Berlin has a new theatre scandal \u2013 manufactured, right on schedule, by the man who benefits from it:\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u2019s newly appointed manager and artistic director, Matthias Lilienthal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just in time for silly season, the 66-year-old announced a special \u201cleft wing project\u201d for the summer: turning the\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u00a0into a\u00a0Volksbad, complete with a 25-metre swimming pool in front of the monumental neoclassical building on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The message behind the People\u2019s Pool fits the house\u2019s identity: splish-splashing for free as an act of defiance against the \u201csystematic dismantling of urban infrastructure\u201d and the \u201ccommercialisation and control of public spaces\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking of \u201cfree\u201d: the pop-up-pool has cost \u20ac300,000 (around \u00a3256,000) out of the theatre\u2019s annual budget. Which, despite the cultural scene\u2019s constant moaning,\u00a0 is on a scale that London theatres can only envy: it has a permanent ensemble on permanent salaries and all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, the\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u00a0sold \u20ac4.4m worth of tickets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It spent \u20ac28m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The little matter of \u20ac23.6m \u2013 that\u2019s over \u00a320m \u2013 was covered by the state of Berlin. That is: Berlin\u2019s taxpayers. Such as myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t set foot in the\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u00a0for about a decade, not since they lured me in with the promise of Moli\u00e8re. I should have known, duh, that I\u2019d get\u00a0Regietheater\u00a0\u2013 where a text, however brilliant, is merely a starting point to whatever directorial concept.<\/p>\n
At best, it gets fractured and reassembled. My Moli\u00e8re was deconstructed beyond recognition. And, naturally, the director gets to bill extra for the new script.<\/p>\n
There have been spectacular experimental productions, of course. Too often, though, it\u2019s scandal for scandal\u2019s sake, dressed up as artistic rebellion. And even the shock value of nudity, blood and urine has a shelf-life. Which has passed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So when I first heard of the\u00a0Volksbad\u00a0idea, I was intrigued. Finally, theatre subsidies would be used to benefit the many taxpayers who never seek enlightenment at the\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The People\u2019s Pool is also walking distance from my flat, twice the size of the Soho House rooftop puddle, and the press release even mentioned a\u00a0Pommesbude\u00a0(chippy). Free chips too, I hoped.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But, as ever in socialism, the ideal met reality. There are 3.5 million Berliners, but only 46 of them can occupy the pool at once. The timed-entry tickets are free, but their release \u2013 2pm, three days before the swimming day \u2013 has turned into an eBay-style refresh war online. Which, so far, I have lost.<\/p>\n
But the criticism from conservative pundits and the taxpayers\u2019 association was nothing compared with the outcry when Lilienthal announced at short notice that the pool would be reserved \u201cexclusively for Black communities\u201d for one afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cApartheid,\u201d wailed Alice Weidel, co-chair of the right wing AfD, \u201cracism against white people,\u201d raged the alt-right media, and when it was clarified that\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u00a0had, in fact, invited a small anti-racism organisation to bring black children and teens up to 14, the culture war had already hit the water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Immediately, without really discussing other options, the plan was cancelled, citing \u201csecurity risks\u201d. Had there been threats? Not physically, Lilienthal said, but he considered verbal abuse violence, too. He shut down the pool \u201cin solidarity\u201d and the staff hung up a large banner reading \u201cFickt euch!\u201d (\u201cyou get that\u201d) directed at the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Somehow one suspects that this oh-so-predictable incident was less about safe spaces and raising awareness of the racist abuse black kids face at public pools than about raising the alt-left impresario\u2019s profile. A public relations stunt as shallow as his pool itself, which is only 1.30 metres deep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berlin has a new theatre scandal \u2013 manufactured, right on schedule, by the man who benefits from it:\u00a0Volksb\u00fchne\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[29533,112,190],"class_list":["post-148304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-afd","tag-berlin","tag-germany"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117119158086222157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}