Under ice
Unter Eis is a theater and radio play production by the German author and playwright Falk Richter . The play was premiered in spring 2004 as the last part of the major project Das System at the Berlin Schaubühne .
description
The piece in which two consultants striving for extreme economic efficiency come into conflict with their older consultant colleague Paul Nobody , who has doubts about the "system" , tells of business consulting, business consultants and a cold society. In this text Richter examines the ideology, the image of man and the anonymous, soulless language of the consulting industry. He points to the weak points and functional gaps in a capitalist-oriented society geared towards economic efficiency and develops the vision of a world that is becoming more inhuman. " Under Ice there is a play about disappearing, freezing in layers of ice, about the agony in the cold".
action
Three men sit behind a high-gloss lacquered black conference table, a board that is so smooth that any piece of paper that would be launched onto the surface with nonchalant vigor would glide unstoppably over the edge and crash to the floor, a board which actually does not exist, no contract could be agreed. It is more like an altar on which everyone would like to slaughter each other as a sacrificial animal, as a loser in the fight, everyone against everyone else.
Two of the consultants, Karl Sonnenschein and Aurelius Glasenapp, are constantly on the lookout for new strategies to optimize performance and efficiency. Your actual wear-intensive professional life consists of performance, creativity, case study, pressure handling, business lounge and bonus miles and your work essentially consists of rationalizing as much staff as possible and as quickly as possible until you find yourself, as the last employee, as facing the last problem to be solved.
The third colleague, Paul Nobody, in his forties, gradually loses himself in the meetings in a loss of identity and the question of meaning and humanity. In a never-ending surge of fear, he rushes through the memories of his childhood, his victories and defeats, as well as of his women, of whom he only has vague memories. His unfulfilled longings return with a vengeance. No one is, whether they like it or not, the opposition center in the space of the synchronized information machinery. A cell whose growth potential remains open, but which constantly sends out impulses. He could be a different person. But the next generation is lurking for a moment of weakness, the end of his career. Everything is under ice, nothing moves, everything stands still. This is how Richter lets him describe the state of our society.
The consultant Karl Sonnenschein expresses a radical criticism of "a completely over-the-top media democracy".
In a monologue by Aurelius Glasenapp, Richter questions the function and understanding of culture in capitalist society. Here he reveals that the radical and initially foreign-looking consultant question of efficiency and profitability has long since become part of the cultural-political discussion.
reception
“Falk Richter dissects the present, condenses it into analytical, sensitive and touching theater pieces. He purposefully grabs phenomena from politics, media and society. Disassemble them. Sharpen and serve them. Richter is an author from today and the day after tomorrow, from the now and the after. His dramas are current, critical, analytical and deeply sad. Are assembly and fragment. Are reality and cinema. Are thought and experience. Are politics and poetry. Richter's language is cold and clear, ironic and harsh. Is close, lost and familiar. "
In the production of Pedro Martins Beja at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus 2013, Anette Bosetti "memories of strong moments, composed of reality and video images" remain, but she judges: "Unter Eis" is in the end a depressive piece. The fact that the social problem, which is still smoldering at its core, does not come close to us is due to the exaggerated staging. This means that there is no intellectual shivering with "Unter Eis". Restrained applause. "
"In this piece at the beginning of his career, Falk Richter did not manage to condense his material into such a gripping social analysis as in" Never Forever "or" Fear ". In the first hour, it becomes too frontal and with too little friction Manager's speech. In the last third, Jan Pappelbaum's stage is overshadowed by video clips of smooth skyscraper fronts, André Szymanski practices as a seal in a longer scene and torments himself over the ice cubes on the table surface. "
"With these three men, Falk Richter has pretty precisely captured the shades of the generations whose biopower is currently being worn out at high-speed workplaces. Above all, after years of popish delusion and suppression in the theater, he feels a good, bad, funny and sad piece of ideological criticism succeeded. "
"A panorama of a glass passage projected into the apse of the Schaubühne, into which you seem to zoom in slowly without ever arriving anywhere, is one of the most beautiful images of the existential misery that the new Schaubühne has presented since it began a few years ago . Falk Richter thinks, laconic and wickedly ironic, the end of the logic with which a fashionable horde of smart talkers, in their strange mixture of psychology, business administration, New Age, and crude Darwinism, attacks grown commercial societies. Sonnenschein, the aggressive apologist, stands between the childish, playful Aurelius Glasenapp and Paul Nobody, who is already over 40 years old, and with these three men, Falk Richter has pretty precisely captured the shades of the generations whose biopower is currently being worn out in high-speed workplaces. Above all, he is a good, bad, funny and sad piece of ideological criticism successful. "
Performances and adaptations
The world premiere took place on April 15, 2004 at the Berlin Schaubühne under the direction of Falk Richter. The set was designed by Jan Pappelbaum , the music was by Paul Lemp. The role of Paul Nobody played Thomas Thieme , mark waschke embodied the Karl Sonnenschein , André Szymanski to Aurelius Glasenapp and Vincent Redetzki or Jonathan Thuringian plays a child.
Guest performances took place in Zurich, Hamburg, Créteil, Saarbrücken, Bozen, Meran, Oslo, Rennes, Lille, Liège, Valence, Reims, Brussels, Sarajevo, Granada, Seville and Annecy.
The piece has been translated into more than 30 languages and played worldwide.
Under ice , Falk Richter reworked it into a music theater libretto for the 2007 Ruhrtriennale. The young and multiple award-winning composer Jörn Arnecke set Richter's text to music.
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Under Ice" - Schaubühne Berlin | Worth seeing? Reviews, ratings, reviews ... Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
- ^ Sabine Schmidt: hustle and bustle under ice. Retrieved on October 19, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Wolfgang Talke, Marco Felten: Case Tagesspiegel: Making newspaper production more flexible at “Der Tagesspiegel” . In: Making business processes more flexible . Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich, ISBN 978-3-486-85082-6 , doi : 10.1524 / 9783486850826.81 .
- ↑ RP ONLINE: Düsseldorf: Without Shivering: "Under Ice" in Düsseldorf. Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
- ^ Theater review - "Unter Eis" by Falk Richter (Schaubühne). Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
- ↑ - "The System 2 / Under Ice". Retrieved on October 19, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Andreas Stopp: It's difficult and easy for Deutschlandfunk . In: Perspectives on Media Criticism . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 978-3-531-12952-5 , p. 155-160 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-322-85097-3_16 .
- ↑ Schaubühne - Under Ice. Retrieved April 8, 2020 .
- ↑ "Under the Ice". June 4, 2008, Retrieved October 19, 2019 .