Admittedly, it is not necessarily to be assumed that a theater festival evening will end with several strippers. But there is. A pole dance pole was set up for them on the stage of Club substance. It’s not necessarily the place that comes to mind either. There, the stage seems so low and the bar so clamped that an injury-free course of such a show is definitely in question. Nevertheless, the evening called “Stripperstories” was a consistent part of a festival with opinionated, political, queer, and also shrill productions. It was almost as tightly fitted as the bar in the substance, while at the same time reaching far beyond the stage. A strong performance that belongs to this year’s edition of “Radikal Jung”. Due to the pandemic, we had to wait two years for the most important festival for young directors in the German-speaking world at the Volkstheater. That was worth it. “Radikal Jung” reported back impressively for a week.
Circumstances were not easy
The circumstances were anything but easy. Corona and the resulting many performance cancellations made the sightings difficult for the curator Christine Wahl and her colleagues C. Bernd Sucher, Florian Fischer and director Jens Hillje. “Radikal Jung” moved from spring to summer, the traditional place was gone, other festivals ran parallel. The new house had to prove itself. And then the audience doesn’t find their way back to the theater with their usual strength. This could also be felt in “Radikal Jung”, which only seemed to be full towards the end. Overall, the house reported an occupancy rate of 75 percent. There is still room for improvement for next year.
Eleven productions were invited to “Radikal Jung”. The Left Bank Theater from Kyiv opened with “Bad Roads”, a play by the author Natalia Vorozhbyt, written in 2017. In it, Vorozhbyt processed her impressions of the war in the Donbass. In 2019 Tamara Trunova staged “Bad Roads”, in 2022 it is – as a political statement – in “Radikal Jung” and wins the audience award, which is endowed with 3000 euros. At the award ceremony on Saturday evening, the director was visibly moved. She supposes that her work received this level of support from the public because there was a war in her country. This is all the more a great sign and a win for Ukraine.
This year’s audience award went to Ukraine: “Bad Roads” at the Left Bank Theater in Kyiv.
(Photo: People’s Theater / Spyros Run)
Unlike the audience, the festival’s master class of up-and-coming directors decided that for them the best and most radical work was caner teker’s “Karadeniz”, a journey where you stay on earth and find yourself on another planet at the same time. However, between “Bad Roads” and “Karadeniz” – to stay with the image – there is a gaping world. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that Trunova’s staging serves old viewing habits, while caner teker erects a rather hermeneutic building from fragments of Turkish wedding rituals, wrestling, dance and personal memories. Central to this is also gender identity, attribution and appropriation. And so it fits into the festival ranks of opinionated directorial works that very clearly asked for exactly that.
It all started on the second day of the festival with Elias Adam’s “We are in the army now”, a production at the Onassis Stegi Cultural Center Athens. In it two women, two men who, in addition to the possibilities of social media, deal with their own sexuality, which also includes coming out in a homophobic environment. The evening is colourful, funny, squeaky, also touching. And he’s right before the “Stripperstories” in substance. Here four professional sex workers talk about their existence in a very funny way, claiming respect for themselves and their work. Theatrical art docks onto striptease, the connecting element is the body and its definition, which is often difficult because it is brought in from the outside. What can and may this say about the personality, the I in it at all?
Anything that pleases is allowed? In “Carnival” Joana Tischkau deals with the carnival tradition in the Rhineland.
(Photo: Katrin Ribbe)
“Stripperstories” was not to remain the only evening in substance, there was also a drag show there, on the Flaucher an “erotic initiation into the environment”. These “Late Nights” formats, which Florian Fischer chose – and which complement the more common audience discussions – were a great extension of “Radikal Jung”. Stage discourse and life are not alien to each other, here is the proof.
And it was obvious that the young directors are very much concerned with discourse: Joana Tischkau’s “Carnival”, staged at the Oberhausen Theater, deals with the carnival tradition in the Rhineland with many pop-cultural references and in musical format, with this “It was always like that ” and “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to dress up as an Indian?”. Kieran Joel brought Mithu Sanyal’s novel, which deals with structural racism in a clever, funny way, to the stage with “Identitti” at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. In “Mowgli”, Sorour Darabi confronted viewers in a harsh but skilful way with how busy they are with ascribing a sexuality to him or her. But isn’t binary thinking more or less a compulsive reflex?
With “It’s Britney, Bitch!” brought director Lena Brasch and actress Sina Martens a clear feminist position.
(Photo: JR Berliner Ensemble)
Feminist positions brought Ewelina Marciniak with “The Maid of Orleans” (Nationaltheater Mannheim) and Lena Brasch with “It’s Britney Bitch!” (Berliner Ensemble) one or two very strong productions, even if the “Jungfrau” is not entirely consistent. The Volkstheater contributed the hit-potential high school musical “Gymnasium” by Bonn Park. And the digital was best represented with Cosmea Spelleken’s must-see Werther adaptation.
Anyone who got an almost complete festival dose could have a lot of fun with these very enjoyable theater debates. Freely based on Piscator, it was fulfilled: Whoever is on stage should have something to say. The fact that the reflection of one production in the other could be quite helpful is the advantage of a festival. The group led by Jens Hillje has cleverly consolidated. In order to continue the discussions, however, the artists and the young audience, where the euros are not so easy to carry in their pockets, sometimes lacked the right place. But next year there might be a festival tent again. And another piece of good news: It won’t even be a year before the next “Radikal Jung” comes out.