The new does not in itself have any quality just because it is new. Which puts us right in the middle of Andy Warhol’s mind, whom most people only know as a pop art icon, not as a theoretician. Adrian Prechtel, culture editor of the AZ, biographer, lawyer and feuilletonist all-purpose weapon, has taken the trouble to collect Warhol’s often aphoristic ideas on the relationship between society and the individual, artist and person, art and capital. And to bundle in fictional conversations with Lou Reed, Divine, Marilyn Monroe, the gallery owner Henry Geldzahlener and the activist and assassin Valerie Solanas and to make a contribution to our social media society beyond a time and person portrait. All of this in his libretto for “Warhol – An Anti-Musical”, which the Modern String Quartet came up with for their 40th anniversary. And so it is not the first time that a masterpiece has been brought into the world, this time probably her most comprehensive.
Change of scene: The Modern String Quartet now accompanies the scenery in Warhol’s “Factory”.
(Photo: Oliver Hochkeppel)
“Anti-Musical” because there is no singing or dancing and because there is no separation between music and action. Everything interacts here. The music is always present, taking a back seat to the “film music” in the dialogues, only to dramatically play the center of attention in between. And as usual from Winfried Zrenner (the main composer), Joerg Widmoser, Andreas Höricht and Thomas Wollenweber, all sorts of styles and quotations from Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” to Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” add up to the unmistakable string quartet sound of the MSQ.
Final showdown: Valerie Solanas shoots at Andy Warhol.
(Photo: Oliver Hochkeppel)
The play is indeed something new – and a great gamble. That it was so brilliantly successful was not a matter of course and is due to the creative interaction of all those involved, in which one does not even know what to praise first. Clever direction by Andreas Wiedermann, who keeps Warhol’s 40th birthday condensed life balance in motion right up to the final shootout and – also ingenious and new – distributed over two locations: first in the perfectly fitting happenings between the Chelsea Hotel and Studio 54 matching L-shaped rehearsal room of the Gasteig HP8, then in the second act into the foyer of the Isarphilharmonie, which has been converted into a “factory”.
Also to be commended are the opulent sets and projections by Aylin Kaip, Karen Du Plessis and Bernhard Gassner, blending Warhol’s originals with neo-Warholisms and the performance level. Or the theatrical force of Ruben Hagspiel, Anina and Anouschka Doinet and, above all, Oliver Möller, who made Warhol’s inner turmoil hidden by the Stoic almost painfully clear. All together an event (again on May 10th, 23rd and 27th and on June 13th).