Kabale und Kill Me

Why? Why? Why? I’m left with a lot of questions after Kabale und Liebe. The first of which: who honestly thought this production was something that deserves to be onstage? Also-the piano...really? Why would you let it sit on stage the entire show without a purpose (spoiler alert: no one touches or even acknowledges it’s presence)? Though, I suppose it serves as a symbol of the entire show in that case. I can’t remember a time where I have been so angered by a production before. Everything in the production was spelled out for me, which I haven’t seen a lot in the theater we’ve seen in Berlin. It was angering to be treated as an unintelligent and incompetent audience member. I understand wanting to create metaphors through set and lighting design as well as costumes and wanting to physicalize power imbalance, especially in this show, but it was just too much. The costumes--before I say anything else, Wurm looked like the guy from “Despical Me.” *insert a thumbs up.* The costumes, like nearly everything else in the show, didn’t seem to have an overall idea or theme that was clear. I guess we were supposed to be in a color-coded circus of the past (President von Walter: red/black costume, yellow and red (?) lighting, Lady Milford: pink (hideous) costume, yellow and blue lighting, Miller household: white costume with black accent, stark white lighting). I was just astounded at how gross Ferdinand’s pants were; jeans are on the slimer side for a very good reason. Both Luise and Lady Milford’s dresses were unflattering in a distracting manner because of just how ill fitting they were. The costumes didn’t serve the play in the way I think they were supposed to. Next we had the height difference. von Walter was on stilts because he’s so high and mighty yay (I hope you’re reading this in as a monotonous tone as I am). He also had a matching high chair...

You don’t need multiple outlets to emphasize a singular point. I thought the production used it’s rescources quite inefficiently. Why use multiple things to hammer the same thing over and over again when you could either use them for differently things or I don’t know, maybe not use them at all. Speaking of efficiency, or lack thereof, there was none when it came to the dialogue and “moments” in the show. These actors were wasting my time. I don’t think seeing bad shows is a waste of time especially if you learn something or have an experience unlike any one you’ve had before and seeing this show was not a waste of my time. But when the actors “thought” about what they had just said or what had been said to them and they decided they were gong to pause between nearly ever line it gets a little more than frustrating. I felt that a lot of the moments, if they were going to happen at all, needed to be earned. They also served little to no purpose within the play...all I saw was a self-indulgent actor. If you’re going to be self-indulgent, god damn at least be good. 

I do want to touch upon my use of the word bad earlier. I am always hesistant to say that a show is bad because I know there is a difference between my enjoyment of a production and it’s worthiness. There comes a point when watching a show where so many of the elements are not working together that I begin to feel like I can justly say it’s a bad show rather than I didn’t like it.