Sitemap Home - Schlingensief - Works - Gallery - Media - Press reviews - Shop - Blog - Contact - Imprint - Search - Language config - Deutsch - Argentina - Brasil Image: David Baltzer. In Berlin, you might find yourself at a party in the middle of a dying conversation, and the mention of Schlingensief will jolt everyone back to life. One person has seen his latenight TV show, which was first shown an the largest private network and then rebroadcast by its competitor, a historic first, 1 believe.
Someone eise once saw a Schlingensief play and is still outraged ar enthusiastic or bewildered, A third has read an interview in which Schlingensief declared he would carnpaign for the unemployed in the runaff for this year's national elections art must get involved in life, he believes. And still another has heard that Schlingensief is breaking up with his girlfriend. Following such preliminaries usually comes a bitter argurnent an whether or not Schlingensief is any good. My friends and acquaintances know by now that I've seen a lot of Schlingensief and his workin the last two years alone there have been eight stage productions, a radio drama, a talk show, and a new movie, none ofwhich 1 skippedso everyone keeps pumping me for Schlingensief stories.
Like the woman in my office who recentty barged into my room to teil me about a TV appearance by Schlingensief: He looks really nice, she said. But how is he in real life? And was it really necessary, that incident they wrote about in the papers? Nothing against art, but maybe Schlingensief is nothing but an immature jerk. Did he really have to shout, "Kill Helmut Kohl!
My response: There is na art that doesn't da what must not be done. Outside Europe: Schlingensief is not a popular cause to take up either. In November of last year. I was invited by the Goethe Institute, in Tel Aviv. Given the popular notion that theater and dramatic iiterature go hand in hand, 1 wanted to speak about a different kind of theater, one that uses literature only a5 a field of reference, seelcing its purpose in itself, in the theatrical pracess.
The way his theater works is clear in advance. The action is chaotic. Actors run through the auditorium. Schlingensief is among thern; he encourages audience members to join an attempt to get away. Over and over he shouts: "Try to escape! Try to escape! Onstage, an actress grabs a microphone and explains that every year she and her husband and kids travel to BergenBeisen, the fornier Nazi concentration camp, which is now a museum.
