zur deutschen Version Author: Thomas Jäkel
Translation: Oliver Grytzmann
BERLIN – BühnenRausch presented the English edition of the festival show DAS ISSES (That’s it!) on Sunday, March 17th, 2013; as part of the supporting program of IMPRO 2013 the event allowed for the encounter of international and Berliner actors. In addition, this multicultural connection featured a format by Randy Dixon of Unexpected Productions from Seattle: the “Blank Slate”.
The basic idea behind “Blank Slate” is that the audience comes up with its own story. Dixon assumes that the people in attendance know what they want to see, thus they are also able to take charge. Naturally, this concept works with the help of a moderator only and Mr. Dixon filled this role in a refreshingly calm manner.
The cast consisted of seven actors and one musician, so the stage was well-filled. The initiating task was to equip every player with a character: at first, the audience picked Naomi Snieckus from the National Theatre of the World to provide her with the name Patmita Schwarzenbach, who worked as a translator for literature and who had a boyfriend with a child – the latter being unknown to her. Over the course of two short monologues the audience learned that the character was happy in her profession, because she could re-write all stories into a happy ending. Besides, she really didn’t like children. Already at this point it became clear how intellectually deep the characters could become, especially when a talented actress like Naomi Snieckus adds new shadings with every half sentence.
All improvisers were equipped with a character in this manner within 50 minutes, aided by diverse questions from Randy Dixon and an increasingly engaging audience. Maja Dekleva of the Kolektiv Narobov from Slovenia demonstrated powerfully that this extensive initiation provided her also with the opportunity to slip psychically into the role of seventy-year old Katrin Albrecht; it was further revealed that the character served jail time for killing her husband. The entertaining factor of this character development proved so strong that the lack of an actual story carried no weight at this point.
The most dramatic feature of the format followed. Dixon positioned the actors in a row so that the seven players could recite their character’s attributes in short keywords. The people in attendance now defined connections between the fictitious persons. In this context, the wealthy land owner Mara Whitbread was also the mother of female IT developer Tschischek Doröse’s ex-boyfriend. The former was played brilliantly by Uta Walter of Theater ohne Probe, the latter charmingly by Gorillas Berlin’s Billa Christe. Further development of the story was based on these connections, which held the characters together throughout the next six scenes. Randy Dixon intervened at several points and posed questions to the audience as to how the characters should decide or what their goals were.
The boundary between the actors and the audience disappeared
A break was announced ninety minutes into the show to the astonishment of the audience – time seemed to go by fast; the people in attendance were constantly engaged in the thought process, developed further plots and let themselves surprise by the actors. The second half kicked off with interactions in pairs and reached its humorous climax in a scene between a female rabbi – played persuasively by Barbara Demmer of ImproBerlin – and the translator Patmita Schwarzenbach (Naomi Snieckus), in which the latter recited her adjustments to a story from the Torah. Comedy Mumbai’s highly sympathetic Nigel Rajaratnam stopped playing the piano laughing and thus completely dissolved the boundary between actors and audience.
Subsequently, Randy Dixon merged the stories by using a triple split-screen scene. Fast, yet not always coherent, shifts in perspective discovered a metaphoric solution to the plots. Maja Deklava’s concluding, and somewhat morbid, monologue freed the audience from its position in the director’s chair. At this moment, the “state” definitely was not “blank” any longer.
IMPRO 2013 presented a highly interesting format on this evening; it proved that slow playing and extensive questioning can be entertaining. Gross suggestions were also part of the show, which Randy Dixon knew to defuse by involving the entire audience in a solution. In effect it was them that developed the story, advanced it and involved the characters in conflicts and exciting relations. A drawback existed, as that the space for creative development of the players was limited, the more the director interfered into the scenes. For instance the performance lacked an extended presence of the skilled actress Alieke van der Wijk of Troje from Amsterdam. Yet the audience makes decisions by majority and thus leaves some wanting. If I had my way, I would pledge for more evenings like this – DAS ISSES!
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