“I don’t check it,” writes one user, “I’m confused” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/. “She’s an actress!”, Another. “So what? Actors are only human too.” The confused watch live as actress Luana Velis is in a crisis of meaning and prefers not to appear for rehearsals. Instead, she types melancholy diary entries and streams them on the Internet. Concerned messages from your colleagues pop up in the comment column. “Could it be that we are now in the actual staging?” Asks a user cautiously. If you only knew.
We are in the process of creating “Oblomow revisited” based on Iwan Gontscharow, staged by Luk Perceval at the Cologne Theater. It was decided there to make the samples accessible digitally. There is a blog, an Instagram channel and regular streams on the Twitch platformin which you can watch the team at work. Hours of material has been created since September, many of which are just as laborious to look at as you would imagine.
Rehearsing at the theater is sacrosanct – actually. A protected space for the artists to try out, argue, howl. Unauthorized persons are only allowed to watch in exceptional cases. The staging is considered the finished product, the way to get there remains invisible. Too great is the concern that judgment will take place prematurely, that disenchantment will take place, that private matters will become public. Sometimes rehearsals are simply boring. You don’t necessarily want to watch a cook chopping vegetables.
“We make theater for people who already go to the theater”
But there are good reasons to open rehearsals, at least now and then. Streaming rehearsals, for example, means opening up to digital channels and seeing what artistic potential lies dormant in them. During the pandemic, the theaters were not at the forefront of it, the Cologne theater was the exception. In addition, more transparency is good to show the great value theater has, especially now that cultural budgets are being cut everywhere. And speaking of transparency: by the way, public rehearsals are certainly an effective compliance measure, after the debates about questionable manners by directors. Whereby Luk Perceval, as far as you can see, is probably the friendliest and most unpretentious director at least in Cologne.
In turn, who has been in the business for 40 years, gives the reason: “We are a closed society. We make theater for people who already go to the theater.” On the Internet, he hopes to arouse curiosity in people who happened to stumble by, who may then also dare to go to the theater. During the first rehearsal, 8,000 people watched Twitch from time to time, a gigantic number for a theater stream. Perceval also says: The finished staging is not the most exciting thing, it is often characterized by compromises and only a reduction of what was previously worked out. “I think trying it out is better than imagining it, because during the rehearsal there is a synchronization of life with the rehearsal.” Those who accompany the rehearsals can see what they mean.
Quite alone and yet not: During rehearsals for “Oblomow” someone always keeps the camera on.
(Photo: Schauspiel Köln)
It starts with the arrival of actress Luana Velis in Cologne. She plays “Oblomowa”, the famous idiot, tired of any company. Velis films her accommodation, goes to the restaurant, she can be seen learning text, buying an aquarium, riding the subway. So far, so slicing vegetables. The whole thing becomes meta when Velis confesses to her colleagues that she has been filming them secretly for days. Suddenly actors are debating in front of the camera how much they have to reveal about themselves in their profession and whether the “authentic” has to be a category in theater at all, an art that lives from assertion. You decide to keep streaming.
Then, when Velis does not come to the rehearsal and in the next escalation stage decides not to leave the apartment at all, life apparently really synchronizes with the rehearsal. In the spirit of the “Oblomowa”, Velis refuses to accept the social pressure to perform. The premiere seems to be in danger. Tears, little hearts emojis. A digital viewer consoles: “Leave sick leave. And just rumble.”
So you sit in front of Twitch and ask yourself whether this is actually the staged staging of the staging. After all, we’re at the theater. If everything is staged, that only adds another artistic level to the project, authenticity in art is not needed anyway. With the means of the theater, the magic of the theater is documented in Cologne. Art can benefit from getting involved in the game, too. And whether it is real tears that you see or professionally felt, does not matter in the end. Whether Luana Velis appears for the premiere on Thursday is also not so important. The performance began a long time ago.