Directed, we are told, by “K.U.N.S.T.”, Jonathan Meese’s play Die Monosau is having a short run at the Volksbühne this month and next. Describing it is a challenge: is it a play? Performance art? A sort of wistful revue? A fantasy that combines West Berlin’s 80s underground culture with warmed-up Dadaism? The script, which is taken from Meese’s book of the same name, is so confused and diverting as to be impossible to follow. The actors seem to feel the same way: even the theater’s prompter is forced to take to the stage. Everything is fast, loud, confused and constantly changing, yet at the same time repetitive, monotonous and long. How we might unite all these opposites is the riddle of the evening. Nothing makes sense, but perhaps the meaning is hiding in the nothing. Stanley Kubrick, Rasputin and the Urkasper? Not a clue.
The stage becomes a catwalk and runs right through the audience, who seem confused yet for the most part amused. It’s no wonder: telling the chaos, improvisation, and acting apart is near impossible. It also makes the cast’s performance all the more impressive. You sit and marvel at the extreme coolness of a dancing Martin Wuttke and at Benny Claessen’s knack for self-awareness even when reciting the script for the umpteenth time. Then there’s the touching vocals of Kerstin Grassmann and the reinterpreted ventriloquism of Franz Beil who plays a “high-frequency shell” (no, me neither). What is outstanding are the costumes, stage design and composition. It’s debatable whether Germany is, as Meese thinks, a Gesamtkunstwerk. But this evening certainly is. Take it as a whole and you’ll immediately forgive some of Meese’s low points. “We must become the proles of art,” the author demands. With Monosau, he has succeeded in a very entertaining way.
Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Apollonia T. Bitzan
Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Linienstr. 227, 10178 Berlin–Mitte; map
Die Monosau showing Sat 25.02, Sun 05.03 & Sun 19.03
Tickets are available here.
