I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning of the scene

Been struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaimed their malefactions.

(2.2.523-52)

Hamlet is still strong. Bolder and less polished than Richard III. More deconstructed, more challenging, more revelatory of the play. There was conspicuous bleed from Richard III into Lars’ performance. Hamlet's antic disposition had more than a flavor of Richard's naked villainy. One moment from the first time I saw it that shattered the room barely registered this time. And I don’t think its because I was seeing once more. I was thinking about Diderot when I was watching. Lucky I get to do what I do.

Comment on Bourgeois Feminism, Literary Criticism, and The Magic Flute

***This was meant to be posted as a comment on the thread, "Bourgeois Feminism, Literary Criticism, and The Magic Flute," but it was too long and it wouldn't let me post it. If I was a more conscientious scholar I might spend some time here editing, but I don't want to be late for Hamlet, so I will publish my perhaps indulgently-lengthy thoughts here:


I'm grateful that our blog has evolved to a stirring dialogue, as much as I've found new appreciation for the monologue here in Germany ;)

Kim, in the spirit of dialogue, I urge you to go beyond being offended here! If Jake was wrong, HOW was he wrong? I'd rather pick apart his argument and find the weaknesses than just know that you felt he was off-base.

Christopher, I also hear your umbrage and appreciate the fact that we call each other out when we write with less detail and thought than we should. In generalizing about our program I neglected to acknowledge the thought-provoking and challenging readings and discussion your class offers us, and will continue to offer us. While I agree that my writing on this was insensitive, and more importantly, lacking in depth of discussion, I still wrestle with my question.

I appreciate the intellectual challenge I found in our theater history class in the past year, and I look forward to global. Yet I often feel that I am not going deep enough, merely because my time is spread so thin. Jake's post brought this up for me. And I do think I'm correct in saying that in the curriculum we have as actors, the large majority of our time is not devoted to reading and responding to reading. I am wrong to say that it isn't encouraged at all, but I sometimes think I should be doing more. But then I reach a dilemma, because I also feel that I should be doing more to train my voice, my body, and the acting instincts that will shape my instrument.

It is a larger question than a critique of the program we are studying within, and I would perhaps have been wiser in my previous post to lift it from our context. And perhaps because I am faced with this program in which I feel like I never have quite enough time, I am forced to engage with this question. What is it that I must focus on as an artist? What makes an artist for the theater? Someone who has impeccable strength and flexibility in the body and voice? A depth and breadth of thought that includes input from the great writers and thinkers of our cultural history? Access to deep emotional life and willingness to give of one's self on stage? I imagine there is a beautiful combination of all these qualities (and more that I am not articulating here) that may emerge from a training program such as ours.

Here in Berlin, I have been inspired by artists who embody these qualities, but if I'm honest in asking myself, I think I notice them more when they are distinct strengths. A few that come to mind:
Yael Ronen - I admire for her ability to craft a story that is at the same time politically provocative, but also theatrical and brings the audience on an intimate, emotional journey. I have no sense of whether she has spent time training her body and voice, but I am assuming she reads and really does all her homework in Christopher Cartmill's Global Theater course ;)

Lars Eidinger perhaps offers an example of the combination of skills I hope to develop. His use of his instrument on stage is absolutely captivating. He knows exactly what he's doing in every moment. In speaking with him, I also get the impression that he thinks deeply about his choices in a way that is informed by a form of scholarship, likely the type of scholarship we are working on in Global and in this past year's courses.

Other artists that stood out for me I didn't get to speak to so I don't know where they speak from and what perhaps they focused on in their training...Leander Haussmann, Antonia Bill, Claire Marshall, Simon McBurney, etc.

I'm sure this conversation will have to continue beyond the blog, and this dialogue has certainly advanced my reflection process here. I still wrestle with the role of the artist in our social-political-cultural context, as well as struggling to find my own path to artistry. Here in Berlin, outside of our Mason Gross sphere, I have had the opportunity to reflect, to question, to examine myself and my context. This is an invaluable opportunity. I seek to continue finding opportunities to question myself, my training, and the larger context we operate within, but also I hope to balance the questions with trust, and patience, and belief in the beating heart that brings us all to this work.

Thank you all for pushing me, and calling me out when I'm wrong, and inspiring me to stay curious. I'd love to continue this dialogue here even as we all depart from Berlin, and of course hope to continue the conversation via other channels as well.

from (and starring) the director of BEWARE OF PITY

Coming to NYC/Broadway this Fall, Simon McBurney's THE ENCOUNTER.

Bourgeois Feminism, Literary Criticism and The Magic Flute

Bourgeois feminism is a movement that consists of followers who are ironically unaware of the path they walk. It’s comprised of the overstuffed internet-fed, not the scholarly read. What’s troubling is not the movement itself; which is more or less centered on the position of reform within the existing social system, but it’s active participants who extend their haphazard opinions with “button” words which have serious consequences. And as Aristotle teaches us in the Ethics, Opinion is actually something quite different from Knowledge. 

When it comes to literary criticism, this nascent(internet-feminist)lens is distorted and detrimental to the future of art. The reason for its distortion is quite obvious: people like to comment on WESTERN literature without understanding its history. This means that not only are people ignorant of how it came into existence; but they’re subsequently ignorant to its components which fall directly under the study of feminism, a few of those components being gender, eroticism and politics. 

It’s impossible to have anything more than an opinion on sex and gender without an understanding of nature. To be clear, sex is subset to nature and it is the Natural in Man. Society is an artificial construction and a defense against nature. Literature is in part a creative embodiment of sexuality and eroticism, and each of these two participants make up the intricate intersection of nature and culture. Google-bred feminists grossly oversimplify the problem with sex, gender, and misogyny in literature when they reduce it to a singular matter of social convention: readjust society, eliminate sexual inequality, purify sex roles, and happiness and harmony will reign. Feminism, like all liberal movements of the past two hundred years, is heir to Rousseau. 

Rousseau produced the progressivist strain in nineteenth-century culture, for which social reform was the means to achieve paradise on earth. These hopes were swiftly crushed by the catastrophes of two world wars. Rousseau’s view of man’s innate goodness, derived from Locke, is what led to social environmentalism, and is now the dominant ethic of the American humanist services, penal codes, and behaviorist therapies. It makes the assumption that aggression, violence, and crime come from social deprivation. Sade, who is still the most unread major writer of the western cannon, takes the opposite approach and is a critique on Rousseau. 

To Sade, getting back to nature would be giving free reign to violence and lust. Society is not the criminal but the force which keeps crime in check. The rapist is created not by bad social influences but by a failure of social conditioning. Certain sects of feminists, seeking to drive power out of sex, have set themselves against nature. This fact has become even more obscured thanks to the convenience of the internet, and the subsequent laziness of would-be feminist critique that its encouraged. For an area of scholarship so serious and so important, it’s disturbing to see how much posturing goes on. 

It’s important to remember that in Western Culture, there are no non-exploitative relationships. Everyone has killed in order to live. Feminism has evolved like all of our liberal movements. It has now branched out from its origins of seeking political equality for women, and in some sects, has ended in rejecting contingency, that is, human limitation by nature or fate. Something that is not contingent, is the proven fact that we are hierarchical animals. Sweep one hierarchy away, and another will take its place. In some cases, the one that takes its place is less pleasant than the first. An obvious example from history is The Reign of Terror. Hierarchies exist in nature and in society. In nature, brute force is the ruling law. In society, there are protections for the weak. 

In order to give criticism to Western literature, we must understand its origins, and this means going back to the Greeks. If we’re to examine the female or the “femaleness” in our literary tradition, we need to subsequently understand sex as an act as well as a concept. To the Greeks, sex is daemonic. Daimon(daemonic) means a spirit of lower divinity than the Olympian gods. To the Greeks, as well as our Judeo-Christian society, Eroticism inevitably became taboo. This is what caused the split between the Dionysian way of Greek life and the Apollonian way. Sex and all of its complications haunt social life as well as artwork. Obvious pieces of haunted literature are Oedipus and The Bacchae. In return, theories have been put forward as terrifying as Freud’s “family romance”, which elucidates that we each have an incestuous constellation of sexual personae that we carry from childhood to the grave and that determines whom and how we love or hate. Every encounter with friend or foe, every clash with or submission to authority bears the perverse traces of family romance. 

The importance of pointing this out is that the Western Art of antiquity has preceded even our most popular and celebrated social scientists. So to refer to any canonical work as merely a “museum piece” is an absurd judgement made generally with little to no critical thinking behind it.  Again, it is impossible to examine gender without paying close attention to eroticism. Western love is a displacement of cosmic realities. It is a defense mechanism rationalizing forces ungoverned and ungovernable. Like early religion, it is a device enabling us to control our primal fear. All of this is important to consider when examining the Western literary canon. 

Western science is the cult of the Apollonian mind, and in it our conception of Love has only been partly examined. It’s hope is that by naming and classification, it can subsequently know and control. The Dionysian mind has an antithetical goal, and I would ask everyone to keep this in mind when watching Faust. What the Apollonian mind represses in its view of nature is the chthonian, which ironically means “of the earth”. Chthonian is a substitute for Dionysian, which has become obscured and contaminated with pleasantries. The Dionysian is antithetical to pleasantries. 

Chthonian nature is the West’s dirty secret and Sade is one of its few scribes. Modern humanists and subsets of liberals made the “tragic sense of life” the touch stone of mature understanding. They defined man’s mortality and the transience of time as literature’s supreme subjects. This is more or less just sentimentality. The tragic sense of life is a partial response to experience. It is in turn a reflex to the west’s resistance to and misapprehension of nature, compounded by the errors of liberalism, which in its Romantic nature-philosophy has been guided by Rousseau. 

Tragedy is the Western will, setting itself up against nature, dramatizing its own inevitable fall as a human universal, which it is not. An irony of the western literary tradition is the birth of tragedy in the cult of Dionysus. The irony being that the cult of Dionysus is a cult predominated by the female or femaleness exemplified in Western literature. It is no accident that the most celebrated tragedy in the Western literary tradition is from the Apollonian fifth century of Athens’ greatness, Aeschylus’ Orestia, which is itself a celebration of the defeat of chthonian power. 

In fact, female tragic protagonists are rare because tragedy is a male paradigm of rise and fall, a graph in which dramatic and sexual climax are in shadowy analogy. Climax is another Western invention. Western dramatic climax was produced by the avon of male will. The male will effects its escape through action to identity. Action in male will is in its essence an escape from the chthonian nature. Exemplified in Oedipus who tries to escape his mother, and runs straight into her arms. 

All of this is to assert that Tragedy’s inhospitality to woman springs from nature’s inhospitality to man. The identification of woman with nature was universal in prehistory. When societies were based on the hunting or agrarian model, femaleness was honored as an immanent principle of fertility. As culture progressed, crafts and commerce supplied a concentration of resources freeing men from the rise of weather or the handicap of geography. Essentially, as society progressed from an agrarian model to one of commerce, femaleness receded in importance. And yet Western culture from the start has avoided femaleness. The last major western society to worship female powers was the Minoan Crete. It’s significant to note that Minoan Crete fell and did not rise again. What has been predominant in our historical tradition and understanding of organized society is barbarian or warrior culture. Which fused with Apollonian Athens, gave birth to the Greco-Roman line of western history. The Topography of Terror is essentially a museum that exemplifies this disgusting merger. 

Apollonian and Judeo-Christian traditions are attempts to transcend nature. This means that cult worship went from earth-cult to sky-cult. The Old Testament asserts that a father god made nature and the differentiation into objects and gender was after the fact of his maleness. Our language is derivative of this sacred text and if we’re unable to recognize that, then the consequent paradox of male and female relationships through the aggressive feminist lens is obscured. Ultimately, this evolution from worshipping the secular to worshipping the non-secular puts woman into the nether realm. 

Culture is not only a plot against the expansion of consciousness, but it is also man made and a defense against female nature. The invention of sky-gods was a sophisticated step in this process, for it resulted in a disenfranchisement of women. It marks a significant shift from belly-magic to head-magic. The paradox of the invention of sky-gods or head-magic is that it led to the development of male civilization, which has not only lifted men, but women too. The very language and logic modern woman uses to assail patriarchal culture were the invention of men. So the sexes are more or less caught in a comedy of historical indebtedness. 

Man is repelled by his debt to his mother and has created an alternate reality, a heterocosm to give him the illusion of freedom. Woman is superior to man in many ways, but foremost in her identity, which is undoubtedly defined by nature. Nature’s cycles are woman’s cycles and this is biological fact. Woman’s centrality gives her a stable identity, and is in turn, a great obstacle to man, whose quest for identity she blocks. Man, through Apollonian creation, has attempted to transform himself into an independent being. A being free of woman. Evolutionary or apocalyptic history is a male invention as a way of evading the cyclic nature of woman. 

Many feminist theorists believing this male-bonding and patriarchy to be a response of male fear. Fear of the fact that woman, particularly during pro-creative daemonism, is ontologically complete. It’s what some would argue as the pattern of all solipsism. It’s interesting to note how often, even in female archetypes, how much woman is associated with nature or “otherness”, particularly when it comes to literature. But before making any critical judgement of the portrayal of Woman in The Magic Flute, we must understand the history and psychology behind the female archetype. 

Archetypes are another Apollonian invention, born and bred from man’s repugnance to the procreative nature. Apollonian methods of reason and logic are essentially anxiety manifested. For better or worse, the whole concept of Western identity is unfortunately Apollonian. Another unfortunate paradox often ignored is the enfranchisement that the Apollonian line of Western rationality has given us. Western science and industry have freed both women and men from certain dangers of everyday life that exist in both second and third world countries. Though in terms of archetype’s and literature, the Apollonian creation that’s most famous is the femme-fatale. Another representation of the daemonic. These representations are more or less tradition at this point, passed down from the prehistoric idols to modern movies. In fact, it’s interesting to track that the more nature is beat down by the west, the more the femme-fatale appears, as a return of the repressed. She embody’s the West’s anxiety about nature. 

Certain sects of feminism, looking to disenfranchise the femme-fatale as merely a woman who is politically unequal and forced to use her womanly wiles, are wildly underestimating the role of eroticism in our lives. Sexuality cannot always be understood by social models because it is a realm of contradictions and ambivalence. Mystification will always remain the companion of love and art, and eroticism is mystification. It simply will not adhere to moral codes from the bi-polarized system in which we live. Nature’s fascism is superior to any society. 

In mythology the femme-fatale is always dangerous to man, but rarely do we take into consideration the sexual psychology of the archetype. In certain Native American folklore, the femme-fatale is presented as a woman with teeth inside her vagina. There’s been a horrible appropriation of that myth into a subsequently horrible movie, but the erotic implications of that are again unexplored and are generally uncomfortably laughed at. In the act of sex as a natural transaction, not a social transaction, man leaves with less than what he came in with. Woman as a daemonic figure remains whole. Without this understanding of the history of eroticism or myth, it’s in fact easy to dismiss the archetype with little consideration. 

In The Magic Flute, we witnessed a piece completely steeped in this Apollonian tradition of art. The Queen of the Night and her servants are quintessentially nature embodied and they’re anything but disenfranchised. In fact, when the snake appears in the first scene, haunting the young prince(I wont even bother extrapolating the allusion of the Judeo-Christian religion), the female servants of The Queen of the Night appear and rescue him. When the aloof Papageno appears, and foolishly tells the prince that he was the one who killed the serpent, the female servants reappear to take away his power of speech. The correlation being yet again made obvious from the Greeks to Mozart, that men are fundamentally deficient and frightened when it comes to the feminine and nature, their power has no place for man. 

The Queen of the Night’s daughter is the archetype of the femme-fatale, and again here is where the portrayal of female by male writer comes under fire. Pamina represents beauty incarnate and it’s why the prince falls in love with her after only seeing her photo. She also represents man’s inherent need for control over nature, which ultimately proves more or less useless. Man’s system of control is embodied in both a religious figure, and also in the guise of Lust. It’s important to note that the guise of Lust is thwarted and that ultimately the religious figures are too. The Opera is a comedy and true love is what triumphs over the absurd archetypes, and the Apollonian factors. 

There are plenty of other things to be said about the piece regarding its display of both female-figures and eroticism, but I think it’s absolutely anti-artistic to be lazy in regards to examining a piece of art, and to write something off when the history is not acknowledged. Ultimately this Liberal Stalinist stance is grounded in ignorance and is an affront to both art and feminism itself. Part of what has made German theater so exciting to me is because they say the things that we’re told not to say in America by the faux, liberal intelligensia, and they do so with respect and reverence to the subject. With so many of our own issues still left disturbingly un-examined, it seems absurd to assume that we as American Theater Makers are incapable of what the Germans are doing.  

IF this blog post wasn’t already absurdly long, I would extrapolate more myself on both the piece and what I’ve learned from studying feminism, history and literature. Two great books that contextualize these subjects are Sexual Personae and Erotism. 

The Volks (Herd, Gang, Gathering, Mob)

The Volks

RICHARD III at Schaubühne

NIRGENDS IN FRIEDE (ANTIGONE) at Deutsches Theater

KILL YOUR DARLINGS at Volksbühne

1927's production of DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE at Komische Oper

Gorki's presentation of Rimini Protokoll's REMOTE MITTE

FAUST I & 2 at Berliner Ensemble

remote mitte -- Berlin on acid

Artificiality. Social psychology. Sociology. Existentialism. Remembrance. 

I chose the grave that stood out to me, and ended up next to a grave that held not one, but four bodies underneath it. Members of the same family who died at all different ages. Were they satisfied with their existence? What would they have changed about the course of their lives, if given the chance? Did they lead or follow? How did those around them impact their decisions, the way they carried themselves? 

I really hate this cheesy shit -- but I ended up asking myself most of the same questions before the voice over the headphones prompted me to. 

At the beginning of this trip, I was worried about falling into a routine and becoming too comfortable with my Berlin norm. Robotic. Going through the motions. I think that's something a lot of people fear. Remote Mitte made me begin to fear it again. 

Technology is dope. But technology is an oxymoron. It makes it easier to communicate with one another but it strips us of our humanity. It puts a literal barrier between us and the living, breathing humans around us. What are we so afraid of? Why do we fear genuine connection and contact? Why do we try to take ourselves out of our realities? Why has this become a need? 

But yeah. Remote mitte felt like an acid trip. Super spaced out now. 

Topography of Terror // What Could Have Been

Topography of Terror. The name itself is haunting. Dismal. On a dreary day like today it just makes the building all the more poretentous.

I want to make it clear that I am not trying to victimize myself in the following post. I have lived an incredibly privileged life that I'm thankful and grateful for every day. This is about what could have been.

Simply put, I would not exist today if the Nazi Party had won.

Had WWII had a different outcome, Jews, Gypsies, and anyone not fitting of the "Arian mold" could have been eradicated from this world. I want that to sound intense. That needs to make an impact.

If this was still going on a measly 20-30 years later there is no doubt that I wouldn't exist.

I'm about to get personal - forgive me.

My mom is/was Prespetarian. My dad is/was Jewish. (I use "is/was" because we are a non-practicing, non-religious household. These are the religions my parents grew up with, respectively. If you were to ask either of them today where they stand they would probably tell you they're agnostics or Unitarian Universalists, as I was raised.)

If this was still going on a measly 20-30 years later the likelihood of my parents even meeting let alone falling in love, marrying, or having a child is absurd. I saw the pictures of the women being humiliated in the town square - their heads shaved - shaming signs around their necks - paraded through the crowd - sentenced to jail time - because they loved someone they were told they couldn't. This could have been my mother. The man who could have been my father - hung, or worse sent to a labor camp.

This is all clearly fictional and maybe dramatic, but had outside forces not come to aid and end WWII  in the 1940's this could have been reality. I want that to sink in.

Maybe because I have Jewish ancestry (although I do not consider myself a Jew - or a Christian for that matter) it strikes a chord with me. It resonates with me deeply. My Jewish family was fortunate enough to have emigrated to the U.S. well before WWII. In fact, my Jewish grandfather was in the United States Air Force fighting the Nazis at this time. He never talked about it. He died quite a few years ago at 92, never wanting to discuss his thoughts on the matter. He once said to me it's better to stay quiet. I don't know if I believe that, but I also respect his decision to keep things to himself. I'm sure he had his reasons.

This post is messy.
It's a conglomeration of thoughts after walking on the foundation of the SS military base. This is where government leaders decided when and how to kill my ancestors. It makes my stomach hurt.

It makes me all the more grateful for the current life I'm fortunate enough to have.

I don't pray.
I don't count my blessings.
I will never take what I have and where I can go from here for granted.

1927 is coming to NYC this summer. Lincoln Center Festival in July.

For today's exhibition (from the Gropius website): “I always wanted to have the courage to do totally crazy, impossible and off-key things.”Isa Genzken, 1994Isa Genzken (*1948) is one of the most remarkable and radical artists of our time. She has earned international renown with her profound work. Her diverse works represent one of the most important contemporary stances of our time. Her oeuvres are now comprehensively on show in Berlin for the first time.The exhibition presents the broad spectrum of Genzken’s work, from her early films, drawings, ellipsoids and concrete sculptures to complex narrative collages and everyday items integrated into montages. The presentation highlights topics such as modernity, the human body, portraits, city culture and architecture.As an artist, Isa Genzken is prepared to risk it all in her quest for artistic regeneration. In her radical manner she develops diverse works, which are concerned with the topic of beauty in the sense of the essential and absolute

just some thoughts

Random thoughts occurring in my head right now -- 

Absolutely loved Magic Flute. Opera is beautiful and I need to see more of it. Although I appreciate the classics and understand that time period heavily influences the content of operas, I wish we had more modern operas that weren't sexist/didn't pin women as prizes. That being said, I do love Mozart and his genius compositions. 

I'm getting pretty drained. Well, I guess I've kind of been drained since day one. I was on tour with my acappella group right after finals ended and then I left for Germany two days later. I need a bit of a breather and some time to myself. 

I don't think musicals/operas are better than straight plays - I just think that I'm mesmerized by how different artforms can mesh together in such harmony. 

Time for some bluntness for a few shows. I thought Kill Your Darlings was cool. A spectacle. Very unique and took so much artistry and strength. But there wasn't any theme that was compelling to me. That's probably partially because of the language barrier (all I know is that he was discussing capitalism, really.) But, also, I didn't leave the theatre feeling changed, I didn't really learn anything. I just thought it was a pretty funny piece of performance art with  a dude in an octopus suit. The same goes for Real Magic - I understand their whole "trying to make you uncomfortable" thing and the themes of failure and longing - but I really disliked the show (maybe that was their point) and it kinda pissed me off. I feel like there are more meaningful ways to portray those ideologies. Everyone has a different taste, though. 

Word. 

Dear mozart

Well, I guess I should start this with
Dear Emanuel Shikaneder,
You are sexist, fam.

I had to look it up, Shikaneder was the librettist for The Magic Flute. So it's mostly his fault that it was sexist and racist as all hell.

I know I know I know.

"It's a classic"
"It was a different time"
"Oh come on Kim, lighten up"

These are things I've heard too many times.

Yes, we've come a long way from women not being allowed to act, and white actors wearing blackface on stage.
But we still have a ways to go.
Art doesn't exclude. So why revitalize art that perpetuates so many awful sentiments?

Don't get me wrong: I really enjoyed tonight's performance. It was one of the better shows we've seen, and it was a great experience going to my first real opera.

However, I find it hard to excuse sexism and racism on stage unless it serves an actual purpose, i.e. Teaching a lesson, moving forward, speaking out against sexism/racism/homophobia etc.

Equality can't be reached when people are still singing songs about how "blackness is ugly" and having plot lines about how men are entitled to women, and if no woman wants them then they'll kill themselves.

I can appreciate music.
I will not appreciate the plot.

Give Recognition for those who earned it

It's shows like tonight that prove there will be a Best Projection Design Tony Award in the future. It is becoming ever more popular (Curious Incident, Anastasia, Matilda) and there is great skill that comes along with it. The music must match perfectly and the actors must be in an exact place in order to portray the design to its fullest. It's a mathematical theorem and a dance routine combined.

Also, it is a shame and disgrace that Best Sound Design is not a Tony Award anymore.

Give me More

How can we as theatre artists effectively display the horrors of war without setting the scene on an active battlefield or going to a gruesome conventional asthetic (whatever that means to you)?

I feel fortunate enough to have been able to see something I've never seen before. I'm not talking about the show itself but the entrance into the theatre and the first three to five minutes of performance.

Outside of terrible Halloween haunted houses I've never felt that purposely lost and disoriented. Even trying to find my seat was a challenge because of all the haze in the air. It's was scary. I loved it. The sense of being completely alone while in a crowded room is something I won't soon forget. The anticipation was killer. The fog was so thick and took SO long to dissipate. Occasionally I thought I caught a glimpse of an actor moving on stage. Was it? Was it my imagination? Was it my salacious appetite to see what it was that would discovered? (I really wish I hadn't seen the horse half during the theatre tour - how shocking and incredible would that have been?!)

The dirty, bloody, ugly -- the grotesque actions, the dim lighting, the ominous sound effects... Wow.

This is what I wanted. What a simple convention! I've been consistently shocked at how SIMPLE a lot of the conventions we've seen actually are! Why can't we do something similar back home? I really think we could! Why couldn't we push the envelope?!

I wanted more of that out of Wallenstien. I was HUNGRY for it. It was over too soon. The following three hours I kept hoping to revert back to the first imagery.

The Grass is Always Greener/Rimini Protokoll

I feel that many group conversations regarding theatre as a whole/what we're seeing here in Berlin have inevitably drifted towards a kind of bashing of American theatre as a whole (I myself am not exempt from being caught up from time to time in this negative attitude). To paraphrase part of a recent conversation, we are lucky enough in this moment to be able to visit a place like Berlin and witness work without fully knowing the politics that make up this theater community.

On the eve of attending Rimini Protokoll's work "Remote Mitte," however, I thought it would be interesting to highlight a group that arose out of discontent with the Berlin theatre scene. We've witnessed time and time again this blurring between reality and documentary that feels so specific to this moment in theater ("The Situation," "Small Town Boy"). It's caused me to reflect on what authenticity in theater means to me, the line between deception and theatricality, the effect that improvisation, or a rehearsed improvisation, has on an audience, and if there is indeed a place for real, unbridled improvisation on the stage. Rimini Protokoll is a group who is, likewise, grappling with authenticity and the theater, often bringing in non-actors, experts, to elaborate on a specific subject. One of their past shows, "Peter Heller Talks About Poultry Farming" literally consisted of a man, a real poultry farmer, standing on the stage and giving an hour long slideshow presentation about deep litter systems, key issues in feeding and slaughter. In this kind of performance, the real and the theatrical are blurred, representation and authenticity are questioned, and the theatrical space as a whole is brought under the microscope. Because something takes place in a black box theater, does that necessarily make it theater? I think as we go into tomorrow, participating in an event that takes place outside of a conventional theater, it will be interesting to key into not only how Rimini Protokoll is playing with authenticity, the line between reality and theatre, but also how they are pushing the boundaries of theatre through an exploration of space.

where am i

Where am I? What day is it? What did I see last night?

The last couple of days I've been feeling lost, for lack of a better word.
Unearthed, disjointed, stumped, mediocre. No, none of those words quite capture how I feel.

The show. Last night's show, Kill Your Darlings, broke my heart somehow. There was an innocence, and a simplicity to the ensemble, and yet a chaotic nature to the rainbow pants guy. I kept feeling like the entire theatre, audience included, was just a figment of the narrator's imagination. It all felt like a day dream, like the musings of a child as he explains how he feels. Now, once more, I am trapped in trying to understand exactly HOW this was achieved. HOW did this company of performers make me feel this way.

 Something I've noticed in almost all of the theatre here is their use of music. That's definitely a way to make someone feel something. The actors are all working in the same universe, they all understand the world they're in and simply work form their circumstances. That certainly helps a production along. But what's the secret ingredient? What is making theatre here so special? These questions are driving me mad. I think I need a brake. I need to digest, take a siesta, and think.

Since the first show, I noticed how graceful the productions here could be. The things I've loved the most (with maybe one or two exceptions) have had the most easeful actors I've ever seen.

So ok, ease of execution + bold choices = magic? Simplifying that way would just be ridiculous.

Kill Your Darlings was, like Emma said, an Acid trip. But it was also funny, and light, and tragically, simply beautiful.

I have had to come to terms with the fact that moving to Berlin and joining a company here might not be the easiest or the best option. So how do I take the best of Berlin (which I still don't understand or can put my finger on) and mix it with the best of New York (inclusivity and visibility.) I expect this will be a long experiment, filled with lots of research and many trips to Berlin.

This was a lot of rambling.

Where am I? What day is it? What did I see last night?

where am i

Where am I? What day is it? What did I see last night?

The last couple of days I've been feeling lost. For lack of a better word, I've been feeling lost. Unearthed, disjointed,

German actors love spit

Some things I've noticed about German theater:
-lots of spit
-confetti
-nudity
-someone sitting in the audience on book (which makes sense because most of the actors have to be in multiple shows at once so I don't fault them for that)
-audience interactivity
-did I mention spit?
-music
-combining acting with other art forms
-in general, fun

German theater seems much more at ease than American theater. All of the American theater that I have seen has tried very hard to keep a solid fourth wall, to keep up the illusion that what is happening on stage is really happening. In German theater, there are no pretenses. If an actor messes up, someone is on book. The audience is meant to be part of the experience.
For example, Kill Your Darlings. The main character--I use the term character loosely because the piece seemed to be more performance art than a play--called audience members on stage to slip around in the rain with the cast. There was no pretense that the audience couldn't see what was happening, so why not invite them to join?
The ease that German theater exists in is something I wish could exist in American theater. I feel that it will not exist in mainstream American theater, because as Americans we are obsessed with perfection instead of letting things just be.

Something that can stay in Germany is the spit, though.

Motifs

Visually, the theatre here is so different from what I'm used to. But, I've seen many repeating styles, tastes, textures or ideas, even across different theatre companies. So far,the Germans seem to be very interested in:

 

-The crackling of a disposable plastic water bottle

-Things that swing (Wallenstein, Richard)

-Loud, very loud sounds

-Subdued, muted, simple or mostly black color palettes 

-Flourescent lights

-Wet paint

-Turntables

-Fog and haze (almost every single show!)

-Confetti

-Live video feed of the actors while onstage

What else? What has stood out to you as a repeating motif or idea?

I think this question may help us begin to understand the way designers think or approach design here...or put us on a pat to understanding what things are appreciated in their art...

Technology and Theater

We’ve seen a handful of productions at Schaubuhne, each more impressive than the last. I will not write this post pretending that I know how to put into words the revolutionary work that I have seen at Schaubuhne, specifically with Beware of Pity. My gut, my eyes, and my mind agree that this is IT.

After our tour of Schaubuhne, the theatre space alone felt much like a hi-tech spaceship. The engineering is mind-blowing. The theatre stage is sectioned off into platforms that are operated using a hydraulic system allowing for different stage configuration as well as weight distribution! I am by no means a set designer, but ANYTHING seems to be possible at Schaubuhne.

Beware of Pity certainly took advantage of the impressive construction of the theater. I have never seen a ceiling close in on stage before—perhaps that isn’t impressive to most people...but I was beside myself and felt claustrophobic in that last moment. However, with all of the hi-tech options at the production's disposal, I felt that the work was grounded and simple. Simple in terms of specific and steering clear of any convoluted spectacle.  Every choice served the story, regardless of its “hi-tech” nature. The themes of pity, love, and duty were prevalent and not overwhelmed by visual stimulation. I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the screen projections with the found-object puppet manipulation of Edith’s dress as well as the actor-made sounds (mind you the actors had microphones).  I felt the production successfully combined live theatre, as we perceive it, with a cinematic quality through the use of technology. I’m interested in that reality. Where technology allows us to take live-performance and use similar concepts to filmmaking to surpass what audiences know live-theater to be. For instance, the sound intensity in the productions we’ve seen at Schaubuhne were movie-theater worthy.

I suppose I’m interested in discovering the direction of theater in relation to technology (I know the Wooster Group has a specific exploration of technology with live performance).  Should we underscore an entire live production much like a Hollywood blockbuster? As theater-makers why not use technology, unapologetically, to our advantage? I’m certainly not suggesting we compete with movies or continue to produce Broadway spectacle. Beware of Pity presented a palpable story, first and foremost, enhanced by the specific use of technology that appealed to my senses on a profound level.

Real Magic

It takes me some time to know how a piece of art impacts me. I think I can't really know right after, or even the next day. I am struck by the moments that play in my subconscious, reverberating across all the other stimulus in my brain, continuing to play on me after a week or more has gone by.

I can't get it out of my head. The title. Real Magic. The piece was stuck in a loop. We want to believe that something different is possible. That magic is real, that this time things will be different.

The most simple is always the most profound. This piece of theater looped the same script over and over and over again. As an audience member I learned the game quickly - they're repeating the same failure over and over. They swap places but the script never changes. But even though I knew what they were doing, I was on the edge of my seat. Each time it repeated there were two parts of me that were chasing each other around in my chest - the part that believes in magic made me lean forward...this time she'll get it. She'll guess the right word. Maybe it'll all change!! And the part of me that deals with probability, that analyzes the information and makes a reasonable prediction...it will never change. The whole point is that it's pointless.

This absurd chicken-suit clad trio rotated on stage in front of us for two hours. It was about absurdity, failure, futility. It was about believing in magic anyway. Though the lights were bright, there was a laugh track, and grownups dancing in chicken suits, I think it was the most tragic piece of theater I have seen here in Berlin. I have tears in my eyes as I think of it. It was about wanting and believing in something more than anything else in the world. When Claire was on the chair guessing, she projected such bright, unadulterated hope. There was no trace of her former cynicism. Her repeated transformation from exhaustion and disillusionment to pure, child-like hope illuminated the real magic: we somehow manage to experience both despair and optimism even in the face of the absurd universe we inhabit.

The hope that somehow still filled the guessing of the word "money" even at the end is the tragedy, and the real magic. It is still with me, even though my brain is full to the brim with stimulus and stories and stage pictures.

I want to make real magic on stage. Art that is shocking in its simplicity and tragic in its optimism.

Playgoing: Dialectical Reasoning and Real Magic

Seeing plays in a different language leads to a sort of posturing on our part about what we actually took away from the experience. The posturing is easily explained, growing up in an Archival society we learn through language and the written word. The counter argument of learning the play underneath the play through the actor’s gesture or body is largely suppositional.  One could also argue that all of the technical elements of the piece lead us to an understanding, and in part that’s true. Yet it would be arrogant on our part to assume that the understanding suggested by the physical elements is as deep as the understanding we’d have through witnessing the piece in a familiar language. 

In the case of Beware of Pity, supposing the piece was presented to us without any language, the actor’s merely using their body’s, I’d be surprised if anyone would come away from that experience knowing “There is no wickedness, only weakness” or “As long as your conscience exists, your guilt will too”. Language is comprised of symbols, feelings, etc. just as if it were a body. This is why there’s often multiple interpretations of a single word. Axiom’s are rare, and so is our understanding of even the most basic principles of human life. 

If we were from a culture that was largely educated through Repertoire(academic jargon for learning through the body), this might not be the case. The times where gesture has lead to a somewhat deeper understanding, for me at least, has been when the play has implemented film techniques. The close-ups allow for a more personal experience, and the actor’s face gives away more clues as to what’s happening in the moment of the play as well as what’s happening underneath that moment. Though I’m somewhat skeptical of even giving myself that much credit. There’s too many variables unaccounted for. A deep understanding of the nuances of plays is not picked up from one reading, much less one viewing. If it were, the fun of making or experiencing a play wouldn’t exist. There would be no mystery. 

Real Magic is the only play we’ve experienced that has no distillation of language. There was no German, and there were no subsequent translations of German into English. Whether or not anyone liked or disliked what that piece was doing is unimportant. There’s something to be said about what they were doing besides repetition. Repetition in theater at that caliber is rarely arbitrary. It’s there for a purpose, and plenty of other playwrights have understood this. Whether or not you want to theorize that it’s there to exemplify the circuitous nature of language, or the fact that we often find ourselves saying the same things but expressing it in different ways, are all valid opinions. Particularly when we see three actors suffer the endless cycle of not being able to offer the answer that they’re all desperately looking for. In that one gesture of cyclic language there’s a multitude of metaphors to draw from. 

I would go as far as to say that in terms of performance, Real Magic was the most impressive one we’ve seen. Each cycle of interviews between the actor’s was not only grounded in the moment, but was different and explorative. This is no easy feat, especially when you consider that they performed for nearly an hour and a half. None of this is to argue for anyone to have a different experience of a piece of theater, but merely to find a shred of deeper understanding in terms of what all this playgoing means. 

Tonight at the Playwright's Festival.

A bit about tonight. This is from the Deutsches website.

"Darja Stocker has radically rewritten Sophocles’ tragedy about the resistance of an individual against authoritarian state power, charging it with the political upheaval that led to the Arab Spring and yet remaining faithful to the central core of the play. Ancient Thebes is turned into the "Fortress of Europe", and the war that rages outside its walls can be understood as the one currently being waged along Europe’s external borders. The playwright asks: Why does political action invariably involve the construction of an image of the enemy? Instead, she proposes an alternative image of a generation that believes in solidarity and universal humanism, urging for a revolution.

Darja Stocker, born in 1983 in Zurich, began writing at the age of 11 and studied Creative Writing for the Stage at the UdK Berlin. In the meantime she has become a sought-after playwright. For her debut play Nachtblind (Night Blind) she was awarded the Playwright’s Prize at the Heidelberg Stückemarkt in 2005. In 2011 she took up an international residency at the Royal Court Theatre London. From 2012 to 2014, immediately after the time of the revolution, she lived and worked in Tunisia and Egypt. Nirgends in Friede. Antigone (Nowhere in Peace. Antigone) is shaped by her experiences there."

physicality

I'm becoming increasingly more aware of the importance of the body/movement on stage. The blocking of Wallenstein was pretty dope---wasn't a huge fan of the show, though. But what really got me was Richard. Oh my GOD.

Knees buckled together. Back slouched and hunched. Fingers deformed. The list goes on. I can't imagine how much work it must have taken to train his body to bend and fold the way it did. If his acting wasn't enough, the physical embodiment of his character had me completely mesmerized. I appreciated this performance so much. I haven't had the opportunity to take many movement classes, but this performance will undoubtedly change how I carry myself on stage.

I have been to few shows that have made me feel physical discomfort as a direct result of happenings on stage. Richard's gluttony, the way he stuffed his cheeks full of disgusting foods, his consistent hacking and spitting, and how he covered himself and others in food actually made me nauseous and uncomfortable. I was super anxious at the start of the show because I thought one of the party-goers in the opening scene was going to puke on me or throw food/drinks on me. It was insane. I'm a person that does well with gore, blood, things others might find disgusting. But i was super grossed out tonight and I loved every minute of it.

Richard actually came up to me and plucked confetti out of my cleavage during the show. Talk about breaking the fourth wall...

I am going to miss German theatre so much.

Yet another show

Wallenstein was unlike any other show we have seen. The second you walk into the theater, the tone is set. You are blinded by the fog and an aroma that cannot be defined surrounds you. Then the deep beat of the drum begins and you are immersed in a constricting environment. The lights shift ever so slowly to reveal the movement on stage. From this, I thought I would be into it.

But as the show goes on, I got increasingly bored. There was not a lot of action on stage. The performers would come downstage and give their lines or monologues. At some points, I felt as if they were lecturing the audience. There were some successful and beautiful moments in staging and design, but those were purely moments. It couldn't grasp my attention for more than a few seconds.

This is the show where it is most important to know what they are saying, thus far. I'm sure I would have enjoyed the performance if I knew more than just the basic plot line

Design wise: I was underwhelmed. I understand they were trying to match the grid, and the lighting created some dramatic and abstract silhouettes, and I admired the absence of entrances and exits. It created a constrained environment. But that's all the set was: an environment, and more than a play space.

Now don't get me wrong, one of the goals of a set designer is to create an environment. But when you don't understand the language, and the actors are screaming their lines, it's always nice as too have something pretty to look at.

The last 10 minutes however, were riveting. And I only wish to have known what they were saying. I would have been more engaged.

THE THREEPENNY OPERA at Berliner Ensemble

WALLENSTEIN at Schaubühne

Forced Entertainment's REAL MAGIC at Hebbel am Ufer

GOOD PERSON OF SZECHWAN at Berliner

BEWARE OF PITY at Schaubühne

THE LITTLE FOXES at Schaubühne

#viewpoints

I took a class called Viewpoints with a nice man named Donnie Mather. I had taken acting classes in the past, but when I signed up for viewpoints, I had no clue what it would entail.
There were six viewpoints.

1) space
2) story
3) time
4) emotion
5) movement
6) shape

This class kept creeping into my thoughts at the Wallenstein workshop we went to. In said workshop, they condensed an entire viewpoints class into a few hours.
I wondered why this workshop was essentially speed-dating viewpoints.
And then I saw Wallenstein, and I understood.

Wallenstein used every viewpoint in the blocking. Some ways were more or less obvious than others. What stood out to me the most was the gridded pattern on the floor. It was like a game of chess, and all of the players chose to walk in clear paths, following the grids, rarely breaking that unspoken rule.

Donnie told us in the class that some people have done entire shows centered around viewpoints. I never thought I'd have the privilege of seeing one so soon.

I'm not going to lie. I didn't love Wallenstein.
But I appreciated the blocking and movements of the actors.
One area I am lacking in acting is my movement. Because I am awkward and, frankly, not confident in my own body, I overthink my movements. The viewpoints class I took helped me get better with my movement. And now, I'm desperately wanting to take another viewpoints class.

Something that bothered me greatly about Wallenstein was the fact that, for some reason, every actor was yelling. Constantly. I think there is a common feeling that if you can yell the loudest, cry the hardest, etc, then you are clearly the best actor.
Acting, to me, is about being truthful. There is nothing truthful about constant screaming.
Acting goes from art to competition when actors are just constantly yelling, seeing who can yell the loudest, who can produce the most tears from their tear ducts. It bores me.

Quoth the Christopher, "I'd rather be in a room with a serial sociopath killer (Richard) than with a guy like Wallenstein any day." Ditto.

Weakness or Wickedness?

Many aspects of "Beware of Pity" have permeated my thoughts since we saw it. One thought, one line, has stuck out to me however, and become a kind of guiding principle in my assessment of two of the chapters in the book in particular. I'm paraphrasing, but the basic gist of the line from "Beware of Pity" states that there is no wickedness, only weakness.

As I read the two side by side chapters on Marlene Dietrich and Leni Reifenstahl, two women living in the same era whose lives diverged over their choice to become a part of Hitler's party or fight against him. We are provided with the full scope of Marlene Dietrich's strength, drinking snow out of a helmet, hiking right along side the Allied soldiers and doing her part to bring down the Nazi party. On the other hand we're given an account of Leni Reifenstahl, a woman in a man's business, who is presented with the opportunity to further her career by creating propaganda films for Hitler, a proposal that, if we're being honest with ourselves, would sway many struggling artists. When we consider not just these two women, but any figures throughout history whose actions we so quickly condemn as "wicked" or "pure evil," we are quick also to console ourselves with the thought that we are good people without the capacity for evil. However, if we consider the fact that wicked actions may simply be the result of weakness, we are presented with a rather humbling depiction of human nature, of our nature even. Like Leni, which one of us, in the vulnerable state of an emerging artist, does not feel weakened and susceptible? Though of course (hopefully) this would not result in the pre-meditation of wicked actions concocted by our own imagination, it would result in ground fertile enough for a wicked seed to be planted by another.

Pots DAMN!

What a dream. 

There was such an emphasis on dreaming and dream-states this last semester it was hard not to reflect on these themes while strolling through the gardens and forests. The first half of the excursion was spent with friends, making our way leisurely past the Orangerie. 🍊 After a long lunch I decided to branch off and explore on my own.

 I had every intention of visiting most (if not all) of the buildings on the map but that quickly changed  and the map got recycled when the forestry and foliage romanced me more that any building ever could. I took unmarked, lonely trails through the trees and hedges, barely ever encountering another being. For two hours it was me and nature - something I've immensely missed.

When I got the mountain range tattooed on my foot years ago, I had no intention of ever leaving my beautiful mountains behind. It's been rough. A bit of my heart is lost in the forests of the Rocky and Sawtooth mountain ranges. While the man-made Potsdamn gardens do not hold a candle to the splendor of my sacred place back home it absolutely has its own spectacular beauty. It was beneficial for me to be alone surrounded by nature - more than I think I can even still comprehend. Nature is everyone's free therapist.

Brecht?

I'll be honest and say that I haven't particularly enjoyed any of the three Brecht shows we have seen during our time here in Berlin. In a way I feel like we're kind of screwed going into any Brecht show simply because of the way his work has been presented to us throughout our education. "You're not supposed to connect with Brecht's work. It's all about alienation." We've gotten the Sparknotes version of Brecht since high school, and because of that I kind of feel like I'm trapped in what is probably an incorrect perception of what his work should be, what affect it should produce on an audience.  Perhaps it is the anticipation of seeing Brecht performed "the way it should be" that has tainted each experience for me, made me feel as if I myself am missing something, the key that would unlock the secret as to why Brecht has been deified by theater history.

I've questioned whether subtitles would help me to enter the shows in a more engaging way. I've questioned whether the tiresome nature of each production, the inability to connect on an emotional level with the work, is purposeful or a product of ineffective productions. Brecht has become even more of an enigma after actually getting the chance to see his work in its native tongue, in his native land. After seeing three radically different productions of his work, it doesn't seem as if anyone has quite put their finger on what his work was/should be today. Has he become another Shakespeare, a playwright whose work some directors use simply as the loose basis for their own artistic explorations, their own high concept work and aesthetic circle-jerking? On the other hand, as some of us saw in "Mother Courage," is his work simply a museum piece now? The work that high schoolers come and suffer through on a school trip as they sneak glances at their iPhones? Is anyone doing a production of Brecht today that would evoke the same sensational feelings that skyrocketed him to the top of the theatrical universe? Or are we all just pretending to enjoy his work, to engage deeply with him, because we feel it is our duty to history?

Real [Stupid] Magic

Our first show in English. Cool. Time to relax and enjoy. HAU2 is a special venue. I love spaces that can be converted and used for all kinds of events. I also really enjoyed their bar and patio outside while gazing at their visually appealing advertisements. It was shaping up to be a lovely evening.
Then the show started.
Cue annoyance.

I can handle this. I Can Handle This. I. Can. Handle. This. I CAN HANDLE THIS. ICANHANDLETHISSSSSSSS.

"Erin, what time is it?"

"Erin, what time is it now?"

Well done actors of Real Magic. How do you not pull your hair out? I think I know what is is you're trying to achieve. I'm on to your game. - And I'm not just talking about the SNL-like game show skit either. By the third round of swapping roles on stage it was obvious that this will be all it is. Again, actors - I applaud you wholeheartedly. I appreciate you and what you're doing but I sure as hell hope I never have to sit through those sound cues ever again. That is what got me. The sporadic, Purposely ill-placed timings and levels of the most annoying game show tracks ever recorded...

I'm glad I saw it. I'm glad I never have to see it again.
I'd rather watch Saw. (And that's gross.)

Lars' Penis

During our tour of Berliner Ensemble, our tour guide told us that Brecht believed that the person who embodied everything he thought good acting was was his wife. His wife, he said, wasn't afraid to be ugly onstage. As a very self-concious, sometimes mistaken for vain, and insecure person, I find that a real challenge. Probably one of my biggest hurdles as an actor: Overcome the fear of being ugly.

Yesterday, (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN RICHARD III) Lars took all of his clothes off. This wasn't the shocking part. I've seen plenty of nudity on stage and on the screen. But the nudity had never seemed so close, so intimate, so vulnerable. Furthermore, and I hope not to offend anyones sensibilities, Lars' penis wasn't magical, beautiful, or, quite fankly, of an admirable length. Lars' penis was just Lars' penis. Not Michael Fassbender's penis. It was then that that idea of not being afraid of being ugly really hit me. But its so much further than just "ugly" or "pretty" its humanity and vulnerability (which is why the choice to do it nude is so. fucking. great.)

And then some asshat on the balcony took his phone out and started recording. But instead of ignoring him, or shutting down, Lars' called the guy out. He decided to call out this guy who had breached the unspoken pact of trust between audience and performer. The show continued, only after Lars had had his time humiliating the cameraman. A few scenes later, Lars adressed him again, making a joke I didn't quite catch but included the words "my penis" and a hearty laugh.

Bravery to be ugly. And Richard, for sure, as well as Lars' interpretation of him are ugly. Constantly ugly. It's one thing to understand this concept, to know that it's selfish to run away form it. But ugliness, I am starting to think, holds so much more truth than beauty.

You go Lars, you and your kinda weird penis.

Amid Recent Events

A dozen of shows seen. Out of those, one had racial diversity in its cast. One had a female as the main role. And too many to count were majority white males. With the recent Stanford rape case and Hillary Clinton winning the nomination, I am more aware of the presence of women on stage, or lack there of.

Shows like Richard III, The Robbers, Small Town Boy, Beware of Pity and Spanish Fly all had few women in ratio to the rest of the cast. Then tonight, Three Penny Opera, I noticed how there was two main women. That's when the wheels started turning.

After having conversations with others from the group, I decided there needs to be more research done on this show. What was the concept? Was it intentional to have the male costumes more complex and designed than the women? Why were the women acting childish, and dim-witted. Was there any maturing throughout the show that I couldn't grasp because of the language barrier?

Nonetheless, as we grow older, we see the issues in our lives. And feminism and the role of women is a glaring topic that needs improvement.

Thoughts at 1:28 am

I saw Beware of Pity and it took my breath away.
Birdie in Little Foxes had a monologue that I immediately want to learn and master for my repertoire.
My stretch marks are just pieces of my soul breaking through the mold of what society says my body should look like.
I could really use some watermelon right now.
Still haven't pet a dog here.
I wonder if those nudist men in the tiergarten get bug bites on their dongs.

Power of Greatness

What creates greatness? History, experiences, anything that leaves a lasting impression. And every person has their own interpretation of greatness. The late Muhammad Ali was known as one of the greatest fighters of all time. Shakespeare is one of the greatest writers of all time. Shaw shank Redemption is one of the greatest movies of all times. So besides wining awards and breaking records,  who decides these are great? And when there is a different opinion on each situation, some are criticized.

What makes something great, and how can we create our own greatness? Make memorable memories and experiences. If it is great to you, or the opposite, then why should someones else's opinion matter and impact yours. Answer: it shouldn't.

As I have only just figured out why this wasn't working for me, I will now post my first blog.
Orignal publication date: May 13, 2016

"Berlin was a place incapable of tenderness... a volatile and moody virago who only ever ran fiery hot or bitter cold or drenched herself in tears." 

Right now, in the midst of three sunny days, this city is "fiery hot." And yet, I am amazed at how comfortable these Berliner exist, only mildly aware of it's heat. Orit seemed downright shocked that anyone would be interested in Berlin. Bernardo, almost bored by it. The ability to sit in this mercurial city is amazing to me. "It's just the fashion" explained Orit when we asked about Yael Ronan's storytelling.

Berlin Haiku

Water in Berlin

is green. Swans drool into the

horns at Hackesher.

Museums

Museums are always kind of a weird thing for me - you want to see everything, but you’ll never have enough time.  Also here not a lot of name plates are in English so it sort of helps you to keep moving.  The way I always thought about going to museums is that you take your time, but you shouldn’t be pressured to see EVERYTHING.  It’s the same as theater, you go and you leave with what you leave with.  Never feel pressured to see everything - if you do you’ll just never leave.  I’ve gone to museums with people who feel the need to see and read about everything and it’s the most frustrating thing - you want to go ahead but are being pulled back.  Just some thoughts from this museum filled trip.

xx