then gradually the difference between them and the photos behind starts melting away and the resemblance becomes amazing. And we do witness the very process of this melting away. Because on the tables in front of them numerous objects may pile up (for instance, one of them, already a retiree, cooks for his grandchildren and there are tens of small jars of children's food) but naturalism is only part of the picture in Fathers. In the real dressing-rooms by the walls, there are real make-up and wig masters, and while some of the three tells and performs his story, they work on the transformation of the other two. Hence, in the next stories each one of the sons appears either with a new, obviously older cheek, with hanging skin (only after several more episodes the other cheek would appear!), or with a new, fattened nose, or with gray hair. The theatre of life and the life of the theatre don't stop their dance even for a minute from the very beginning to the end of the show!
At the end the three have grown even older than the photos behind and, sitting next to each other, deformed and bent by the age, they hand with shaking hands a small photo of a grandchild. However, at the same time - attention: the dance continues! - one of them "turns the tape back" and, again in the role of the son, tells about the birth of his daughter. And the show ends. Without having let us find out for sure whether the actors have so fully immersed in the game of performing and have so credibly "become" their fathers or simply in the real life they have come to amazingly resemble their fathers; whether the people before us are the fathers themselves or the sons after the years have gone by; or - there's a third option! - both the sons and the fathers have been before us...
Because Fathers is not an ordinary piece of theatre that looks like life. On the contrary: before us is the ordinary life that has a taste of theatre. And in the real (not fictional!) reality, don't we actually live both a la Brecht and a la the Stanislavski Method: trying, albeit rarely, to step apart and look at ourselves from aside, while at the same time we keep on doing everything with an astonishing "faith and naivety"?!
However, theatre in life is not the only thing Hermanis is interested in. It's extraordinary that in our time, so obsessed with the dark side of our souls (the so called inner demons), Hermanis' characters are never ugly or abominable. Funny - yes. Sad, frightened, worried� There's everything else in them and on stage but ugliness. It is so because Hermanis not only admires Life's unbeatable fantasy and imagination. With Fathers he takes his hat off to the very essence of Life as human warmth, closeness and love - love, which is being transferred from generation to generation and which in the end make the world go round. In this sense, with Fathers, as well as with his theatre on the whole, Hermanis works against the cynicism that the extreme rationalism of our time nurtures, against the lack of faith in love and in the power of goodness.
There are artists-warriors for the cause of goodness whose works are replete with indignation; they aim at shocking and shaking us when humanity and human dignity are endangered, humiliated or outright stamped out. Hermanis belongs rather to the opposite type - the apostles of goodness who preach it with the disarming might of unconditional love. In this way he actually preaches real inner freedom which, along with everything else, means turning our backs to the fear of openly showing emotions lest we become vulnerable-another problem of our modern civilization.
For centuries theatre has been censored because of its potential to ignite and inspire revolts. Shows like Fathers do not do that. They do something else, though: they change people from within. And is there any more certain way to change the world?! In a time when more and more artists want to change the theatre and less and less of them are interested in changing the world, Hermanis does both.
In his last year's acceptance speech at the Europe Theatre Prize ceremony, when he was awarded the New Theatre Realities Award, he said: "In the past artists used to maintain a decadent way of life: they drank, smoked, took drugs and at the same time managed to stage very positive and uplifting performances. Today theatre personalities look more like businessmen: they drink mineral water, do sports, go to bed early� and stage absolutely depressive plays. I wish we could maintain a healthy lifestyle and stage positive productions at the same time."
Such problems did not seem to be of importance to the participants in the
What's Next?
program, entitled also "Festival in the Festival", the accent of this year's SPIELART - at least if judged by the shows included in it and by the discussion their creators took part in. Actually, in this program too the father-son relations were central but in a totally different sense.
The Festival had invited four famous alternative artists (who had participated in its previous editions) to nominate one young artist each who would present a brand-new show. The four "fathers" - Romeo Castelluci, Jan Lauwers, Tim Etchells and Johan Simons - were accurately billed as "curators" of the project because the works their appointees showed dwelled in the vast territory, with already totally vague borders, between installation, performance art, multimedia, happening and last (and least!) theatre. The reason for this whereabouts was very accurately defined by one of the "sons" - Maarten Seghers, who declared that he's interested in theatre that is not only theatre, theatre that is as less theatre as possible. Which reminded me of a half-serious comment by a Portuguese dance critic - that what's most important in the modern dance is that there's no dance!
The audacity of the young artists is always charming, even when it goes to the extreme of arrogance and even when it's not backed up by a similarly striking talent and real deeds to match the pompous words. However, when such type of provocative statements come from the "fathers", I can't help thinking of pretentiousness, snobbery and, what's most disturbing to me, as if total lack of interest in the world outside the art-the very world in whose name, allegedly, they strive to change the form of the art. Such thoughts occurred to me when listening to Jan Lauwers who declared that a show or play that does not define theatre in a new way is a waste of time. Or: that the applauses are the tragedy of theatre...
Among the shows presented in that program the most curious was "Tentativi di volo" of the Italian Alessandro Panzavolta: an experiment with "camera obscura" projections of seemingly three-dimensional images which are created/performed in real time behind a screen and edited/directed on the spot via lenses. Interesting as a technique and idea but nothing more than that.
After so much "future" I had a craving for a portion of "present" and went to the highly acclaimed Munich Kammerspiele (outside of the Festival program). They were presenting a dramatization of the famous Fassbinder's "The Diary of Maria Braun", directed by one of the modern German theatre celebrities Thomas Ostermayer and, to my surprise, I saw there the "star number" of one of the participants in What's Next?, Neco Celic: projections on the clothes of the actors. Only that here the effect was much stronger than in the festival show.
The small exception
in the main SPIELART program was the show of one of the curators, the British Tim Etchells, That Night Follows Day. The unusual and, at least for a while, touching in the show were its "actors": 17 children and teenagers, 8 to 14 years of age, and the form of the text - an address to the grown-ups.
"You feed us. You wash us. You dress us. You sing to us. You watch us when we are sleeping. You make promises that you think we don't remember� You explain to us what love is. You explain to us the different causes of illness and the different causes of war�" In this manner the main things which we grow up with are being touched upon-from the multiplication table (quoted in great detail) to how to tie one's show laces; from the parent's scandals to Bush, and Bin Laden; from the most childish to already definitely teenage topics.
One of the show's problems is that all this is said in the form of a frontal recitation only-either a chorus one or solo. In the beginning the 17 "actors", in a line facing us, as if fire the words at us. Then only one or two or five of them are left at the front (the rest go to the parallel bars at the back), but the manner of delivering the text remains the same. Only rare pauses and exchanged portentous glances are the "commas" in the formidable mass of this fully textual oratory, in which the propensity for enumerating is at times reminiscent of the boring passages in the endless pages of the Nobel-prize author Orhan Pamuk's Black Book. The monotony of the text (authored by the director Etchells) is underlined by the lack of imagination in directing the young actors and the result by the end is that the children look and sound like mechanical toys.
The show relies on the recognition effect on the part of the grown-up audience and its responsive reaction is a sign of a "mission accomplished". Yet, something remains missing. And, however paradoxical it may sound, I think it's the really children's stuff in the show. This is a show for adults where the children are just marionettes because they neither behave nor talk like children.
Finally, briefly about the American show
"No Dice" - one of the over-praised "naked emperors" of SPIELART.
During the first half hour (!) the actors offer soft drinks and sandwiches to the audience, the later being prepared on the spot depending on the personal choice. Then what follows is a dialogue in total sync with the title. And this continues four hours! I admit I could not take more than one hour of that. The production's fans claim that it reveals the emptiness of the modern communication. To me it was an example of emptiness in all meanings of the word, including artistic value of the show. What's more, it was an example of an arrogant attitude towards the time of the audience. In life every second is precious and part of the critics' role is to spare people any squandering of their time.
One of the many superlatives written about the Festival in the course of the years says: "Munich is a theatre city only during SPIELART." In other years this may have been the case. This time, though, for me there was only one real theatre evening-that of Fathers and the great art of Alvis Hermanis.
*Dr. Kalina Stefanova is the author/editor of 11 books, three of which are in English and were launched in New York and London. Her articles have been published in 22 languages. She has been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at New York University and Visiting Scholar at the University of Cape Town, and has delivered lectures and led seminars in 12 countries. For two mandates she served as Vice President of the International Association of Theatre Critics. Currently she is Associate Professor at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria and Director, Symposiums of the IATC. In 2007 she served as a dramaturge of the highly acclaimed production of Pentecost at the Stratford Festival of Canada. Her first fiction book Ann's Dwarves has brought her comparisons with The Little Prince and has been published in Macedonia and South Korea.
