DER DIE MANN at Volksbühne

DER DIE MANN (based on the writing of Konrad Bayer) at Volksbühne, directed by Herbert Fritsch, set design by Herbert Fritsch, costumes by Victoria Behr, lights by Torsen König, music by Ingo Günther and dramaturgical work by Sabrina Zwach.

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There's no need to be scared.*

Dear Berlin, 

Life can be scary sometimes.

Especially when you consciously choose to place yourself in an environment where you know you will have to face your fear. I guess this can be called bravery but that's not the feeling that comes to mind. I think of fear and being scared. That vulnerability is what makes someone human and I'm not afraid to feel human. 

On Thursday May 28th, I experienced many emotions. In my favorite book "The Alchemist", Paulo Coelho once said “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second encounter with God and with eternity.” This is one way of saying how my psychology works when trying to face fear in the face even if I have self doubt. Since being in Berlin time has been a strange concept and the best description was told in the story told by Chunky Move's performance of "Complexity of Belonging". All that matters is place, where you are with yourself as a person and taking in your surroundings and circumstances and not fighting them. Allowing life to happen and allowing yourself to be yourself. This all sounds easy until you come across a wall, but when your wall crumbles to the ground a beautiful first step can be taken and the key is for your journey to never end and for you to choose to always keep going and moving forward, to not allow yourself to be stuck or blocked. You can take a curvy road around the path but there's usually one key that opens the door once you get there and I feel I used every key before finding the right one. The thing is there is no "right" door. Life is that not obvious because we have the power of choice. Also, life is more complex than just one door and key. 

When hearing conversations about Global Theater, I heard about the confusion some students had when reading plays because there were no distinct story lines. I find there is a parallel between these plays and life because of the different layers of emotions that can't be put into words and can only be felt. The key is to not follow our literary structure taught to us in school, but to break the rules and just allow ourselves to feel and not try to understand something logically but viscerally. When watching "Richard III", I felt empathetic to the characters on stage. Regardless of not knowing the story before, and I couldn't tell you all details of "Richard III"'s plot and story, I felt every part of the story and followed it emotionally and that was a more beautiful version of the story than trying to follow the words. Now I can fully understand what my acting teachers meant about the words not mattering and for me to fully understand what I wanted and why I wanted it but more so the feeling I am getting because of my circumstance. Telling a story because of the emotions I am conveying to the audience and evoking an emotional response from them is the reason why I love acting. The emotions evoked by one human being sends out rays of energy like the feeling of the sun on the back of my black leather jacket waiting to get inside the Altes National Museum. It is inevitable to feel even if people try their hardest not to. The feeling an actor shares with the audience when telling a story is (in my opinion) the reason why people watch theater. People are looking to connect with a story because of the raw emotions actors share and I feel because nothing is precious in Berlin and actors and theaters are breaking boundaries people can think outside of themselves and not take life for what it seems on the surface but for what the human experience is. It's ok to have an opinion and it's ok to feel. Feeling any emotion is the basic foundation of human connection. No material is precious: wear a white gown on a dirt stage floor, cover yourself and your partner in blue paint, eat an apple on stage and don't clean up the peal, cover yourself in blood, and walk around naked (ok not recommending that in public), but all of this shows how life's materialism and overthinking life isn't worth it because at the end we all have a final destination called death so don't take life for granted because the emotions and human connections are precious and that is all. Allow yourself to be human. Don't be fearless, be brave. 

xox

(Human) Laura

Schaubuhne pt. I

My heart is racing as I try to figure out how I can portray my experience at Schaubuhne the two evenings we were there through words. One of the reasons I have found this particular blog post so difficult to write is I feel my thoughts are running in a circular pattern and I’ve been taught that writing is linear (yay high school five paragraph analytical essays!). An idea I would not be able to articulate without having seen Complexity of Belonging...so to dive right in: Schaubuhne. Not only does this theater create amazing works of playing on stage but also an atmosphere where a handful of artists can sit down, have a beer, and talk to more experienced artists about their craft, preferences, experiences, etc. I have noticed a recurring theme through many of the shows we’ve seen here is, besides nudity, a willingness to be reckless (while keeping each other and the audience phsyically safe) and a certain fearlessness. It is not to say that the theatermakers are unafraid of anything but the work presented, in my opinion, could not come as far as it does without having to step over some boundaries of fear. WHY BE SO CAUTIOUS? One thing I have noticed between being an American audience member and a German audience member is as the former I feel sheltered rather than phsyically safe but mentally being pushed over a cliff as part of the latter. 

Complexity of Belonging was unlike any show I have ever seen. Even though Chunky Move is an Australian company, Schaubuhne inviting them to their stage, I believe, says something about the theater’s philosophy, aesthetic, and quality. I loved the way the story was told through dialogue and movement with equal weight--not just one or the other. I left the theater wanting to create and work. And I just wanted to work the hardest I’ve ever worked in my whole life. Complexity, as well as Richard III, both made me really want to take risks. The stories in Complexity of Belonging were either written out, from life experience of the actors and dancers, and other partes were improvised every night. And this show was truly personal...One part which really hit me was when one of the female dancers had a monologue about the perfect guy. It ridiculously funny. I had gotten in an ab workout and cleaned my face with my tears all from laughing so hard. Then all of a sudden I realized a part of me was her. Not that I necessarily wanted everything she was describing in a man but her conditioning as a woman was so similar to what I feel as been put on me in certain instances. And to see how that manifested itself within her search for a boyfriend and her expectations for life was extraordinary and incredibly personal. On another note, the vast outback on the backdrop really reminded me of the Romanticism art that we had seen earlier that day. I loved the connection of the two because one theme of Romanticism art is portraying the ideal of being one with nature and all of the characters in Complexity of Belonging were also searching for their ideal lifestyle.  

Richard III was really it for me. I definitley wouldn’t have been prepared for it though without seeing every other show we had beforehand. The most important thing: Richard was not a perfect show. It was unapologetically imperfect. There wasn’t a grasp for it the way I feel there is in most American theater. When talking to Lars, I saw that he was unapologetically imperfect as well. But this is something that has taken him a while to grasp and something he is still working on and learning about as he does more acting in theater, film, and directing. He’s been doing work with huge theater companies since the year after I was born. His Wikipedia resume starts in 1997 at Deutches Theater, not including his training or any smaller scale projects he’s done. I freaked out when I went over to have Lars sign my poster (two things I do not normally do, fangirling or bothering the person I am fangirling over with my fangirling). After Christopher bought him a beer and he sat down, I occasionally snuck out my phone to write down things he said that really stood out to me. I can’t remember the exact context of the quote but as he was talking about performing he apparently says to himself “Maybe I’ll fuck it up tonight.” Who knows? Maybe I’ll entirely fuck everything up tonight. And so what? If someone had said something of this sentiment to me even just a year ago, I would have politely smiled and When my brother and I were younger, my mom wrote letters to us to read as adults about what we were like growing up. Apparently, in Kingergarten I turned to my mom and said “I want to do everything perfectly.” Growing up in a New York City private school, even though I went to one of the more “progressive” schools, really didn’t help foster a healthy relationship with the process of working on something, ideals, and expectations. To hear Lars talk about how he thinks of what he does as playing and to see with my own eyes that he doesn’t take himself so god-damn seriously in life or on stage hit me at my core. Lars said: “I see the characters [I play] as puppets.” And he really seemed to emphasize how he was playing-he wasn’t becoming the character or completely immersing himself in his circumstances. He even went as far to say there isn’t a contradiction for him, being aware of everything makes him even more alive. Contradiction meaning there isn’t a contradiction of being immersed into what he is doing while being aware of the audience. He said that there were times that he would think about his family while playing or what he had for dinner but it didn’t take away from what he was doing. Rather quite the opposite, it enhanced what he’s doing. And I would have to say, I think he’s on to something...

Encounters and Doodles

          Although a whole week has gone, I keep returning to one of my first impressions of the City and the type of people that life here. Getting to explore a Flea-market on Pentecost, there were collages and posters hanging from everywhere. The man running the stand turned out to be an American from Cincinnati, he moved to Berlin 11 years ago and had no intention to return to the states unless a relation fell sick. Like the Italian woman from the night before, he was a firm believer that Berlin had everything one needed in Berlin, and how anything was possible in the city alone. Honestly I had never met anyone who seemed to have sworn to such a clear belief, and was finally feeling the magic of the city reach even further into my mind. A man more interested in the history of the country than the contemporary art that the Italian woman, he explained that he knew of where to look for the history that survived and morphed with the future of the city. The Poster seller then told me to cross the street where you could see find bullet holes left in the walls of multiple buildings, meant to be a reminder to not forget the past. Having a week under my belt, I can see why he never wanted to leave.

Below is 3 of the posters I then purchased from the guy, The charcoal doodle is just something I was working on after meeting him. 

In Crisis - Eroticism or the Lack Thereof

Sexuality is, at its heart, a vital principle of human living that ties the desire, energy and pleasure of the body to an intellectual, emotional and even spiritual intimacy. Berlin is particularly a city that has been characterized by its libertine sexual culture. Far from being a taboo, sexuality seems particularly encouraged with the prominence of sex clubs and parties going on around the city. It played a vital role in shaping the zeitgeist of East Berlin, whose citizens sought to escape the rigidity of the state through the emancipation of their own sex lives.

“If Paris is the city of love, Berlin is the land of fuck. With its many underground sex clubs and 'nights' for every persuasion, Berlin is a mecca of sex as you've never experienced it before... – EXBERLINER”

Thus, it is apparent that sexuality is at the heart of cultural life here in Berlin. Here, there seems to be no taboos left concerning sex save for one – not having it. In “Erotic Crisis,” Yael Ronen plays the role of a psychotherapist in the dying bedrooms of two long-standing couples. Despite initially deriving so much satisfaction and meaning from their sexual liaisons, these couples come to face the growing reality that sex, for them, is just a means of maintaining the status quo; sex has become a bore. They begin the show with naked honesty, both figuratively and literally. Dressed in provocative fetish outfits, each individual talks at length about their vivid sexual fantasies to varying degrees of plausibility to surreality. The entire sequence is undoubtedly comic in nature, a means of introducing the liberal attitudes of both the couples as well as the city of Berlin at large. But the play takes an increasingly tragic turn as the cracks in their relationships are revealed. Whether dealing with deep-seated insecurities or the realization that their partner simply cannot give them what they need, these individuals are shaken to their cores as they realize that their relationships have turned into dead ends. What does it mean to possess physical satisfaction, but without emotional or spiritual climax? What are they – to each other? Perhaps reflective of reality, there are no easy answers in the play. Alienation is at the heart of this work, and it is every bit as heartbreaking and disillusioning as it is in life. 

Sartre and Nothingness

How does one grasp the nature of human existence? What does it mean to exist in a universe that, at its face, is cold, irrational and uncaring of human needs, desires, and concerns? Many have searched for their meanings through their own spiritual and religious interpretations. Whether through believing in omniscient, omnipotent beings shaped in the image of man or in singular manifestations of all existence, humanity at large has always sought solace from the potentiality that there may be nothing out there for us. Jean-Paul Sartre, a key philosopher of existential thought, approached this existential quandary differently. In his establishing work Being and Nothingness, Sartre espoused the notion that man is a being who is “haunted by completion,” something that he called the “ens causa sui,” what many identify as God. For Sartre, all exploits in pursuit of this divine perfection have and will prove fruitless, as “man is a useless passion.” Why? Because, “there is no meaning in life.” According to Sartre, Man searches and searches, yet the gains inevitably result in nothing but frustration. Man is doomed to fail in its quest for meaning, because there is no meaning. Man exists for nothing, only coming to exist through mere accident. The nature of existing is in and of itself arbitrary. We spend our lives in pursuit of meaning, occupying ourselves with useless tasks that inevitably amount to nothing but nothingness. Nothing is gained, nothing is earned; Man comes empty and goes empty. The effort and pains we take to live – are useless. His expression of this point seemed particularly poignant in his play, Les jeux sont faits. Two individuals, despite being given a second chance at life, fail to eke out any meaningful consequence despite their efforts. They realize the absurdity of life as they are forced to wander and witness the problems of friends and loved ones after their demise. Powerless to help and powerless to relieve themselves of their own suffering, they also come to understand the absurdity inherent to the condition of death. They are forced to view life but are yet prevented from participating in it meaningfully. Despite the seemingly nihilistic outlooks of Sartre, I believe that he channeled a central theme that was rooted in optimism throughout his works. Ultimately, I believe that Sartre held that all that keeps us from leading pointless, useless lives is our power and freedom to interact with our surrounding world according to our own choices. To exist may be an effort without inherent purpose, but that also frees us to establish and pursue our own individual meanings.

Inspiration and the state of the art

The first night we got here Christopher asked each of us why we were here. I told everyone that this past year the acting program at Rutgers has not only been teaching me about acting, but also about art. I have been inspired to find more artistry in myself. I told everyone that I am in Berlin to be inspired. My reason for being here has been met and surpassed. I am finding so much inspiration here and it’s making me fall in love with this city a little bit more every day.

On Thursday we went to the Nationalgalerie on Museumsinsel (Museum Island). Before we went into the gallery Christopher talked to us a bit about the transition from 18^th century Neo-Classicism to 19^th century Romanticism. One of the words that stuck out to me towards the end of his spiel, he used the phrase “Ein Fulong,” (not spelled correctly here) which means a feeling, and where we later got the word empathy.

            We walked through the first floor gallery of 19^th century paintings and they were gorgeous. Then we went to the third floor and they were even more gorgeous. The idealized, lush landscapes, the beautiful use of color, the depictions of every day people with real, human emotions. I didn’t know visual art could be so moving. I’ve never cried at a painting before, but, alas, it happened. As I was quickly skimming the paintings and taking as many pictures as I could to try and take it all in before we had to go, my breath was taken away by one painting in particular entitled Heimkehr des Palikaren (Palikare Returns Home) by Eduard Magnus in 1836. It is a simple picture of a father returning home to his family. He is holding a new baby, and his two other kids are at his feet, and his wife is by his side. They are all so happy, and there is such a deep love that was captured so magnificently by the painter. It was unexpected, surprising, breath-taking, my first experience crying at a painting. I never thought that would happen. It was “Ein Fulong.” It makes me so proud to be an artist.

            Berliners seems to get art in quite a particular way, and in quite a different way than Americans. Just walking around the city we’ll see buildings with expansive street art on the walls, and extraordinary graffiti in unexpected places. It’s as if Berlin is busting at the seams with a creative spirit that it just spills onto the streets. (It inspired one of my Instagram posts).

            While I am being inspired every day, I am also getting a bit more blue about the state of the art in the States. I just want to do this kind of art and be a part of this kind of work where no one gives any apologies. It saddens me that Americans don’t get it. The shows we’ve seen so far have had some extraordinary material and subject matter, and it was as if the Berliners didn’t bat an eye, and in fact appreciated and applauded the actors and production for their bravery. That’s what I want theatre to be – a voice for the people’s collective consciousness. To affect change. And that’s what I feel like it is here. Not a frozen museum piece. If those plays were played in the States, I feel like Americans would scream, huff and puff, write letters, and be personally offended.

            NEVERTHELESS, I am still inspired. And perhaps it is someone like me and the wonderful artists I’m here with to go back and change the state of affairs. I’m ready to work.

It Touched My Theater

We are led into what seems to be a pretty small theater. This is it. The first in a series of plays that I will experience. Peers of mine will later comment how run down the theater was when they first walked in. I took no notice. Christopher leans over and tells me we are sitting on the stage and that behind the curtain is where the audience usually sits. The lights go dark and a projection comes up. This is it. The start. I am now a part of the experience called Das Spiel ist Aus. 

The projection lasts for about five minutes (ten minutes? twenty? I don't know. I lost all sense of time) and by the end of the projection my heart was literally pounding out of my chest and I absolutely could not catch my breath. Something was happening and I am getting a sensation all throughout my body. What is happening? I am spinning! Or the curtain is spinning? I couldn't figure it out. Wait, yes! I am spinning! The entire stage was rotating. We end up facing the audience again. We are witness to an absolutely beautiful theater orchestra that is possibly the most beautiful I have ever seen. In the lower center are two people that are before us. Both completely naked. Both with a gaze that tore through life. It seemed as though life started anew and before us were Adam and Eve...


...and it did start anew. Right there on that night in that place. It was possible. Theater was possible. It had happened. I experienced theater that was alive. I did not know a word of German, the only language spoken the entire night, and yet I was alive. We walked out and my body had been through something. I felt a feeling that I have only had a handful of times in my life. It is something only theater has ever done to me. It is when a little bit of that magic, a little bit of that life, is taken out with you. The lights are clearer, the night is clearer, and anything is possible. The world was ringing and singing sweetly. This moment was fleeting and the sad fact of truth slipped in. The banality of it  (I initially wrote "the omnipresent pettiness of human life" but i'm in Berlin and it is beautiful and I keep being touched by experiences in new ways here so I am afraid to write that phrase even though maybe in the day to day it rings true) slipped in. But that moment and that night made me take the blindfolds off that I had been wearing for so long. The folds that kept me thinking that theater is dead, ineffectual, never new. That it was not connected to the deepest passion that shakes through my bones .

I keep going back to this passage by John Patrick Shanley that he wrote as a preface to The Big Funk. The passage is absolutely beautiful and has been a part of my life for quite a long time. When I first read it I was still a kid who was not yet fully scathed by life. Back then every word made perfect sense to me and my soul. Now sometimes his words are things I grapple with. Though I am only a few years older than that kid who found the passage in perfect harmony with himself, I am now many times lost, confused and scared i.e. not in harmony with the spirit inside me that is able to dance with his words. I will leave his full passage at the bottom and will come back to this first experience in a later post (maybe to get at the "Why" of the impact of this night). But I leave this experience alive, changed, and touched. Touched with a million possibilities...that what we feel in the depths of our soul is possible. Possible in the theater.

John Patrick Shanley’s preface to his play “The Big Funk”

A man in our society is not left alone. Not in the cities. Not in the woods. We msut have commerce with our fellows, and that commerce is difficult and uneasy. I do not understand how to live in this society. I don’t get it. Each person has an enormous effect. Call it environmental impact if you like. Where my foot falls, I leave a mark, whether I want to or not. We are linked together, each to each. You can’t breathe without taking a breath from somebody else. You can’t smile without changing the landscape. And so I ask the question: Why is theatre so ineffectual, unnew, not exciting, fussy, not connected to the thrilling recognition possible in dreams?

It’s a question of spirit. My ungainly spirit thrashes around inside me making me feel lumpy and sick. My spirit is this moment dissatisfied with the outward life I inhabit. Why does my outward life not reflect the enormity of the miracle of existence? Why are my eyes blinded with always new scales, my ears stopped with thick chunks of fresh wax, why are my fingers calloused again?

I don’t ask these questions lightly. I beat on the stone door of my tomb. I want out! Some days I wake up in a tomb, some days on a grassy mound by a river. Today, I woke up in a tomb. Why does my spirit sometimes retreat into a deathly closet? Perhaps it is not my spirit leading the way at such times, but my body, longing to lie down in marble gloom, and rot away.

Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. When it’s not a safe place, it’s abusive to actors and audiences alike. When its safety is used to protect cowards masquerading as heroes, it’s a boring travesty. An actor who is truly heroic reveals the divine that passes through him, that aspect of himself that he does not own and cannot control. The control and the artistry of the heroic actor is in service to his soul.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

Don’t act for money. You’ll start to feel dead and bitter.

Don’t act for glory. You’ll start to feel dead, fat, and fearful.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

You can’t avoid all the pitfalls. There are lies you must tell. But experience the lie. See it as something dead and unconnected you clutch. And let it go.

Act from the depth of your feeling imagination. Act for celebration, for search, for grieving, for worship, to express that desolate sensation of wandering through the howling wilderness.

Don’t worry about Art.

Do these things, and it will be Art.

Sensual City, The sound of Berlin

Berlin is very sensually satisfying city. One of the things I love about the city is the sound. I love the birds singing. It must be cause there are so many trees everywhere. I love musicians on the street playing all different kinds of instruments. There are much wider variety of instruments compare to New York City, and the musicians are actually very good at it.

And of course, I cannot not relate this to their ancestors. 

How do you feel? Having  Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms's blood in your veins?

:) :) :) 

Inspired by GiHee Hong

Live Complexely.

It feels a little like an insumountable task to write about The Complexity of Belonging, to portray what it means to me, to communicate the effect it had on me. But I feel obligated to try, so here goes.

This piece connected with me on a level that I have never experienced before. The mixture of impeccable acting work and stunning choreography and dancing wove together to  create a piece that shook me to the core. It was an extremely important piece of theater, that beside being meaningful to young people in this world, was also visually stunning and used technology in a integrated and mature way. Seeing this piece lit the dancer fire that still live in me. It was incredible, the dancers at Chunky Move are astounding and the fact that I couldn't tell the difference between the actors and the  dancers is so very impressive to me. When most of the time I see actors doing movement or dance there's a part of me that cringes at the lack of technical skills.

I've always believed that complexity is the most important aspect of life and art and understanding. That everything we see around us is inherently more complex than we could ever imagine and that trying to simplify those things is at least a disservice and at most horrendously offensive. And this piece is about just that. Including thoughts on lonliness and togetherness and pain and understanding and love and what women want from oral sex. It's about life, in a beautiful, messy and dangerous, way that doesn't try to answer any questions that seems more honest than any piece of theater I've seen in a long time. And at its very center it evokes feelings and thoughts about the fact that defining yourself by the people around you doesn't work. And that you can learn and learn and learn about the world and meet people and fall in love and make connections but at the end of the day what you really have is yourself. And it wasn't some bullshit lesson about self-love, its about being able to look at yourself complexly. To not force yourself into a box, to, "Look past the broken pieces."

But if I learned one thing from this performance, it was that this is the sort of work I want to do. And I don't have to choose between dance and acting, and that both parts of me can coexist and create something more beautiful and important than they ever could apart.

RICHARD III at Schaubühne

Schaubühne's RICHARD III by William Shakespeare; directed by Thomas Ostermeier, set designer Jan Pappelbaum, costumes by Florence von Gerkan, music by Nils Ostendorf, video by Sébstien Dupouey, lights by Erich Schneider, puppets by Ingo Mewes and Karin Tiefensee, puppet training Susanne Claus and Dorothee Metz, fight choreography by René Lay and Florian Borchmeyer serves as dramaturg.

Yael Ronen's EROTIC CRISIS at the Maxim Gorki Theater

EROTIC CRISIS at Maxim Gorki Theater, directed by Yael Ronin and the company 

(Mareike Beykirch, Anastasia Gubareva,  Orit Nahmias, Aleksandar Radenković and Thomas Wodianka), stage design by Magda Willi, costume design by Amit Epstein, music and sound design by Nils Ostendorf and dramaturgy by Irina Szodruch.

Chunky Move's COMPLEXITY OF BELONGING at Schaubühne

 Melbourne, Australia's Chunky Move — THE COMPLEXITY OF BELONGING — conceived, directed and choreographed by Falk Richter and Anouk Van Djik with text by Falk Richter

WOYZECK at Berliner Ensemble

Georg Büchner's WOYZECK by director and scenographer Leander Haußmann, with costumes by Janina Brinkmann, dramaturgy by Steffen Sünkel and lights by Ulrich Eh

Hi there Berlin! Nice to meet you.

Dear Berlin, 

Before coming to Berlin, I never felt nervous but two days before leaving, it all hit me. I got a bit nervous about if I would stick out as a non-Mason Grosser and if I had enough art and theater background to understand the plethora of information that I knew was coming, but in the end I realized I applied for the program to learn more and to put myself in the position of being surrounded by theater and art all the time for the first time. I hoped to not drive my passion dry (if I did that would tell me something about how to handle my future as I approach my senior year.) I also wanted to learn from Christopher and my peers and to have an experience where we feed off of each other’s ideas and knowledge. I went back to preparing for my trip: reading “Berlin”, packing, shopping, and contemplating the days that were to come. Little did I know that when I got here, I would feel as if Berlin was a smaller version of New York City. Prior to Berlin, I felt Europe was a romantic place but when walking through the streets of Berlin towards Brandenburger Gate, I felt a completely different vibe. The word that describes Berlin according to our required reading is “volatile” and I felt the presence of a traumatic history. However, amongst the historical buildings, there are cranes and construction building modern day Berlin, which creates a society ready to overcome its past. The scars of Berlin, like bullet holes in the walls of older buildings, are reminders to work towards Germany’s improvement. The people of Berlin rely on a trust system now and have more open social standards, like how their tram relies on the honor system but still need to work towards equality as seen between the different treatment for the Italian versus Turkish population. Little details add up to a bigger picture of a volatile city.

“Berlin” was the prologue to my trip and from the chapters that I read I realized I connected more with the women. No doubt because I am a woman myself, but also because the stories seem to be less about politics and war and more about the portrayal of human emotion and the vulnerability these women expose. Specifically, Else Hirsch’s story showed me a different type of environment for a woman to live in where prostitution was a better choice for her than living poorly in her hometown. She felt she had it all: attention from men, the feeling of being wanted, an extravagant lifestyle, and power over her own life. However, when a painter gave his full attention to her without wanting her body, she learned she had a lack of love, which deems to be the issue for Else in the book, but also for other Germans. The romance of a relationship disappears for both men and women because women become objects. The objectification of women can’t be more clearly shown than in the writing about Fritz Haber who clearly showed his wife meant nothing to him. He didn’t even mourn his wife’s death because he expressed that she was a “distraction” from his true potentials for contributing to science and improving Germany (but also contributing to the gas chambers that the Nazis used against his own people since he was Jewish, as well). Sadly, this lack of love can easily be found today at any corner of the globe; however, Berlin is aware of that sad fact of life.

Knowing that when I walked the streets of Berlin, I was walking on the land of where these stories took place, I realized that stories from the past could correlate with the world today. History either repeats itself or people “learn from history’s mistakes”. This was an eye opener for me to see it before my eyes in Berlin because of the growing modernization of the city and constant renovation for something new amongst the many museums and historical monuments. Time does change but does life change over the years? Do people still have the same focus and wants generations later? Do they care about the same qualities for society to have?  How do they look at and contribute to society? How do people perceive history and how does it affect their daily life or current time period? Based on my experiences, people can learn from being told a story, but usually prefer to experience their lesson for themselves. Learning hands on is better than learning from a book, as well. Germany unfortunately learned the hard way. This experience is a lesson that the country experienced, remembers, and learned from to not repeat their mistake. Ultimately, we are defined by how we deal with hard times, not the good times. In the darkness, there is light, but that is a positive perspective made through the power of choice.  It’s how I try to look at the world.

I have friends who have studied abroad and others who were studying abroad at Rutgers University and both claimed to have life-changing experiences that helped define who they were; however, never is the same story every told twice, so here I am writing this first blog entry knowing that my last blog entry is unpredictable and going to happen 16 shows later. After 4 days, I have already been hit with so much information but I constantly crave more. From our first dinner I decided to experience this trip with no expectations and to journal as much as I can. An added goal is to take one step at a time and choose quality over quantity. I don’t expect to learn about all of Berlin in 3 weeks but I will take in as much as I can while trying to go deeper into my thoughts instead of trying to memorize too much. On the contrary to memorizing, I want to experience Berlin. Whatever lessons I learn through reading “Berlin” are the added details to enriching my experiences. I’m excited to see what stories are to come from my peers and I accept being in the unknown about what’s to come.

Cheers to an amazing trip.

xox

Laura 

Das Spiel ist Aus and thoughts on the human body

          The last few days in Berlin have been amazing. There is so much to see, feel, taste, touch, hear. In fact, the show we saw last night called Das Spiel ist Aus was just that – a sensual experience. Not being able to understand the German language of the play was frustrating at times, but after awhile it didn’t really matter. The play was a sensory experience. I still don’t know the plot (maybe someday I’ll read or see an English version) but my creative well inside me was filled with images and impressions that I will hold onto for along time. The show opened as a black curtain rose, revealing the red velvet seats of the actual theatre, the famous Deutsches Theater – we found that we were actually sitting on the stage. Two naked actors awoke and began. From there, I was hooked. THEN, the whole audience began to turn around, as if on a Lazy Susan, and faced the back of the theatre. I’ve never experienced anything like it. Other highlights include: snow falling on the audience, actors rubbing blue paint on all over themselves, a beautiful love story involving a silhouetted kiss amidst a circle of fog and twinkling lights, a 3 dimensional atmospheric soundtrack, unforgettable lights and shadows, among many other incredible moments.

          However, in spite of all of the visceral experiences, what struck me the most was the acting. I truly believe the acting is what made the show so special. I had no idea what the actors were saying, but it didn’t matter because they were so honest and it wasn’t more than it needed to be. They were listening and responding from the gut. Nothing was forced. What they were doing was so important – they drew our attention in and we rooted for them. I knew exactly when someone was betrayed, when someone was turned on, when someone had a secret. They truly believed what they were doing and the world they were in, thus, so did we. It was not Deadly Theatre, as Peter Brook writes about. It was alive and breathing. It made me so excited to be an actor and to create good art and good theatre. And, I’ve seen a lot of bad theatre. I mean… a lot. This was good. Great. I guess it gives me hope that theatre can still be inspiring. Because it was for me.

          On another note, my eyes have been open to many different depictions of the human body. I feel like Europeans have a different perspective of the body and treat it with more respect than Americans do. Maybe not, just a thought. Ancient Greeks idealized the male form (some of us talked about how amazing the butts on their statues are). 18^th century artists painted amazing naked angels and gods on the ceilings. Ancient Romans made oil lamps out of phalluses. Pablo Picasso drew a lot of curvy naked women. Not to mention, the actors last night, as well as the audience, were comfortable with their nudity. There is something sacred about the depicted humans I’ve seen so far. I feel like sexuality is something that is a bit more honored and revered over here. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more of a trend. Here are some pictures of the aforementioned.