zur deutschen Version Author: macro
Translation: Oliver Grytzmann
BERLIN – Musicians gathered in the Jazzclub Schlot on Thuesday, March 19th, 2013 to provide the actors of the evening with inspiration and suggestions through shreds of music from their respective hometowns. Rudy Redl (Die Gorillas/Berlin) assembled top-class artists Gilly Alfeo (Die Springmaus/Bonn), DJ Hunnicutt (CRUMBS/Winnipeg), Nigel Rajaratnam (Improv Comedy Mumbai), a bassist from Hartford, Connecticut, and Eric Vaughn from Savannah, Georgia.
The actors started the show by performing the improv game “I’m a tree”; a curious idea, for it neither challenged the skill level of the players nor were the musicians part of the scenes. The following minutes went by unspectacularly, but were well received by the audience in the half-full Schlot.
Atmosphere, Inspiration And Space For Creativity
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Eric Vaughn introduced music to the show by playing creepy and disturbing tones on his drums; simultaneously he told the audience that Savannah is the capital of paranormal activity. The odd, yet fitting, sounds were reinforced by the other musicians and an atmospheric melody arose. Matt Baram (National Theatre of the World, Toronto) and the impressively good playing Kirsten Rasmussen (Montreal Improv Theatre) developed a true ghost story, including several time shifts to the past. Jacob Banigan (Theater am Bahnhof, Graz) participated powerfully in the scence, hovering across the stage, carried by Henk van der Steen (Troje, Amsterdam).
The Bavarian city of Munich was introduced by the second musician Rudy Redl; unfortunately the strengths of the preceding scene (atmosphere, inspiration and space for creativity) were lost during this performance. Redl’s backdrop was about the tense housing-market in the city, which he discussed in a lecturing matter of fact tone. The language used was German and thus incomprehensible for half of the actors. The spontaneous moderation by Leon Duevel (Die Gorillas/Berlin) to save the scene unnecessarily restricted its scope and couldn’t even be rescued by the dynamic Dhruv Lohumi (Improv Comedy Mumbai) in the process.
The Stage Was Just Too Small
The stage got filled continuously by actors and revealed another weak point of the evening: the space for the actors to perform was just too small for six persons, even though players like Jacob Banigan were full of inspiring ideas. The musicians were hard to see because of this, and DJ Hunnicutt was even expelled from his turntables more than once.
After the break Nigel Rajaratnam introduced Mumbai Sounds and shared an explanation about Bollywood and the role of whites as status symbols in Indian movies and at parties. Once again the stage was cluttered with people so that the incredibly good connected musicians were forced into the background. At the inspiration of DJ Hunnicut all actors were called on stage yet again in the following performance. Naturally, static talking-head scenes like this don’t allow for meaningful interaction with these outstanding musicians.
In the end, Kirsten Rasmussen’s fine closing song – by far the best of the evening – wrapped up the show on a high note, after the preceding scenes struggled with the German-English language barrier. The true potential of the idea to connect musicians and actors in an inspiring way unfortunately didn’t work out this time.
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