"How nice it would have been if, as a (male) viewer, I had really been taken out of my comfort zone by the fact that the anger was not so obviously played and commented on. How much I would have been forced to think when they weren't making goofy faces at their Rudi Carell German that - if consistently implemented - would have made me laugh."
The above quote is from a Boulevard review of 2021. I wrote down this wishful thinking following a performance of Club Gewalt. I was disappointed, as the company of excellent singers and musicians demonstrated a stubborn tendency to cut off or - with some cynicism - laugh away every moment of seriousness. We even got there a podcast devoted to it, which clarified things a bit, but the discontent remained.
Until yesterday. Because then I saw Deep/End and was completely overwhelmed.
Mugshot
That they would take a different approach was already evident during the conversation we had last week, with two of the creators: How Club Gewalt jumps into the deep end with The Dancers. Yet I was still a little worried that the good music would be undone by a somewhat too upbeat approach.
But it didn't. On the contrary, Deep/End is a musical theatre performance like a sledgehammer blow. This is a collaboration between The Dancers and Club Gewalt, but nowhere during this thick hour do you get the feeling that you are watching two ensembles. Here is a team of artists on stage that looks and feels and sounds like a unit that has been working together for years.
Incomparable
It starts off rock hard with a solid punk number that brings out the best of The Stooges' era, and is soon too much for some of the more senior audience members. Soon after, a solid song that is more harmonious, reminiscent of the Chilli Peppers in their better days, but comparisons do not do justice to the originality of the sound. For hullie of Gewalt also do a few close harmony pieces that betray their solid conservatory studies....
The biggest difference from 2021? Back then they were playing a punk band, now they are. They have confronted their real insecurity and their real anger, daring to show their real qualities. And they are many.
Severe reactions
They turned on each other. The musicians play with the focus that the dancers naturally need to avoid dropping each other to death in their breakneck acrobatics. The singers push boundaries and sometimes cross them: it is virtuoso without that irritating relatability of before. Of course, the world has also just become too complicated to poetry about it without seriousness.
That commitment and conviction sometimes provoke fierce reactions, and it is to the credit of this mature and close-knit ensemble that they handle it respectfully.
They will be at Lowlands soon, and then it will be done, but something in me hopes that this is the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration.
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