How do you bring a text to the stage in which memories are exchanged in dialogue, rant regarding early theater and cinema experiences and philosophize regarding “grandfatherhood in general” without providing concrete clues to the people, the setting or the plot? Rieke Süsskow opted for a geriatric institutional ambience full of artificiality in the Academy Theater and made Handke’s “dialogue” both an endgame and a farewell.
Yesterday’s premiere had been eagerly awaited and yet left one quite perplexed for 100 minutes. The 32-year-old director, who has just been awarded a Nestroy for her theater premiere of “Oxytocin Baby”, interpreted the text by the 80-year-old poet on the one hand through the question of generations and on the other hand divided it between more than two people.
Handke dedicated the text to the two deceased actors Otto Sander (1941-2013) and Bruno Ganz (1941-2019), who were once close to him. In the Academy Theater, Hans Dieter Knebel, Martin Schwab and Branko Samarovski are inmates in a strange nursing home together with an extra and are decimated by several rounds of the game “Journey to Jerusalem”. Schwab has by far the largest share of the text in association with prompter Berngard Knoll, but Elisa Plüss and Maresi Riegner also received some text as the protagonists of a fairly extensive team of nurses.
In addition to the five actors, the program booklet lists 20 other participants (including a little boy who strays through the scenery with a flashlight). That would not have been necessary, because even the alleged dialogue is in fact nothing more than a soliloquy and not a real confrontation of different positions. Lyrically, the game of granddaughters versus grandfathers and nurses versus patients ends goalless, since there is no ball in play (apart from a red ping-pong ball, the gag bounces twice before both – ball and ball player – are locked away).
Of course there is a lot to look at. Stage designer Mirjam Stängl positions an accordion wall behind a narrow strip of stage that is quite remote from the audience. Disturbing, toxic, multi-colored light lends the scenes an artificiality that is amplified by microphones. Multifunctional furniture serves as places of storage and magazines for mysterious tasks, in which grave urns seem to play an important role. The uncanny that is brewing behind the backs of the inmates sometimes contrasts grotesquely with the thoughtful, fussy, but touchingly sincere text. Pure intention, one might think. But what is the purpose of this?
Towards the end Schwab remains, he has served out his fellow inmates. In a scene reminiscent of the Last Supper as well as of everyone’s dinner party, he is first laid out, but then gets to his feet once more: “We have no right to rest.” Instead, the boys freeze and are arranged by the five oldies from the beginning like mannequins before they make their exit backwards. Party noises can be heard from there. Maybe there’s more going on behind the scenes than on stage. It’s supposed to happen more and more often.
(SERVICE – Peter Handke: “Zwietalk”, director: Rieke Süßkow, stage: Mirjam Stängl, costumes: Marlen Duken. With Martin Schwab, Branko Samarovski, Elisa Plüss, Maresi Riegner, Hans Dieter Knebel. Premiere at the Academy Theater, further performances on 10 ., December 17 and 25. www.burgtheater.at )