Berlin feels a bit like New York that evening, at least the way you imagine it to be when a big show premieres on Broadway, people from chic to flashy dressed up stand in line and the advertising lights are flashing. Whereby: There is no bigger show than the Grand Show in Berlin’s Friedrichstadt-Palast in New York either. What is going on this evening as a “world premiere” in the monumental entertainment temple, one of the last relics from the GDR, is quite unique and definitely deserves the attribute “world” when it comes to class. The queue that is created by the Corona-3-G inspection in front of the house does not make itself bad for such an event, it is a seeing and being seen. It is guided and regulated so unobtrusively by a guidance system that no German stubbornness of order can spoil the mood. There are 1900 seats inside the large hall. Only two thirds of these will be occupied for the time being because of the laborious admission control. Makes 1250 guests per performance. After the long months of standstill and isolation, that’s still a huge amount.
“Arise”, the title of the new show, means something like “stand up” or “stand up” – a motto as if it were applied to the current pandemic situation. The Friedrichstadt-Palast was closed for almost a year and a half. The house, which normally has to raise 80 percent of its budget at the cash register, lost two million euros a month in the lockdown. It would not have survived without government aid. Reason enough for the artistic director Berndt Schmidt to express his thanks in addition to warm words of welcome at the beginning of the premiere. This applies not only to politics, but also explicitly to “taxpayers”. And then he talked about the new, ultra-modern ventilation systems and the “ride on the razor blade”, which had been the production of the new Grand Show under pandemic conditions, for example due to restrictive travel restrictions or delivery problems for stage parts and costume fabrics from all over the world.
It is a celebration of the human body and ability, air act and lust
More than 100 artists from 26 nations are involved in “Arise”. The whole thing is a crazy effort that takes your breath away, especially if you’ve never seen it before. Eleven million euros expensive – a production budget that other show temples in the world can only dream of. And which you can also see in this high-performance spectacle. Needless to ask if it’s worth it. The exuberant atmosphere of this evening, the joy of life, the celebration of the human body and ability, the air act and the pleasure cannot be outweighed with gold anyway. According to Schiller, people are only fully human where they play. And there, where he dances and jumps and sings, throws himself in the shell and swings his legs, you have to add after this show, which is also something like an exorbitant St. Vitus dance, a sensual pandemic exorcism. “Arise”: a rise of the joy of life above the epidemic.
The stage, designed by Frida Arvidsson, forms a symbolic eye. The offered spectacle is also a real feast for the eyes.
(Photo: Ralph Larmann)
The subtitle of the show is somewhat cheesy, “Love is stronger than time”. Time is not just a metaphor, which is reflected in video projections of dials and gears, but actually appears as an allegorical, action-driving figure, played and sung by Olivier Erie St. Louis as a black Mephisto in harem pants and tails. He also raps and blues-rocks and gives the narrative conférencier. His Faust, if you will, is the life and work weary photographer Cameron. He has lost his inspiration with his muse and is plagued by dark thoughts that wag around him in the form of black dervishes and other hellishly clad demons. Since the main actor Frank Winkels was injured and the second cast was ill – shit happens – Dimitri Genco from the ballet ensemble took over the role of photographer, singing playback with the voice of Frank Winkels. That went well. Mister Zeit literally sends him on a journey through time, on which Cameron returns to stages in his life and once again meets his muse (with a powerful voice: Kediesha McPherson), much like Orpheus does his Eurydice, only to realize in the end: “The only time is now” – and love, which lasts forever anyway.
The meager plot, which rhymes with childlike joy, forms the framework for a total of 33 song, dance and revue numbers of spectacular design (text and direction: Oliver Hoppmann). The lighting and stage technology alone is overwhelming. The music comes live from a show band, conducted by Daniel Behrens. Funk, rap, hip-hop, electro-pop, plus hits and ballads, the sunniest sings are Tertia Botha, the actress who played “Light”. Two of the songs come from the Austrian Tom Neuwirth alias Conchita Wurst. Frida Arvidsson created the colossal set, which symbolizes an oversized eye with a curved lid, into whose gigantic pupil you are so to speak sucked into and which comes up in its eye socket with all kinds of lifting and lowering refinements at the highest technical level. The duo Kristian and Peggy Schuller implement Cameron’s photographic visions, glam images, flashes, bodies, light, shadow.
“Arise” is also a circus and offers spectacular aerial and acrobatic acts.
(Photo: Annette Riedl / dpa)
Stefano Canulli dressed the grandiose (but amazingly undiverse) ballet company of the Friedrichstadt-Palast, 40 women, 20 men, in fantasy costumes of exquisite extravagance. Inflatable balloon dresses, flashing amazon corsets, sexy boas, tufts and bustiers. Even the abstract figures from Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” are cited. It’s eye-popping. A flicker, glitter and swarm. Wonderful specimens of the human species stalk past like flamingos, frolic and form with grandeur, lascivious, erotic, circus-like. “Arise” is also a circus and master acrobatics. The trapeze flight numbers of the New Flying Cáceres from the USA are breathtaking, and the somersaults and pirouettes of Alexey Pronin’s group of artists on two opposing Russian swings are dazzling. The parquet ignites with a good mood. Ahs and ohs and applause.
In terms of dance and choreography, the show is top notch. The ballet director Alexandra Georgieva engaged seven well-known choreographers. Including the Israeli Ohad Naharin, who reissued his expressive choreography “Echad Mi Yodea” for “Arise”: men in uniform suits on chairs, gradually getting rid of their shoes, shirts and trousers and their inner pain. Or Eric Gauthier, who contributes an impressive choreography on a gigantic, moving tilting screen like from a production by Ulrich Rasche. The highlights also include the most beautiful finger shadow theater ever in that romantic grotto where Cameron meets his beloved muse again. And the underwater world with bubbling fountains, graceful mermaids and fish creatures in funny Finding Nemo costumes is delightful. All of this is only topped by the “girl series”, the famous kickline of the beautiful-legged Friedrichsstadt ladies. It’s the longest in the world. At the end there was cheering, confetti and free drinks for everyone.