Two men are sitting together at a table eating spaghetti. One is wolfing down the plate of pasta in no time, while at the same time telling an amusing anecdote - just barely intelligible - with fierce gestures and self-righteous grunts. The other, an elderly guy, is totally ignored. Despite frantic attempts, the poor man's trembling hand cannot get a single strand of spaghetti into his mouth. Starving, he buries his head in the pasta, takes a big bite, chokes and dies. The other doesn't notice anything and lolls on imperturbably. This is Zwischenfälle.
The German director Andrea Breth selected 54 short scenes from the absurdist oeuvre of the Russian modernist Daniil Charms, and the farces of the French playwrights Georges Courteline and Pierre Henri Cami. She knotted these scenes together in tight direction with inventive design, interspersed with bittersweet German love songs. But in the virtuoso acting; that's where it happens...
In Zwischenfälle, the ten actors - six men and four women, dressed in non-descript tailored suits - are given all the space they need to display a huge spectrum of theatrical skills. The scenes vary in length from a few seconds to a few minutes. This gives the performance tremendous momentum. In addition to verbal feats of strength, in which the actors scold each other at dizzying speed or, with perfect timing, mischaracterise and tirades The performance of Zwischenfälle consists largely of alienating mime and dance. These disciplines are mastered by the actors just as much as the gründliche large venue acting. And that is incredibly clever.
Zwischenfälle, for instance, features a number of dance scenes that, strictly speaking, conform entirely to the technique and conventions of contemporary dance - but all the movements are just a little more pathetic, a little more magnified or otherwise drawn into the ridiculous. As in Ballet of the three inseparables: a scene in which three actors dance idiotically close together. That variety really makes the performance (3.5 hours, including intermission) fly by.
In terms of style, Zwischenfälle is very reminiscent of the work of Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson - of the films Songs From The Second Floor and You, The Living. In particular, Breth seems to refer directly to the latter film in one scene, when she has one of her actresses dragging a plush dog across the stage.
The performance is an ode to man, who has to clumsily work his way through the absurdity of existence. A boy, armed with a bunch of flowers, tries desperately to rehearse an aria for his beloved; a group of people complain about one of them, who for no apparent reason is passed out and refuses to get up; a lonely grey-haired man is in love with the voice of the radio host and kisses his radio; a bride calls her parents for instructions on the wedding night. They are endearing wretches, in trivial interludes they would rather forget.
But they are seen, Breth seems to be saying. They do not go unnoticed.
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