Experimental German Theater

Last Thursday I was invited by another teaching assistant to an alternative theater downtown to see their "Forum for Young Artists."

A nerdy digression - The name of the forum is called "frühSTÜCK" which is also the German word for breakfast.  Literally translated, the word means "early piece" and the show started at 7:00 instead of 8:00, per usual.

There were three different pieces we saw that night: Let.Happen.Review., Fear of Flying, and the Success Project.

The first piece was my favorite - super clever.  This guy had written his own monologue, about him writing a monologue.  For example:

"I was sitting at my computer typing out the words when I had an idea.  I could put a water bottle over in the corner, so that in the middle of my speech I could go over, get a drink, and refresh myself before finishing."

Then he went over to the corner, got his water bottle, and took a drink before continuing.

Another time, he was talking about how, after taking a break from writing for a little bit, he looked at the length of the piece and decided that it was too short.  And then he launched into this long story about making a sandwich right after deciding it was too short!

However, a part of me was a little disappointed with how normal the first piece was; I wanted something really crazy and unusual.  The second piece delivered.  First, each member of the troupe told us their name and did a kind of interpretive dance to show their personality.  I didn't really understand the plot, it was kinda loose and didn't make a lot of sense.  At one point, there were different people telling the same story, but they decided the next speaker by blindfolding members of the troupe and playing the hot and cold game, while the blind-folded person crawled around on the floor trying to find a pot ????  There was also a love scene complete with rose petals, "Con You Fell The Love Tonight" by Elton John, wind machines, and rose petals coming down from the sky.  The guy and girl even stood on a skateboard type thing that two of the actors rotated.  I've never laughed so hard in my life.

The third piece, the Success Project was kinda boring and too long.  Performed by 4 women, they modeled themselves after the Beatles and talked about their research findings on what success is.

I liked that it was a little interactive.  They gave each audience member a flag that sad "YES!" on it, and would ask our opinions on what someone needed to do in order to be successful.