Читать книгу Postdramatisches Theater als transkulturelles Theater - Группа авторов - Страница 24

Wunderbaum was formed by six students of the Toneelacademie Maasricht upon their graduation in 2001. That year, they founded Jonghollandiam, which was affiliated with Zuidelijk Toneel Hollandia (in Eindhoven, the Netherlands), then led by artistic director Johan Simons. Between 2000 and 2008, Wunderbaum worked at NT Gent, the city theatre of Ghent, as well as at the Schouwburg Rotterdam. To this day they are very active in the Netherlands and Flanders. They are now an independent company and, since 2013, have been more closely connected to the Schouwburg Rotterdam. In spring 2013, they began their four-year project The New Forest, in which they attempted to develop a new form and concept of living together through different live and mediatized formats. In the meantime, the theatre collective has performed throughout Europe and Northern America. For instance, at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, steirischer herbst in Graz, Holland Festival in Amsterdam, theatre-festival Boulevard in Den Bosch, Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Romaeuropa Festival in Rome, Théâtre Paris-Vilette in Paris, the Distinctively Dutch Festival in Pittsburgh, National Review of Live Arts festival in New York City, and Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. At present, the group consists of Marleen Scholten, Wine Dierickx, Matijs Jansen, Walter Bart and Maartje Remmers. Currently they are touring with two new works: Superleuk, maar voortann zonder mij (A supposedly fun thing, I’ll never do again), which is a site specific work dealing with the pursuit of recreation, which can never be fulfilled. The basis of this performance are journalistic texts from the U.S.-American writer David Foster Wallace on his experiences during a seven-day cruise in the Caribbean. Wunderbaum iterated this journey and went on a seven-day-cruise as well: they worked as entertainers on the “Aida Prima”, which sets sail every week from Rotterdam. They wrote texts about their experience there and combined them with Wallace’s essays. The second work, which premiered in 2017, is entitled Wie is de echte Italiaan? (Who is the Real Italian?) and is performed together with live music by Remco de Jong and Florentijn Boddendijk. In this work, they retell a meeting of the Association of Home Owners in Milano, where they expected to get to know the real national character of Italy.

Many of the group’s works have strong local roots, e.g. Eindhoven de gekste (2002), stad 1 and stad 2 (2003/04), Natives (2011), Detroit Dealers (2012), and Superleuk, maar voortann zonder mij (2017). As is the case with Looking for Paul, the performance topics derive their inspiration from the concrete urban context. Rail Gourmet (2010) is a performance that deals with railway-services and takes place in a building next to Rotterdam’s Central Station, whose tracks can be seen through the windows. By choosing urban spaces as theatre sites, a more intensive relation is generated between the audience and the theatrical events. One’s everyday surroundings become the space where art takes place. Even if a performance does not take place on location, Wunderbaum still takes the audience to specific environments: Looking for Paul starts with a video in which Marleen Scholten poses as Inez van Dam and introduces her favorite places in Rotterdam and the controversy surrounding Paul McCarthy’s Santa Claus sculpture.1

Wunderbaum’s performances seem to be set in a kind of soap opera: time and time again the same performers meet, and they always play themselves. The scenes and topics change but the series consistently adheres to the particular aesthetic principles found in Wunderbaum’s work. Scenes, live and on film, are shown in a seemingly arbitrary manner, and it is precisely these variations that demonstrate Wunderbaum’s relational dramaturgy. Yet this does not trigger the impression of authenticity but, as in the works of author and director René Pollesch, establishes a “frayed” or hybrid aesthetics, live and mediatized, authentic and enacted.2

Different aesthetics and theatre signs are juxtaposed non-hierarchically. This leveling is a product of the collective working procedure from which topics, scenes, and performances evolve. Until January 2013, the dramaturgy and direction alternated depending on who was (not) on stage at that moment (Wunderbaum Acteursgroep Rotterdam Gent 2001-2006). Wunderbaum works in two groups of five persons: five act and five run the administration, though as in the case of audience assistant Eva van den Hove, members remain involved in the artistic process by getting updates on the performance process on a one to one basis. From January 2013 to December 2016, dramaturge Tobias Kokkelmans was responsible for the development and organization of (press-)texts, research and broader structures of content. Since 2017 Margreet Bergmeijer is responsible for these duties. Wunderbaum works together with different dramaturges for different projects. Wunderbaum appears—as is common in Flanders and the Netherlands—as a collective. This is also true for the authorship of Looking for Paul. The five performers first developed the plot, then shaped the script through an intensive e-mail exchange, which resulted in printouts that do not differentiate stage directions from the main text. Thus the script starts with “13 mei 2010, Aan Matijs, Walter en Maarten@wunderbaum.nl / He jongens / We gaan naar Los Angeles! Gisteren kreeg ik een email van Mark Murphy van het Redcat Theatre. We hebben het geld! Alles! 20000 dollar! Wauw, ik heb er zo’n zin in! Kus Marleen.”3 (“13 May 2010, to Matijs, Walter and Maarten / Hey guys / We’re going to Los Angeles! Yesterday I received an e-mail from Mark Murphy at Redcat Theatre. We go the financing! All of it! 20,000 Dollars Wow, I am really looking forward to it! Kisses, Marleen.”) The academic search for information on the writing process, which also took place via e-mail, mirrors the evolution of the text: “Beste Katharina / We hebben inderdaad de e-mails naar elkaar geschreven. Maar van tevoren hadden we wel alles al uitgedacht dus het was vrij duidelijk waar we naartoe zouden schrijven. Als je wilt kunnen we er eens over bellen. / Groet van Matijs.” (“Dear Katharina / We did indeed write each other e-mails. But before we did so, we thought about it well, so we were indeed clear about whom we had to write to. If you would like, we can talk about it on the phone. Greetings, Matijs.”)

The performance is structured in three parts. First, guest-actor Daniel Frankl introduces Wunderbaum and briefly describes their collaboration during the L.A.-guest-residency. The opening words lead to the presentation of Inez van Dam (Marleen Scholten), who enters the stage from the audience to start her slide show on Rotterdam. In the second and longest part (which is the only scripted part in the Netherlands version, while for their performance in L.A., which didn’t mix Dutch and English but only used the English language, they scripted the whole work), first four, then eventually five performers sit on white plastic chairs behind five microphones on the empty black box stage, beside a video-wall in the right corner. They read the e-mail conversation out loud, which describes the production process, interspersed by a short video sequence showing Wunderbaum in Los Angeles. During the reading, the performers address the audience with their gestures and their gaze. By doing so, the audience becomes familiar and involved with their perspective, which often turns out to be in conflict with opinions of the other group members. The time pressure, created by the incipient premiere, adds to the tension. All of this tension is discharged in the third and final part, the reenactment of Paul McCarthy’s performances. Accessories such as masks, bales of straw and said fluids, gestures and movements reference McCarthy’s works in a playful manner.

What kinds of travel build the basis of the performance? How is travelling staged, and how does this lead to the hybrid aesthetics the audience experiences? “Travelling” is the very beginning of the performance and it anchors its development. The opening words of Daniel Frankl make this clear: only because Wunderbaum was selected as L.A.-artists-in-residence does a performance called Looking for Paul exist. The title of the performance also allows us to assume that we will follow some kind of “travel”—in the sense of searching. When Inez van Dam appears on the stage, introducing herself as a native of the city Rotterdam, another multi-way journey begins. While we follow on the textual level the journey of McCarthy’s sculpture Santa Claus from L.A. to Rotterdam (Inez gives us information about all the political decisions, public discussions etc. till the installation of the sculpture on Eendrachtsplein), her slide show presents Santa Claus as a static monument in Rotterdam while she, other citizens of Rotterdam, and tourists travel around the sculpture (we see Santa Claus from every perspective in this slide show). In this first moment of the performance a principle is established: static positions and travelling moves are juxtaposed. While the performers talk about processes and travelling, their bodies remain relatively static (for example, during the e-mail-reading in the second section). On the other hand, on the video screen and in the first part we see different actions, while what is said on stage nearly comes to a standstill.

Before Inez mentions Santa Claus for the first time, she presents facts about Rotterdam as well as its sites and buildings. It soon becomes obvious that Inez is fascinated by movement: she shows pictures of the port and refers to the ship which historically connected Rotterdam with the United States. Moreover, she is strongly attracted by the Erasmus bridge, which connects North- and South-Rotterdam, and she gives positive attention to tourists, who are willing to explore the city. Inez’s presentation of her hometown implements a sphere of something which one can call her/his “own”. Her talk overflows with cultural stereotypes about the Netherlands, which function for Inez as identification markers of her “own” culture: “Now Rotterdam has become the city of ambitious new architecture. My favourite architectural highlight is the Erasmusbridge, named after the famous dutch filosofer [sic] Desiderius Erasmus.”4

The mention of Paul McCarthy’s Santa Claus interrupts these naïve images of someone’s “home” and “own culture”:

These are my parents, they are still together, and they also live in Rotterdam. And every Sunday they have a coffee at my house. And since 28 november 2008 this is my view. It’s an artwork of the American artist Paul McCarthy He is living in LA It pictures a black Santa Claus with a butt-plug in his hand.5

The sculpture is staged as an alien element not only on the textual, but also on the visual level: as distinctly as Santa Claus changes Inez’s narrative of Rotterdam and its rich culture, it distracts from the photo-presentation the audience is following. The audience’s view of a happy Inez surrounded by family and her cat is interrupted Santa Claus, which becomes the focal point of the presentation. This makes it impossible to create a positive image of “one’s own.”

Abb. 1:

Looking for Paul (2010), © Wunderbaum

Abb. 2:

Looking for Paul (2010), © Wunderbaum

Whereas “travelling” in the first minutes of her presentation was discussed in the context of Inez’s “own” culture, stressing the “origin” of Paul McCarthy and his sculpture adds an “outside” element to the performance.

Cultural transfer is mostly connected to “failed transfer” in this performance: the art of an U.S.-based artist can’t be well received in Europe (“I read Mr McCarthy saying that he doesnt [sic] know anything about European culture. That his work comes out of the kids television in Los Angeles. That he dididn’t [sic] go through Catolicism [sic] and World War two, that his ketchup is ketchup and not blood. So why does he want to throw this uberamerican work in my european katholic [sic] face then??.”6). At the same time people in L.A. can’t understand the work of Wunderbaum. This is discussed during the reading of the e-mail-correspondence. On the other hand, failed transfer is the starting point of Looking for Paul. It is the irony of the performance that Inez is willing to join Wunderbaum on their travel to L.A. and in this way reenact the travel of Santa Claus (which she perceives as an aggressive occupation of Rotterdam), only this time in the different direction. Inez’s dislike of McCarthy’s sculpture Santa Claus, which—following her narrative—was installed in 2008 across from her Rotterdam house and bookstore, sparks another conflict, which turns out to be central to the performance. Inez accompanies the group to L.A. because she wants to get back at McCarthy.

The second and longest part of the performance is spent reading out the e-mails. As mentioned above, the reading starts with Wunderbaum’s invitation to the renowned REDCAT theatre in Los Angeles (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theatre) in fall 2010. The invitation sparks controversies among the group regarding the material and form of the new production. The entire group feels insecure about working in the United States. The first e-mail from Walter, where he announces that they will go to L.A., emphasizes these difficulties: “But always when you work in another country, in another culture, it is difficult to find some sort of way to understand one another …”7 The e-mail-correspondence registers contrasting ways of dealing with this lack of confidence. They therefore discuss different solutions, all related to cultural transfer between the U.S. and Europe: The group considers staging existing U.S. plays like Tennessee William’s A streetcar named desire or doing a non-text-related performance (“[…], I don’t think we should do an existing theatre play. We have never done that. I think we have to do something special in LA. A bit more European. That is what they like.”8) The L.A. sponsors instead try to encourage them to do something “European”: “I think Californians would rather see something ‘raw’ and ‘edgy’ and not just hear about you guys stalking someone. Sadly enough celebrities are getting stalked here all the time. […] The LA audience would really appreciate it if you did something more abstract, for example along the lines of Pina Bausch.”9 Wunderbaum finally agrees on one idea: following Inez van Dam’s journey from Rotterdam to L.A. and helping her get back at McCarthy. The crucial point is that they found something supposedly “other” in the sculpture of McCarthy, which actually concerns their “own” culture and identity. If the sculpture of McCarthy seemed overwhelming in the first part of the performance, in the second section McCarthy gradually diminishes and is ultimately replaced by Wunderbaum’s own involvement. Although the audience could expect that Looking for Paul will finally lead to a meeting of Wunderbaum and McCarthy, this never happens in L.A..

The performance is centered on the search for McCarthy, and taking a stance on his work. In the course of the production process, the former outsider Inez van Dam gets involved with the collective, and eventually takes part in the McCarthy reenactment during the third section of the performance. The production charts the transformation of Inez from a decisive critic of the “butt plug gnome” to a performer of lesbian S/M scenes during the McCarthy reenactment, which concludes with her uttering the words “I love you.” Due to the e-mail-exchange, the text has a fairly classical dramatic form, which contains a lot of dialogue and speeches. These revolve around the idea, the conception, the performative negotiation and finally the realization (hence, the actual dramaturgy) of the performance.

Looking for Paul is motivated and driven by the search by an artistic community for artistic predecessors. The motive of the search, not the actual find, is central. When Wunderbaum actually meets Paul McCarthy at the opening of an exposition in Los Angeles, they do not even talk. The relational dramaturgy of the search for the other generation cannot be fulfilled. As with a deferred signification or movement, the search ends with the occupancy of the other generation by means of the embodiment of the predecessors in the performance. Looking for Paul is a reenactment within the fine arts, mirroring traces of the sexual liberation movements of 1968 and the revolution of dramaturgical conventions. Though at first sight postdramatic, Looking for Paul actually contains conventional dramatic elements like the fictional protagonist, conflict, and the creation of tension, which ultimately is released. The third part even has a cathartic function. The five performers seem to assault and penetrate each other with food as they spatter ketchup, mayonnaise and chocolate sauce on the stage and on each other. They fill their orifices with fluids and snacks, the smells of which permeate the audience space. All of this appears less aggressive, twisted and forced than McCarthy himself, and rather emphasizes pleasure. Looking for Paul ends with an atmosphere of cathartic liberation from rigid artistic and social norms, which strongly echoes the upheaval of 1968.

Paul McCarthy has been working since the late 1960’s, but only in the 1990’s did his work gain popularity. Inspired by icons of the mediatized, pop-cultural world of children, like Heidi or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the artist’s controversial oeuvre ranges from sketches to videos and sculptures. Unlike Hermann Nitsch, McCarthy has never used real blood or made himself bleed. Instead, he uses human excretions and food such as “ketchup, mayonnaise, saliva, chocolate syrup, cold cream and raw meat […].”10 Wunderbaum freely and obviously references McCarthy’s performances Sailor’s Meat, Meatcake (1974), Hot Dog (1974), Spit Face (1970-75), Shit Face (1974), and Class Fool (1976).11 Besides the obvious parallels, the self-critical questioning of the myth concerning artistic inspiration is another element that can be found in both McCarthy’s work12 and in Looking for Paul.

Looking for Paul is presented as a true story, the records of which can be found online. This seems to prove its authenticity. However, Wunderbaum or others may have only created these records for the Internet. Questions concerning reality and fiction are hence not clearly answered, but are incidental to the focus of the dramaturgy. The performance and the appeal to the audience work because of the conflictual search for self-positioning a) with regard to the controversies within Wunderbaum on the nature of the L.A. project (playing Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire versus staging a political debate on art sponsoring) and b) concerning the work of McCarthy. The latter opens up a debate on the meaning and morality of art (funding), which Wunderbaum presents as a critique of the privatization of art funding in the Netherlands. On the one hand, their predecessor’s works serve as models for younger artists. On the other hand, they stage a certain skepticism in the face of current (economic) constraints. Wunderbaum explicitly thematizes this through their searching for a way to deal with the drastic funding cuts for art and culture in the Netherlands.

In Looking for Paul the travelling of performances through different times and spaces creates a transcultural theatre, which isn’t concerned with the exotic “other”, but finds the “other” in the creator’s “own” culture. “The other”, which is at first symbolized by the installation of the sculpture Santa Claus by the U.S. artist Paul McCarthy, for Wunderbaum is increasingly concerned with exploring one’s “own” culture as the performance continues. Ultimately, it becomes clear that “other” and “own” can’t be split apart; by discovering “the other” we are drawn back to ourselves, and one will find “the other” in one’s “own.”