Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 7, 2007

Ein Blick in den Rückspiegel:
Das German Theater Abroad tourte mit einem umgebauten Schulbus durch die USA


Ungefähr so hatte man sich das auch vorgestellt: Alle tragen nagelneue Cowboystiefel, an denen der Staub der Straße gerade so dekorativ haftet wie feingesiebter Puderzucker am glänzenden Dessertteller. Und viele klagen, dass sie ein paar Pfund zugelegt hätten, wegen des guten Essens und der langen Fahrten im Bus. Deutsche unterwegs in Amerika. Die meisten verschlafen die grandiosen Wildwest-Panoramen, die sich vor den Seitenfenstern in den Rahmen schieben, eingelullt von Bob Dylan, der - wie sich das für ein zutiefst romantisches Unternehmen gehört - aus den am Armaturenbrett festgezurrten Lautsprechern plärrt. Es sind Kulturpioniere, die hier reisen, und ihr Planwagen ist ein giftgrün lackierter amerikanischer Schulbus.

Auf den Weg gebracht hat sie Ronald Marx, der umtriebige Gründer des Vereins German Theater Abroad. Seit elf Jahren pendelt der hünenhafte Charmeur in transatlantischer Mission zwischen New York und Berlin und hält den Kulturaustausch in Gang. Alles hat klein angefangen, mit Lesungen in einem Ladenlokal im Prenzlauer Berg, jetzt rollt man seit sechs Wochen auf großer Fahrt durch die Vereinigten Staaten. Angetrieben vom frontier spirit und abgefedert durch Mittel der Bundeskulturstiftung, bringen Marx und sein Road Theater neue Dramatik aus der alten Welt in die Prärie, in der Hoffnung, dass ihre empfindliche Saat dem rauen Wind des Westens widersteht. Der derzeit erfolgreichste deutsche Dramatiker, Roland Schimmelpfennig, hat ihnen eigens ein Stück für den Road Trip geschrieben. Premiere von "Start Up" war Anfang Oktober in New York. Von da ging es westwärts, immer der Sonne nach, Ziel ist Kalifornien, wo der amerikanische Traum in den Pazifik fällt.

In zwölf Bundesstaaten und zwanzig Städten haben sie Station gemacht, in Nashville und Atlanta, Memphis und New Orleans, El Paso und Paris, Texas. Jetzt, nach 6000 Meilen, sind sie in Las Vegas angekommen. Nur ein paar Blocks liegen zwischen dem Aruba Hotel, wo das Road Theater Quartier bezogen hat, und den Megahotels am südlichen Ende des Strip. Und doch trennen Welten die schäbigen Motels am Las Vegas Boulevard North vom Glamour der Stadt; die Neonschriften leuchten hier nur noch fahl in die Wüstennacht. Rechts ein Adult Superstore, links ein Strip-Lokal. An der Einfahrt posiert vor einem alten Cadillac eine angeleuchtete Marilyn-Puppe, der ein Ventilator unentwegt den Rock nach oben weht.

Theater auf Rädern

Am Hoteleingang weisen nur zwei unscheinbare Din-A3-Zettel darauf hin, dass hier heute Abend Theater gespielt wird. Hinterm Haus schläft der Tour-Bus, den Ronald Marx liebevoll als "sechsten character" des fünfköpfigen deutsch-amerikanischen Ensembles bezeichnet. Mit seinen harten Sitzbänken und seinem behäbigen Diesel ist der alte Schulbus nicht gerade das geeignete Verkehrsmittel, um einen Kontinent zu erobern. Doch ein alter Schulbus, erzählt Marx, sei von Anfang an sein Traum gewesen. Schließlich waren schon die Hippies um Ken Kesey, dem Autor des Buches "Einer flog über das Kuckucksnest", in den Sechzigern mit einem bunt bemalten Schulbus in den USA unterwegs. Tom Wolfe begleitete die Reisen der Merry Pranksters und hat darüber sein Buch "Unter Strom" geschrieben. Marx will die Legenden einholen, die den Weg nach Westen vorgespurt haben.

"Ich hätte mir nie träumen lassen, dass ich mit 28 Jahren Vater von 13 Kindern werden würde", sagt Dan, der amerikanische Regieassistent, und rechnet dabei Busfahrer Tom mit dazu, einen gleichmütigen Schrat mit langem grauen Zopf. "Tom hat fünfzehn Jahre mit Behinderten gearbeitet und ist also prädestiniert", witzelt ein Kollege vom ZDF, das die Reise dokumentiert.

Hinter dem rohen Estrich einer Bierschwemme versteckt sich ein trashiger Tanzsaal. Reste fluoreszierender Disko-Deko und morsche Clubsessel - ganz nach dem Geschmack von Theaterberlinern. Im Foyer wartet eine Rentnergruppe deutscher Ausgewanderter. Normalerweise, sagt eine von den Damen, würde sie keinen Fuß in diese Gegend setzen. Ihr Mann verkündet, dass Kaiserslautern nur 0:0 gegen Mainz gespielt habe und nippt an seinem Bier. Später, als auf der Bühne die einzige politische Bemerkung des Stücks fällt, wenn nämlich Micha hinter vorgehaltener Hand von der "false evidence" irakischer Superwaffen spricht, die Bush in den Irak einmarschieren ließen, erhebt sich der Kaiserlautern-Anhänger wie aufs Stichwort und verlässt geräuschvoll den Saal. Man weiß nicht, ob das Missfallen ihn treibt oder nur das Bier. Das sei jedenfalls bislang noch nicht vorgekommen, versichert Ronald Marx hinterher. In Alabama sei ihre Veranstalterin vor Ort eine erklärte Bushianerin gewesen. Und in Oklahoma sei ein Ex-Sheriff bewaffnet in die Vorstellung gekommen. Und obwohl er noch nie die Grenzen seines Bundesstaates verlassen habe, sei er kein reaktionärer Hinterwäldler gewesen, sondern von einer Offenheit und Liberalität, die ihnen immer wieder begegnet sei.

Mit den Leuten ins Gespräch zu kommen, bezeichnet Marx als das eigentliche Ziel des Theatertrips. Dafür habe ihnen Roland Schimmelpfennig ein sehr gutes Werkzeug in die Hand gegeben mit seinem Stück. In Las Vegas ahnt man, warum Schimmelpfennig sich beim Schreiben von der Diplomatie die Hand führen ließ. Nur 22 Zuschauer haben überhaupt den Weg ins Aruba gefunden. Und an der Sprache kann es nicht gelegen haben, denn gespielt wird auf Englisch.

Die Inszenierung von Ronald Marx betont spielerisch den selbstreferentiellen Charakter des Stücks. Mittels Videotechnik erzeugt sie permanent Rückkopplungen zwischen Realität und Fiktion. Im Video sieht man Nils Nellessen mit einem leeren Wasserkanister durch die Wüste stapfen. Da reitet Nicolai Tegeler mit steifem Rücken durch die Prärie, während Lisa-Marie Janke in einem Diner Kaffee ausschenkt und vor den Tresengästen über Amerika philosophiert. Die drei deutschen Schauspieler spielen drei deutsche Schauspieler, die wie ihre realen Vorbilder mit einem Bus durch die Staaten touren, um ihre nationale Eigenart zu vermarkten. Jedoch nicht in Form von Pumpernickel oder Kuckucksuhren, sondern mit Hochkultur. Micha, Rob und Kati wollen in einem Ladenlokal am Rand einer Provinzstadt ein Theater eröffnen. "Eine Zapfsäule mitten in der Wüste, eine Kulturstation. Benzin für den Kopf", platzt es aus dem von Nicolai Tegeler gespielten Traumtänzer Micha heraus. Er gibt den pausbackig-naiven Kulturvermittler mit umgehängter Freitag-Tasche, auf der Bundeshauptstadt Berlin steht neben einem Aufkleber des Eisbären Knut.

Schimmelpfennig ironisiert das kulturelle Sendungsbewusstsein der Deutschen, wenn er Micha sagen lässt, es sei Verrat an dem Volk, das sie von Hitler befreit habe, wenn man als Deutscher in den USA einen Videoladen aufmache. Denn eine Videothek sei das einzige kulturelle Angebot, das in dieser Ecke der Stadt eine reele Chance habe, hatte Vermieter Ike (Roland Sands) zu bedenken gegeben. Dass ausgerechnet die deutschen Gäste die so pragmatischen Amerikaner an ihren verlorenen Idealismus, der einst die Berliner Luftbrücke und den Marshall-Plan Wirklichkeit werden ließ, glauben erinnern zu müssen, ist besonders lustig, wenn man weiß, dass sie auch mit Mitteln des European Recovery Programms reisen, besser bekannt unter dem Namen Marshallplan.

Anders als im wahren Leben, in dem sie staatlich gefördert werden, fehlt den Schauspielern im Stück das Geld für die Ladenmiete. Außerdem knurrt den Hungerkünstlern der Magen. Das Stück endet mit einer warmen internationalen Mahlzeit aus Burritos und Pommes für alle und einem Frauentausch, der den kulturellen Patt besiegelt. Während Micha und Rob einsehen, dass sie wohl besser weiterziehen, aber immerhin Ikes Tochter Liz (Myxolydia Tyler) bekehren, die glaubt, die Theaterskepsis ihres Vater sei nur eine Folge geschmackspolitischer Manipulation, bleibt die von Lisa-Marie Janke als burschikoses Cowgirl gespielte Kati bei Ike. Sie wird die Videothek aufmachen und als Ersatztochter in Liz' Zimmer wohnen.

Schrottplatz der Verheißung

Der Plot ist so dünn ist wie der Perlmuttlack auf einem Spielchip im Casino. Aber Schimmelpfennig jongliert leichtfüßig mit den aufs Gramm genau ausgewogenen deutsch-amerikanischen Stereotypen und dosiert die Zumutungen postdramatischer EU-Standards als kulturpolitischen Einfuhrzoll. Das deutsche Theater sei allemal ästhetisch "weiter", klagt Dan. "Unsere Dramatiker stecken noch immer im Naturalismus fest und wollen nicht verstehen, dass Fernsehen und Film das besser können." Das deutsche Theater empfänden seine Landsleute als übercodiert, dogmatisch und autistisch. Dabei hat "Start Up" viel Witz und wird von den drei deutschen und zwei amerikanischen Schauspielern fein dargeboten. Doch nuanciertes Spiel und sympathische Low-Tech mussten an Vegas zerschellen, der Welthauptstadt des industriellen Entertainment. Man ist hier ziemlich Off-Goethe-Institut.

Die Hauptschlagader der Stadt, der Las Vegas Boulevard, ist nicht nur eine Straße, er ist auch sein eigener Zeitstrahl. Auf ein paar Kilometern drängen sich sämtliche Lebensphasen des Mythos Las Vegas, von der Geburt bis zum Verfall, als würde der Autokorso die verbrauchten Legenden vor sich her schieben, um Platz zu schaffen für neue. Am südlichen Ende ist der Strip ein Gärungsherd, an dem sich Vegas permanent neu hervorbringt, weiter im Norden, wo die alten Casinos stehen, musealisiert er sich selbst. Und noch ein Stück weiter findet sich der sogenannte neon graveyard, nicht mehr als ein Stück umzäuntes Brachland, auf dem die verschrotteten Neonschrifen gelagert werden.

Vom Aruba Hotel sind es nur ein paar Blocks bis zu diesem Dinosaurier-Friedhof. Jason, der Stage Manager des Road Theatre, ist zufällig darauf gestoßen, als er bei einer Online-Schnitzeljagd mit Google Earth die Straßen von Vegas durchkämmte. Als Anfang der Neunziger mit der Sprengung der großen Casinos begonnen wurde, taten sich ansässige Künstler zusammen, um die Neonschriften zu retten. Irgendwann soll einmal ein Freilichtmuseum daraus werden, erzählt die Verwalterin, als sie das Vorhängeschloss löst, bis jetzt ist der Ort nicht für die Öffentlichkeit geöffnet.

Als der exzentrische Milliardär Howard Hughes 1966 eine Suite im Desert Inn von Las Vegas bezog, fühlte er sich von der blinkenden Leuchtreklame dermaßen gestört, dass er das Hotel kaufte, um das Licht löschen zu können. Der silberne Damenslipper, um den es damals ging, steht zwischen rostigen Lettern aus Blech und Glasfaser. Die Szene wirkt, als wäre der Märchenprinz nie gekommen, der einer Cinderella-Riesin ihren verlorenen Schuh zurückgibt und sie zur Frau nimmt.

Fast wäre der Bus vorbeigefahren an Death Valley Junction, der nächsten Station mitten im Nichts, wo es nur Präriegras gibt und unendliche Weite, ab und zu ein shooting range. Death Valley Junction ist nicht mehr als eine unbeschilderte Straßenkreuzung im Nirgendwo. In den zwanziger Jahren gab es hier eine Borax-Miene, von der ein paar verfallene Gebäude zeugen. Gegenüber der langgezogene Pueblo-Bau des Hotels, notdürftig instand gehalten. 1966 hatte die New Yorker Primaballerina Marta Becket hier eine Reifenpanne. Sie verliebte sich in den Ort und blieb als einzige Einwohnerin, um im Saal des Hotels ihr "Amargosa Opera House" zu eröffnen. Sei vierzig Jahren spielt sie hier eine bizarre Mischung aus klassischem Ballett und Pantomime, drei Vorstellungen gibt es in der Woche, ihr Publikum hat sie sich an die Wände des Zuschauerraums gemalt. In ihrem Allerheiligsten darf das Road Theater nur unter der Auflage spielen, die Bühne nicht einmal zu berühren.

Marta Becket selbst zeigt sich an diesem Abend nicht. Also spielt man inmitten des kleinen Theater-Schmuckkästchens, in dem ein großer Kanonenofen brennt. Das zahlende Publikum besteht aus einem kanadischen Ehepaar, den einzigen Gästen im Hotel. Die Vorstellung ist fahrig und unkonzentriert. Zum Trost hat Ronald Marx in der höhlenartigen Hotelküche für alle gekocht. Es ist Zeit, dass sie nach sechs Wochen harter Arbeit am Mythos Amerika in Los Angeles ankommen, wo zwei Tagen später die Tour endet. "Es wird bald Schnee geben", sagt Robert, der sich ums Haus kümmert, und zieht den Hut tiefer in die Stirn. Die Vorstellung fand er "convincing", aber jetzt muss er nach den Pferden schauen und Holz nachlegen in dem riesigen Kamin in der Lobby.

Am Morgen ein Himmel aus blau eloxiertem Aluminium. In der Mikrowelle kreiselt einsam der Styroporbecher mit dem Wasser für den Instant-Cappuccino. Gegenüber, in der Garage, steht noch das Auto, mit dem Marta Becket damals hier ankam, der Reifen ist nie geflickt worden. Warum auch? Die 83-jährige Grande Dame der Wüste wird hier nicht mehr fortgehen. Die Theaterleute aber bleiben nur noch einen Tag. Den tiefsten Punkt des Kontinents haben sie dann hinter sich.

VON CHRISTOPHER SCHMIDT

That Other Paper (Austin, Texas) November 20, 2007

Road Theater: German Theater Abroad
by Chad Hanna 20 Nov 2007

This past Tuesday, November 13, the German Theater Abroad troupe rolled into town to perform — for one night only — the play Start Up at the Vortex Theater. And I enjoyed it thoroughly — not just the play itself, but what German Theater Abroad does in general.

Started in 1996 in New York by Ronald Marx, German Theater Abroad stages productions both in America and Germany. With each project, GTA experiments with newer and more radical forms of theatrical presentation, though at their base they hold to three basic principals: GTA always produces plays by contemporary playwrights, the teams that produce and act in each project must be of various nationalities, and (in the tradition of Bertolt Brecht) conceptual innovations should act as a conduit to dialogue, obscuring the line between spectator and spectacle.

GTA’s current project Start Up spans across the US from New York to LA. In seven weeks the crew of 15 people plans to hit 24 cities in 16 different states. There are five actors (three Germans and two Americans), a director, an associate director, and a production crew that includes two Austrian video artists. Between 11 and 13 people ride in the bright green GTA bus, with the remainder driving ahead in a U-Haul full of equipment. Their rigorous tour schedule means that they put on a play every other night.

GTA commissioned German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig to write the play specifically for this project.

Schimmelpfennig is a hot playwright in Europe, though his name is only now starting to circulate here in America. After a long stint as a journalist in Istanbul (a place of particular interest to Germans, given the country’s sizable Turkish population), Schimmelpfennig returned to Munich, became involved in theater, and began to make his living as a freelance writer. After living in America for a year he returned to Germany, working in Hamburg and Berlin (where he currently resides), eventually receiving commissions from theaters across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Obviously written with GTA’s threefold aesthetic in mind, Schimmelpfennig’s text is playful, fluid, and self-referential. And there are no artists more contemporary than the ones you can commission.

The play is complex to talk about (in a good way). So I want to say right up front that the actors — Lisa-Marie Janke (Kati), Nils Nellessen (Rob), Roland Sands (Ike), Nicolai Tegeler (Micha), and Myxolydia Tyler (Liz) — did a phenomenal job, especially when you consider the demands a production like this must put on actors. Performing an emotional play with such complicated staging and subject matter every other night must be exhausting. But they were spot on, well-spoken, and kept the audience thoroughly engaged — even during most meta-moments in the play.


As they travel across the country, GTA’s Austrian video artists have been filming various scenes in different cities, out on the streets with pedestrian actors accompanying their own. These scenes are projected onto a screen throughout the play, often to provide context. The film component is remixed whenever possible on the road, so the footage is always evolving. They also film live during the play. The effect is extremely entertaining — your role as spectator constantly shifts. You watch actors on a stage; you watch actors on a screen, filmed days or weeks ago; you watch actors on the screen, acting live offstage and on; at one point you even watch a lecture-style presentation on the history of world politics, aided by intense images on the screen.

Juxtaposed with all this live action and footage of the actors playing out Schimmelpfenning’s plot, we see panoramas of the wide open western landscape, clips from westerns, and segments of video in which we see the actors decked out in western garb wandering through an old west town, or the actors wandering through a modern day cityscape as a voice-over describes a frontier where food is scarce and survival questionable. There are even slow-motion clips from the movie Tremors, referenced several times in the play.

The conceptual video work and accompanying music were not written into the play, rather the directors and video artists conceived this aspect of the play masterfully — an extremely well-organized, well-timed production. Quintessential multimedia.

This show was the first outside performance staged by the group. We all sat in folding chairs, illuminated by the Christmas lights strung above our heads, looking at the stage where a threadbare couch stood with a large projector screen glowing blue beside it. To the left was a long table filled with mixing boards and several Macs.

Suddenly we hear the honking of a horn and someone shouting “Hallo, hallo!” on a bullhorn. Funky music came rushing out of the speakers near the stage and the bus drove right up into the courtyard through the gate, filled with all 15 actors and crew members. They spilled from the bus door and the crew manned their positions as the actors ran through the audience, handing out German flags and saying, “All right, this is going to be a good show! Thank you for coming to see the show!” And then they all disappeared backstage and the lights went down and the music faded out and we all sat there sort of shocked and then the play/visual-art experiment began.


The play centers around three Germans — Micha, Kati, and Rob — driving westward across America in a bus with the dream of starting a type of culture factory, providing Americans with cultural imports in the form of theater (a premise tangled up with the reality of what GTA is actually doing). The trio just needs a space to set up their theater.

But it’s obvious that the trip has been ill-planned, a source of conflict manifested mainly in the character of Kati. When we join the trio, they are penniless — Kati is nowhere to be found, Rob is starving, and Micha has just met Ike, a Vietnam Vet and luckless property owner, willing to rent them a space for their as of yet unspecified import business.

Once Micha and Rob have signed the contract to rent the space, Kati shows up, exposing the German crew for what they really are: idealistic kids with a vague plan that will never work — starving kids with no money to rent anything, let alone put down a deposit of three month’s rent.

Ike takes the starving Rob and sultry Kati out to eat to try to convince them to start a video store in the space, leaving Micha behind. There had been a successful video store in the building until the owner had a heart attack while watching Tremors.

With Ike, Kati, and Rob offstage, Micha sets up a podium and takes out his notes and gives an historical lesson to the audience with the aid of images on the screen. He covers WWII starting with the battle of Normandy, goes on to talk about the divvying up of Europe, the division of Germany, the Marshall plan, the Cold War, 9/11 and the disillusionment resulting from America’s false information concerning WMAs. Just then Ike’s daughter Liz shows up and playfully seduces Micha and they go offstage for a romp.

Then on the screen we catch back up with Ike, Kati, and Rob — filming their live performance offstage, projecting it on the screen.

Though bighearted, Ike’s values are doggedly informed by American capitalism, a system that has alienated Ike in ways he doesn’t fully acknowledge, as he still seems to believe in the American dream. As he tries to convince the Germans to open a video store, we see Ike’s version of mythical America juxtaposed with that of the German’s version. American movies — specifically westerns — and the vast American landscape are the common subjects that enable the dialogue between different cultural perspectives and expose the inevitable cliches that accompany them.

Upon returning from their meal — almost catching Micha and Liz in flagrante — Ike has pretty much convinced Rob and Kati that starting a video store would be a good idea. Once this becomes fully evident to Micha, an argument ensues with everyone participating that neatly ties in the previous history lecture.

Liz is Ike’s American foil. She’s been to college — she’s young and, like Micha and Rob, idealistic. Liz believes supply dictates demand rather than the other way around. If you give people a video store, people will watch videos.

So the play becomes about not just the fate of the characters but the fate of the space they have rented. It will either be a theater or a video store. Both transmit culture, both are a record of human imagination, but video stores make money while theaters don’t. Theaters are about drama (as can be films) — imparting people with some kind of insight, while video stores are about renting things to people.


The main difference between a video store and a theater is what people on both sides of the transaction bring to the space and what they walk away with. Following the dramatic logic of the play, countries can be thought of as spaces, too — video stores or theaters. I’ll let you decide for yourself which one America is.

In the end, Kati stays behind to start a video store with Ike; Liz leaves with Rob and Micha to wander into the illusive west — a literal cultural exchange.

I see it like this:

Ike is used to dealing with the realities of the American capitalist system; his big dream has been to make it, and he’s done a good job despite this empty building he owns. So it’s fairly impossible for him to sell out, lending his character a complicated moral authority. Micha and Rob are operating under a misunderstanding of what is possible in America and what America actually is: They tend to substitute the mythic west for America as a whole — as long as we keep moving west we will eventually find a place to settle, though they are not totally unaware of the danger inherent to their situation. Kati originally shared Micha and Rob’s perspective, but quickly comes to realize the true realities of making a living in America, where so much pressure is put on the individual to fail or succeed, and ultimately sides with Ike — you have to get by even if it means doing things you don’t want to, even if it means giving up on dreams. Liz refracts Rob and Micha’s romanticized version of America through the lens of her naiveté — a naiveté nurtured by her father’s unwillingness to accept that the American dream is bankrupt. In America, if you want to be free you might have to starve for it; if you don’t want to starve, then you’ll have to compromise yourself to some extent to make money. The key is finding some kind of middle ground.


And yet the play ends on a beautifully hopeful note, and we’re convinced that everyone will make their way eventually.

At the end of the play Marx thanked the audience, saying that ours was the best audience they’d had on the tour so far. I caught up with Daniel Brunet, the play’s associate director, to ask if that was truly the case, or if Marx says that at every show. Daniel answered: “It’s the truth. You guys really got it. You know this is theater so there is obviously a listening thing that happens — and this show is a comedy, a farce — you guys laughed at all the jokes and were really responsive. All the audiences we’ve had have been lovely, however some towns aren’t theater towns. But Austin definitely is a theater town — the first one we’ve hit since leaving New York, really.”

Good to hear.

The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, New Mexico) November 16, 2007

Cultural Learnings of America

2007-11-16
By ROBERT NOTT

Start Up is a staged road journal about three Germans who travel across America in a bus looking for a place to start a theater company. Before locals in the know say, "Better skip Santa Fe," they should take note: Start Up, produced by German Theater Abroad, plays at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

According to German Theater Abroad's artistic director, Ronald Marx, the show is a life-imitates-art saga in the sense that the company really is touring the country in a bus, stopping in 24 cities from New York to Los Angeles to present its story. Along the way, troupe members videotape their offstage encounters with real Americans, and some of this footage makes its way into the multimedia production. (You can also find clips of it on YouTube.)

Though Pasatiempo didn't get to read the script in advance, we called Marx in New Orleans, where he and his five-member ensemble were preparing for a show there, about halfway through the tour.

Pasatiempo: How do you describe Start Up?

Ronald Marx: The play deals with transatlantic issues. It's not a political play, but it contains political issues. It came organically out of GTA's mission. We started 11 years ago in New York, bringing contemporary German drama to the United States. We did a couple of festivals there -- some productions, staged readings -- and a few years ago I had this idea of going with a play through the heartland of America and getting in touch with the people here. We commissioned a playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig, to write the play for us. We bought an old school bus, got the cast together, and now we're on the road. The experience has been pretty amazing so far. The people we've met have been very open, but of course we don't know what to expect; every city responds to the play differently. We have a talk back after every show.

Pasa: Start Up sounds autobiographical.

Marx: Exactly! Roland and I talked about it, and he said in a way it should be about GTA. The play mirrors our trip, trying to find a space, trying to find an audience and get in touch with that audience and evoke a discussion about what this relationship between us is. ... Our cultures are so different. German traditions are not what American traditions are. We try, through comedy, in a very light manner, to put that in there, not to scare people away but to open up a discussion. And we in Germany, even if we haven't been in America, believe that we know America. Since [World War II] we've had all these movies from the states. So if we're in New Orleans, we think A Streetcar Named Desire, because everyone has seen that film.

Pasa: In viewing a snippet of the show on YouTube, I see you use film clips from American Westerns and emphasize the idea of pioneering. Is the Western as myth part of the play?

Marx: In the play it's about settlement. One of the characters, Kati, has a monologue: "In this country you have to take the initiative, you have to take action." Yesterday [in Baton Rouge, La.] someone in the audience said, "No wonder our president seems like a cowboy." There was no judgment passed on that. But that image of George Bush when he goes to a farm or his ranch -- that's what we get in Germany. If you go back not that long ago, people [in America] took the land, fought for the land, built a house, and settled down. The Western image has a lot to do with freedom; that's why the Western images are in there. But that's still our romantic idea about America -- a big country where people look for their piece of the American dream. In this country, when you have an idea, people are willing to help you to pull it through. In Germany it's a lot of "But." You have an idea, and they say, "But how are you going to get the money?" But Americans, in the 11 years of doing German theater here, never say "But." They say, "Great," and they help you do it.

Pasa: Your Web site, www.roadtheater.org, has updated postings on your trip. Has anything uncomfortable or shocking happened?

Marx: So far everything is going great. In Jackson, Mississippi, we were playing a conservative Christian college, and there was a wall of silence. That was the first time there was not one laugh during the whole show. The sound of silence, really. And there were a lot of young people there. I think they were intrigued, but they didn't know what to think about it. But when we were in Edmonton, Kentucky, a 1,200-soul town, farmers there, we had more of a reaction than in Jackson. So that was a shocking thing.

Pasa: And the site makes clear that things do go wrong, like when an actor skipped five pages of dialogue during one show.

Marx: We always do our best to do a great show, but of course things happen. I like when things go a little off. I'm not a Broadway person. The worst thing is like you have a record, and you put the needle down on the record and it plays and goes up again, and it's the same thing. I'm not interested in that as a director. I travel with the group, throw out new ideas, try to keep it alive. Plus, through traveling, they experience different things; it's like the characters traveling.

Pasa: One of your last stops will be at the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel at Death Valley Junction in California -- a ghost town.

Marx: Yes. We met Marta Becket in June. She's an artist in the true sense. She's doing what the characters in the show want to do: opening a theater in the middle of nowhere. She bought that ghost town and a small motel, and the community center became a theater, and she moved in. This lady is amazing. She's 84, still performing, still painting, and she just does it.

Pasa: Which leads to the question: in order to be a true artist, do you need to create without thinking of financial gain?

Marx: Yes, that's part of the characters' point of view. But they run into Ike, the landlord who wants them to open a video store instead, because that will make money. Germany has state-sponsored theater, but it's still hard to get money. I know a lot of my American friends and colleagues in New York work for free or do something in the commercial sector. But I think the real experience has to be completely free from commercial pressure, or otherwise you have to adjust to too many things -- like only pleasing an audience, which I don't mind -- but theater should open a dialogue, and I don't think you can do that with a Neil Simon play.

The Prospector (El Paso, Texas) November 13, 2007

German Theater Abroad stops in El Paso

By Pink Rivera



Media Credit: Special to The Prospector

GTA Road Theatre is made up of five cast members from Europe and the U.S. They will perform their first show in El Paso at 8 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Ramblin Gallery, 714 Montana Ave.In mid October, German Theater Abroad's Road Theater USA kicked off their biggest tour ever, covering 6,000 miles and 24 cities nationwide.

For the first time, El Paso is a stop on the troupe's tour and they will perform Roland Schimmelpfennig's play "Start Up" Thursday at the Ramblin Gallery.

GTA has traveled around the world for the past 11 years. American Theatre Magazine, said the group has become the "most important organ of German-U.S. theatrical exchange," performing contemporary plays written by globally recognized artists.

"Start Up" is a comedy specifically written for GTA, with a cast of five actors, three from Germany and two from the U.S. The group is touring with two Austrian video artists who record each performance. The group is traveling in a bus from New York to Los Angeles, hitting 16 states in seven weeks.

"They have sold out and received very good reviews from the Eastern states," Georgina Hernandez, co-founder of Fourth Wall Theatre Productions said. "I think us merging with GTA is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and the Ramblin Gallery is really excited to have this German performance."

Fourth Wall Theatre Productions, which this summer staged a production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," is promoting the troupe's El Paso performance.

Hernandez said this year GTA changed their normal tour circuit, allowing them to perform in cities where they have never been and El Paso made the list.

"Start Up's" author, Schimmelpfennig is one of Germany's most renowned playwrights. At only 35, he has been featured on the playbills of the most prominent international theaters from Hamburg to Paris.

The play deals with U.S. and German stereotypes, pioneer romanticism and cinematic myths while portraying the culture clashes in a small U.S. town.

Young Germans Rob and Micha are played by Nils Nellessen, who trained as an actor in Potsdam, Babelsberg and Nicolai Tegeler, a native of Berlin. In the play, the duo tries to find fortune as they journey to the West with a business idea, selling cultural imports from old Europe.

They make business plans and negotiations with real estate owner, Ike, played by American Roland Sands. Ike, however, already has priorities of his own. His daughter Liz, played by Myxolydia Tyler, a 2005 graduate of the Brown University/Trinity Rep Consortium MFA program and Rob's girlfriend, Kati, played by Lisa-Marie Janke, who completed her acting training at the Westphalia Acting School Bochum in 2001, fill the play's female roles.

"I think a play like this will bring more audience toward the arts and, with that, an interest in the city's arts in general," freshman theater arts major Nick Balcazar said. "I am interested to see this play and I would love to join because it combines my two interests of acting and traveling.

The actors for the production were professionally cast in Berlin.

The video recordings of the tour are used in performances, showing how the actors interacted with people from other cities.

Hernandez said, by the time the production reaches Los Angeles, other cities will have seen the El Paso segment of the video.

"We're really excited about performing in El Paso because it's a border city," said Daniel Brunet, translator, associate director and associate producer for GTA. "It's going to be exciting visiting Juárez over the border to see what's going on. The performance is still transposed, which makes it very special because of the flexibility for each specific city, letting us know how much the translation makes a difference."

"Start Up" will premiere at 8 p.m. this Thursday, Nov. 15 at the Ramblin Gallery, 714 Montana Ave. Pre-sale tickets are $5 or $7 at the door.

What's Up Weekly (El Paso, Texas) November 14, 2007

'Start Up'
German theater at the Ramblin Gallery

By Marina Monsisvais

It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but here goes: What do you get when you fill a green bus with 15 freethinking, artistic, sensitive German individuals?

Answer: A cultural experiment on wheels known as "Start Up," a multimedia play about a group of idealistic Germans who move to the United States to "sell" German culture to Americans. Thing is, the (real-life) troupe behind the play is an actual busload of Germans traveling the States to create demand for new German theater – thereby "selling" German culture to Americans.

They're taking on 24 cities in seven weeks. So far they've performed in a hangar in Birmingham, Ala., fairgrounds in Paris, Texas, and a community theater in Kentucky. El Pasoans will get to see them – for one night only – on Thursday at the more-than-intimate Ramblin Gallery.

Plus, there's a multimedia twist to the black comedy: A (real-life) video team is filming tour footage, to be incorporated as background and stage design for the play, which centers on three Germans starting up a theatrical business in America.

"We're looking to have a cultural exchange," said Dagmar Domros, co-producer and school bus road warrior, on the phone from somewhere in the American South. "We spent the past couple of days in New Orleans. For everyone it was a big experience to hear from people aside from the media coverage we had in Germany. But to hear people, to hear their stories — for them it was sort of a sign that we decided to perform there. They were happy that we came."

Some might say jumping into a bus to spread new German theater to Middle America is a naïve thing to do. Even the play, penned by leading German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, acknowledges such. When the protagonists are met with adversity (a.k.a. "capitalist American spirit"), one character, Ike, suggests that a video store would be more profitable, because the market on high-art culture isn't exactly booming.

So does Domros think this project is naïve?

"Yes and no. It's definitely crazy," said Domros who admits that this is an ambitious project. Scheduling meals and hotel stays alone are a constant logistical nightmare, he says, and Hollywood salaries are nowhere in sight, but there's something to be said for embarking on a project that they all believe in.

"We're leaving a little trace behind, and we're having actual exchanges. A lot of people like it, and it opens up a dialogue where we openly exchange ideas and viewpoints," Domros said.

The parallels between art and reality don't stop at the plot. No two performances of "Start Up" are alike. The production continually morphs thanks to an in-house Austrian video crew, which documents and adds new material as the production moves from city to city. And as "Start Up" films itself, there is an actual German Public television crew documenting the entire project.

"They're not traveling on the bus, but every now and again, one of them will hop on to film for their project," Domros said.

"Start Up" is a production of German Theater Abroad (GTA), a company that began 11 years ago with the mission to bring German plays to the United States. The company set up shop in New York City and decided to take their shows on the road three years ago to bring new German theater to the rest of us. El Paso's Fourth Wall Theatre Productions is helping bring the play to the Ramblin.

Other cities on the current tour include Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, Austin, Las Vegas and Nashville, Tenn.

The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana) November 10, 2007

Troupe dispels notions of heavy German theater

Saturday, November 10, 2007
By David Cuthbert

If we haven't visited a country, what do we know about it? In the case of Germany -- besides World War II -- there are its cultural exports, especially the influential German cinema directors (Pabst, Murnau, Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders) and German Expressionism, the visual template for decades of horror films.

In German Theatre Abroad's frisky, theatrically adventurous "Start Up," by Roland Schimmelpfennig, which had its single performance Wednesday at the Contemporary Arts Center, three young Germans roam America, where they hope to start a new theater.

The German and American characters relate to each other through the shared experience of movies, mostly American ones, although their would-be landlord does mention "Das Boot." The Germans are fixated on the America of John Ford Westerns, Elvis, romantic farewell close-ups and the American Movie Dream that "everyone gets their chance in this country!"

Director Ronald Marx has expanded on this theme visually by pre-filming and taping parts of the play, and imaginatively using live, on-the-spot video, beginning with the company's green bus pulling into the CAC warehouse. We've all seen multimedia projects, but this was multiple-multimedia, playing with an already Pirandellian-skewed reality, since the actual theater company is taking the same trip as its characters.

Schimmelpfennig's plot has Rob and Micha trying to rent space from American Ike for their "cultural laboratory," although they don't have the necessary start-up money. Rob, in fact, is growing faint from hunger. Micha has a secret stash of Snickers and Peanut Butter Cups, so has the energy to accommodate Ike's forward daughter Liz who jumps him, tearing his clothes off. Meanwhile, back in the bus, live on video, Ike and the German Kati are getting acquainted as Ike reveals his obsessions with movie-perfect teeth and of restarting a video store that once occupied the space. There's a lecture on D-Day, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War and criticism of the war in Iraq before we get back to our story, in which Kati abandons her friends to stay with Ike, while Liz joins the boys as they take off for "Paris, Texas" -- the troupe's actual next stop, an homage to the Wenders film.

Some of the early "Start Up" clips are hard to understand and don't add much. However, the coordination of the live action, video, sound, music and lights, is impressive and great fun.
Roland Sands grounds the play as Ike, with a commanding voice and innate likability; America at its best. Myxolydia Tyler, as his beautiful, brazen daughter Liz, is the brash New World seducing the Old (à la "Lolita"). Nicolai Stegeler is the sturdy, naively serious Micha and Nils Nellessen the cheerfully boyish, famished Rob, who has "gone American" in a hippie shirt and cowboy boots. His resemblance to the young Montgomery Clift doesn't hurt, either. Lisa-Marie Janke is a striking brunette whose tough demeanor softens as she bonds with Ike.

"Start Up" dispels the notion of "Germanic" being dark and heavy. Here's hoping that this creative company returns for a longer stay.

The Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) November 4, 2007

German troupe will stop at LSU Monday

News Features staff
Published: Nov 4, 2007

German Theatre Abroad’s Road Theater USA will perform the dark comedy Start Up at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, at LSU’s Hatcher Hall Theatre.

The troupe is on a theatrical adventure in which five actors, two video artists and a support team are going across the country in a tricked-out school bus. They’re touring the world premiere of Start Up, which was specifically written for them by Roland Schimmelpfennig, one of Germany’s most-produced contemporary playwrights.

In Start Up, a crew of pranksters decide to sell German culture to Americans in an effort to earn a million euro, which is the same thing that German Theatre Abroad is doing as it travels the country.

The tour will go through 24 cities over seven weeks. They will travel 6,000 miles and perform in cities including Las Vegas, El Paso, Death Valley Junction and New Orleans before ending up in Los Angeles.

Tickets are $8 and will be available at the door only.

The New Orleans show will be at the Contemporary Arts Center, 900 Camp St. at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 7.

Tickets are $20, general admission; $18, students and seniors; and $15, CAC members.
All (504) 528-3800 or go to http://www.cacno.org.

The Paris News (Paris, Texas) November 5, 2007

Multi-national road tour makes stop in Paris

By Mary Madewell
The Paris News
November 5, 2007

A German/U.S. theatrical road show currently touring the country pulls into Lamar County Fairgrounds Friday, Nov. 9.

The 15-person mixed German/U.S./ Austrian cast is to perform “Start Up” at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 at the door.

The group travels in a converted school bus and is moving from New York City towards Los Angeles over seven weeks and 24 cities, performing the new play by Germany’s hottest contemporary playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig, written especially for the group.Information about the group’s tour can be found on their Web site at http://www.roadtheaterusa.org/.

“You can find reviews from our New York run at Performance Space 122 and from our performance in Pittsburgh on October 16th,” said Daniel Brunet, associate director/associate producer of German Theater Abroad.

A brief synopsis follows.

Three Germans drive into Anytown, USA, looking for their piece of the American dream. They’ve come all the way from Berlin to rent a building and START UP a business. There are just a few problems: one’s starving, one’s missing, one’s gotten involved in certain practices and they’re all broke.

The audience is treated to a unique, riotous and ever-changing performance event, a combination of the filmed “reality” of the tour and the theatrical “fiction” of the Schimmelpfennig play.

In “Start Up,” an assorted crew of merry pranksters come up with what they believe is their million-euro idea: to sell German culture to Americans, which is of course the exact same thing that German Theater Abroad is doing as it travels across the country presenting this fast-paced farce.

A video team documents this ambitious road trip, then mines the video material collected up to that point live during each performance where it is projected on set.

This always new and expanded dramatic “Road Journal” interacts with the production of the play “Start Up” as background and stage design.

Other cities on the 6,000-mile tour include Edmonton, Ky., Las Vegas, the original sin city, melting pots like El Paso on the Texas/Mexico border and even an actual ghost town, Death Valley Junction – until they reach Los Angeles on the Pacific Ocean.

The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana) November 3, 2007

Stop for 'Start'
German road show pulls into the CAC

Saturday, November 03, 2007
DAVID CUTHBERT

German Theater Abroad's 24-city, 6,000-mile tour of America -- both major municipalities and off-the-beaten-path burgs -- comes to the Contemporary Arts Center Wednesday. GTA is a German-American theater based in New York that has been criss-crossing the Atlantic for the past 11 years. American Theatre magazine called it "the most important organ of German-U.S. theatrical exchange."

An actual cross-country trip gave GTA artistic director Ronald Marx the idea of taking a play on the same sort of journey. The group commissioned the work from Roland Schimmelpfennig, who is not a Mel Brooks character from "The Producers," but Germany's most prolific playwright.

"He told us, 'The play should be about you, your theater troupe,' " Marx said, "and so it has become 'Start Up,' a comedy adventure about five actors -- three German and two American -- who travel from New York to Los Angeles in a souped-up school bus (a la Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters) as they search for the American Dream. They want to bring German culture to the United States -- sell it, actually -- and they're trying to find the right place to set up shop. With them are an Austrian video team, who will actually get married in Las Vegas, hopefully, with an Elvis minister. "We have an Elvis character in the show. There's a lot of playful culture clash going on."

In each city, the video artists tape monologues that are used in that location's performance. "By the time we get to Los Angeles," Marx said, "we'll have video from every city and town we've visited."

Daniel Brunet, GTA associate director and producer, translated the play and his father fitted out the school bus to accommodate the 15-member troupe.

"There is also a 'good will' element to the play," Brunet said, "in that the Germans feel they need to give back something to America for the Marshall Plan and European Recovery Plan after WWII. I think the play provides a unique point of view and it's always changing with each place we visit."

The tour began in Pittsburgh, "with nine people in the audience," Marx said. "And the bus made a wrong turn and the play started 20 minutes late."

"But in Edmonton, Ky., we had 1,200 people and everyone was very excited. We were all asking, 'How did you find us?' "

Other stops along the way have been or will include Louisville; Cincinnati; Sautee Nacoochee, Ga.; Paris, Texas (in tribute to the Wim Wenders film of the same name); an airport hangar in Birmingham, Ala.; and the Armagosa Opera House in Death Valley, Calif.

"The thing that's delighted us," Marx said, "is that American audiences seem so open to this kind of thing. They usually come having no expectation of what they're going to see and are pleasantly surprised."

"The bus will just pull up into the CAC Warehouse. We all spill out of it and the show starts."

The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi) November 1, 2007

Road Theater USA performs a comedy

Special to The Clarion-Ledger

Top line: The transatlantic performance group German Theater Abroad's Road Theater USA brings Roland Schimmelpfennig's Start Up to Millsaps College Saturday.

The troupe's focus is on contemporary drama, international teams and discussion with the audience. Five actors - three German and two American - along with two Austrian video artists and the rest of the team are touring the U.S. from New York to Los Angeles to present Start Up.

The play is an intelligent comedy which deals playfully with German and U.S. stereotypes, pioneer romanticism and cinematic myths, for a comic culture clash.

"Part of the goal for this is to help the dialogue between German and American people right now," said Tim Coker, chairman of Millsaps' department of performing arts.
"It gives us a chance to see how they see us."

- Sherry Lucas

The Birmingham News (Birmingham, Alabama) November 4, 2007

Direct from Germany:
By Alec Harvey

Though not as prolific or famous as Shakespeare, another foreign playwright was front-and-center in Birmingham this week.

Roland Schimmelpfennig wrote "Start Up," a play performed in an airplane hangar on Tuesday night. Yes, an airplane hangar.

It was all part of the German Theatre Abroad Road Theatre USA program, with five actors and two video artists traveling the U.S. presenting the play in sometimes unusual circumstances.

About 125 people enjoyed the troupe's performance, said Trish Coghlan, executive director of the AlabamaGermany Partnership, which brought the play here.

"It was very different, but everybody really liked the play a lot," she says. "They incorporated pre-shot video and then used a video camera to shoot from different perspectives, and projected that on a screen. It was something that no one had ever seen before."

Audience members, both German and American, commented on how much they enjoyed "Start Up," which was performed in English.

In seven weeks, German Theatre Abroad will hit 24 cities from New York to Los Angeles. Birmingham was the fifth or sixth stop, Coghlan says, and "this was the largest crowd they've had."

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tennessee) November 1, 2007

Locals to play role in German act

By Christopher Blank

Thursday, November 1, 2007

The sweet pickle-green bus pulling up to TheatreWorks tonight contains not a gaggle of merry pranksters, but a troupe of actors touting German culture.

Audience members at the single performance, in return, will offer their American reactions, which they'll videotape and export to Germany after the tour ends on the West Coast.

German Theater Abroad, now on the biggest tour in its 11-year history, performs at TheatreWorks tonight.

The theater company, German Theater Abroad (GTA), is now undertaking its most extensive tour in its 11-year history. Memphis is just one of 24 one-night stands on their jagged route across the continent, which began in New York on Oct. 9.

"Memphis wasn't on the original schedule," said associate producer and director Daniel Brunet. "But we heard that Tennessee was divided into three distinctly different parts, so we wanted to see how Memphis contrasted with Nashville and the Eastern part. We also really wanted to see the Mississippi River."

The company brings a dark comedy called "Start Up," commissioned specifically for the tour from Germany's most-produced contemporary playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig.

Translated into English, the play depicts a comic clash of German and American cultural stereotypes in a small U.S. town. Two young, broke Germans traveling west stake their fortunes on an unlikely business plan: they want to bring Old European theater to a small town. The landlord of their rented theater space, however, isn't so sure about the idea's feasibility.

Brunet says that the "deceptively soft" script is bisected by a 10-minute monologue that offers a historical perspective of German culture after World War II, from the "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech to the recent purchase of a Berlin apartment by Brad and Angelina.

"Part of the mission of GTA is cultural exchange," Brunet says of the company founded in 1996 in New York to introduce more German playwrights to the United States. "We want to generate thought-provoking discussions in towns across America."

Part of the company is a team of Austrian videographers who combine live video into the production and also tape the post-show talk back discussions.

Along the way, they are also taking video at odd American attractions. Combining live action, pre-recorded video from stops along the way and live video taped during the performance, the production changes every night of the tour.

Brunet says the project is reminiscent of a traveling troupe of actors in days of yore -- with a high-tech twist.

Theater Heute November 2007

UMGEKEHRTER
MARSHALLPLAN

Das German Theatre Abroad begibt sich mit Roland Schimmelpfennigs «Start Up» im Gepäck auf Straßentheatermission in Amerika


Der Kulturaustausch beginnt mit einem hellgrün lackierten Schulbus, der vor das New Yorker Off-Spielhaus P.S. 122 vorfährt. «Road Theater USA» verkündet das solide Vehikel der deutschen Theatergruppe GTA (kurz für «German Theater Abroad») in selbstbewussten Großbuchstaben. Zwei Monate lang soll es die Ensemblemitglieder 6ooo Meilen weit und über 23 Zwischenstationen quer durch Amerika transportieren.



Drei enthusiastisch aus dem Bus springende Schauspieler verteilen bei der New Yorker Premiere erst einmal Deutschlandfähnchen unter den wartenden Zuschauern. Roland Schimmelpfennig hat eigens für diese Theaterexpedition das Stück «Start Up» verfasst, das das durchaus romantische Anliegen des GTA selbstironisch widerspiegelt. Die bettelarmen Kreativen Kati (Lisa-Marie Janke), Rob (Nils Nelleßen) und Micha (Nicolai Tegeler) versuchen darin, ein deutsches Theaterhaus in der amerikanischen Provinz zu gründen und mieten zu diesem Zweck ein Ladengeschäft. Der Logik des amerikanischen Einwanderertraums folgend, wollen sie Kapital aus ihrer nationalen Identität schlagen. Der schwarze Hausbesitzer Ike hat für dieses zugleich utopische und unwirtschaftliche Unternehmen wenig Verständnis, fasst aber Zuneigung für seine neuen Mieter und versucht sie davon zu überzeugen, eine rentable Videothek zu eröffnen. Auch über diese erfrischend respektlose Parodie hiesiger Pionier-Mythen hinaus bekommen die amerikanischen Zuschauer von «Start Up» einiges zu schlucken: Der lockere, postdramatische Berliner Schauspielstil mit seinen lang hingezogenen Nonsens-Dialogen über Popkultur und 70er-Jahre-Kino ist selbst in New York noch fremd. Das spartanische Second-Hand- Bühnenbild und die Live-Videoeinspielungen aus dem GTA-Bus, die sich im Lauf der Tour mit Reiseerinnerungen anreichern sollen, tun ein übriges. Mit ihren Anleihen an Gob Squad und René Pollesch wirkt GTAs «Start Up»-Inszenierung ein bisschen wie eine abgespeckte Version des Berliner Praters – eine Ästhetik, die im Kalkül liegt.



Wie Regisseur Ronald Marx berichtet, hatte er das GTA vor elf Jahren gerade mit der Idee gegründet, in Amerika für den deutschen Theaterstil und seine Autoren ein Publikum zu schaffen. «Wir machen keine Folklore», erklärt er. Ein – für amerikanische Verhältnisse – gutes Maß an ästhetischer Provokation gehört zum Programm. In den Publikumsgesprächen bei Freibier nach den Aufführungen sorgt das für Gesprächsstoff. «Start Up» lässt am Ende offen, ob die drei Theateridealisten mit ihren Plänen Erfolg haben. Kati bleibt bei Ike und gründet tatsächlich eine Videothek. Micha und Rob ziehen zusammen mit Ikes Tochter Liz in die nächste amerikanische Stadt weiter, um es dort neu zu versuchen. Auf eine definitive Antwort wird man bis Anfang März 2008 warten müssen, wenn GTA ins Haus der Berliner Festspiele zurückkehrt. Schimmelpfennig wird dafür einen Prolog schreiben, der sowohl das Schicksal seiner Protagonisten auflöst als auch die Mission des GTA resümiert. Unter http://www.roadtheatre.org/ kann jeder im Netz dabei sein.

DANIEL SCHREIBER

Süddeutsche Zeitung October 21, 2007

Ewige Nachkriegszeit

Start in New York: Das German Theater Abroad auf US-Tour

Irgendetwas müssen Kati, Rob und Micha falsch gemacht haben. Während Ronald Marx, der rührige Gründer der seit elf Jahren erfolgreichen Berlin-New Yorker Theatergruppe German Theater Abroad (GTA), Unterstützung von der Bundesregierung, der Bundeskulturstiftung und den Berliner Festspielen an Land zog, sind die drei Helden seiner aktuellen Produktion, Roland Schimmelpfennigs neuestem Stück „Start Up“, schutzlos den Gesetzen des Marktes ausgesetzt. Was genau die drei Protagonisten nach Amerika geführt hat, erfährt man nicht, doch es waren wohl –wieder einmal – Elvis, der Western und die Sehnsucht nach dem großen Himmel.

Gekommen sind sie jedenfalls, um Theater zu „machen“. Nach Tausenden Meilen in ihrem Bus sind sie angekommen – im Nirgendwo – und beschließen, das sei der richtige Ort für deutsche Kultur. Rob (Nils Nellessen) und Micha (Nicolai Tegeler) sind ausgehungert – und so treuherzig, dass sie damit sogar Ike entwaffnen, von dem sie einen leerstehenden Laden für ihre „Kulturtankstelle“ mieten wollen, obwohl sie weder Miete noch Kaution bezahlen können.

Im echten Leben sieht es, wie gesagt, etwas rosiger aus. Der frisch lackierte GTA-Bus parkte mit Video-Equipment beladen vor dem kleinen Theaterraum im New Yorker East Village, wo die Premiere von „Start Up“ stattfand. Und eben brach die Truppe mit den drei deutschen und zwei amerikanischen Schauspielern nach Westen auf. Sieben Wochen lang wird sie durch Orte wie Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama und Death Valley Junction, California, ziehen. Deutsches Subventionstheater zwischen CarWash und Dairy Queen – und weit und breit kein Goethe-Institut: Das dürfte interessant werden.

Für die New Yorker Aufführungen musste die Weite des Landes noch simuliert werden. Die Rückblenden, die per Video eingespielt werden, wurden in Coney Island und der Brandenburger Westernstadt Templin aufgenommen. Später sollen die Abenteuer, die die Truppe unterwegs erlebt, in die Inszenierung finden – eine Art inszenatorische Rückkopplung. Auch in New York war die Videokamera jedoch schon viel im Einsatz und blies etwa Kussszenen zu Hollywood-Closeups auf.

Die Idee ist reizvoll, aber sie hilft nicht hinweg über die Klapprigkeit des Stücks, das streckenweise zu einer Revue der größten Deutschland- und Amerika- Klischees herunterkommt. Coca-Cola und Rosinenbomber, „Ich bin ein Berliner“ und „Jailhouse Rock“ – nichts darf fehlen, als seien die Deutschen, selbst wenn sie jung und wild sind wie Kati, Rob und Micha, in einer ewigen Nachkriegszeit eingesperrt. „Hitler ist also der Grund, warum ihr hier keinen Videoverleih aufmachen wollt?“, fragt Ike (Roland Sands) die guten, rotbackigen Deutschen, und bringt damit die Absurdität nur teilweise ironisch auf den Punkt.

Wenigstens Kati (Lisa-Marie Janke) hat die Zeichen der Zeit erkannt. Sie hat genug von ihren Künstlern und bleibt bei Ike, der alle Geheimnisse des örtlichen Video-Markts kennt. Die Jungs ziehen unterdessen mit seiner erfrischenden Tochter Liz (Myxolydia Tyler) weiter gen Westen. Vor lauter Sturm und Drang vergessen sie dabei ganz das Theatermachen.

JÖRG HÄNTZSCHEL

LEO Weekly (Louisville, Kentucky) October 16, 2007

THEATER
Saturday, Oct. 20
‘Start Up’

The Germans are coming — danke to Specific Gravity Ensemble, the Louisville theater company that will play host to the one-night-only performance of German Theater Abroad’s multi-media play “Start Up.” While GTA is mostly known for performing in New York (fulfilling its mission to promote German theater in other countries), its associate company, Road Theater USA, ventures into flyover country. In “Start Up,” a band of young Germans, played by three German actors, make their way across America to find their fortune. Two American actors play the people they meet in launching their start-up. The cross-country tour of this farce, by German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, takes the ensemble from New York through 24 cities over seven weeks. In the process, two Austrian video artists are documenting the trip and incorporating filmed montages into the play.

Daniel Brunet, Road Theater’s associate director/associate producer, said the company chose Louisville in large part because it is “a hotbed for new plays,” given the presence of Actors Theatre’s Humana Fest.

Specific Gravity artistic director Rand Harmon decided to help the company present the production when Road Theater members were here in June scouting locations. Harmon says both companies share the same artistic goal: to produce unconventional new work that addresses contemporary life. The performance takes place at the former home of Mom’s Music, so seating is limited.

—Elizabeth Kramer

Original Mom’s Music Building
2920 Frankfort Ave.
384-2743
www.specificgravityensemble.com
www.roadtheater.org
$15, $12 students; 8 p.m.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) October 17, 2007

Stagebus Review: German 'Start Up' starts here, heads west

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

By Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


GTA Company
From left, Ike, Liz, Micha and Rob, with Liz and Ike looming videographically behind them in "Start Up."
The Germans are coming! . . . nope, they've already left!

Perhaps in retaliation for our having just sent a joint American-German production from Pitt to Stuttgart, GTA's Road Theater USA trundled into town by bus yesterday with its first post-NYC, one-night stand on a country-wide, seven-week tour of "Start Up," an ironic, loosely-structured German-American comedy about some Germans traveling the U.S. by bus and doing something like what seems to be going on in the play.

GTA, which stands for German Theater Abroad, was established in New York in 1996 and has grown as a conduit for theater between the two countries. "Start Up" is by Roland Schimmelpfennig, a hot young German playwright, or at least hot enough for Pittsburgh to have heard of him, since Quantum did his "Arabian Night" in 2003.

So this is big stuff or at least has impressive credentials, and it's funky and eccentric, as well, which makes it embarrassing that only a handful of us turned out on an admittedly-rainy Tuesday night to see the show at the Cultural Trust space called SPACE, a perfect self-mirroring venue for a self-mirroring theatrical event.

And "Start Up" started up in exactly that mode, delayed by the 10 or 15 minutes lost when its bus turned over the wrong bridge and encountered a forest of the dreaded orange barrels that strike fear into the hearts of natives, let alone cultural ambassadors from across the pond.

But this is no reincarnation of Ken Kesey and his band of feckless troubadors. The company of five actors is supported by at least as many techies, manning a long stage-side table of computers, running substantial recorded video segments, live video inserts, musical underscoring and such. And they didn't really arrive just at that moment, since the recorded video included some shot around town.

The story concerns three young Germans, Rob, Kati and Micha, footloose (well, busloose) in America, arriving in yet another town to rent a space in which to start a start up something -- most likely a theater, since that's about as vague a cultural import as one can imagine, but perhaps it's going to be a video store, since all the world's videos laid end to end add up to a pretty thorough archive of culture.

The video these young Ameriphiles are most obsessed with is mainly American, replete with images of the prairie and wild west. This makes for some comedy when a travel narrative voice-over speaks of the endless dark countryside and the strange absence of food, while the video shows them roaming about Pittsburgh -- but it does make metaphoric sense, come to think.

Having found a space to rent very much like SPACE, Micha begins to dicker with Ike, its American owner. Rob is off chasing some obsession at that point, perhaps food, and Kati isn't sure that she's going to stay the course, everyone's started to stink so much from living continually on the bus. There's plenty of comedy of cross-purposes, since Ike's experience of Germans is pretty well limited to "Das Boot" and "Judgement at Nuremberg," and Micha and Rob, once he appears, don't actually have the money to make good on the contract they've signed.

Kati finally turns up at the space/SPACE, but not before Ike's randy, gold-booted daughter, Liz. While Liz and Micha get to know each other by tumbling about on the sofa that dominates the set, the others (tracked by video) are off prospecting for food and exploring relationships of their own. Eventually they score big at several ethnic restaurants and bring back so much food I was hoping they were going to share it with us, because it was long enough into the evening that my stomach was rumbling. (The show runs more than 100 intermissionless-minutes, but I trust they'll trim it as they move westward.)

Along the way, there's a long, illustrated lecture on modern German-U.S. history, full of military cemeteries, the Marshall Plan and the dubious aftermath to 9/11. It struck me as dryly ironic, and sometimes obviously so, but I wasn't always that sure of the tone.

Ultimately, roles are exchanged and the road trip in the play begins anew -- as it must, because the company is going to be in Cincinnati on Thursday, in Louisville the next day, and so on.

The sky is different in America, they agree; "it's beautful, this valley, this city" (which works better for Pittsburgh than it will many places). To the strains of "Love Me Tender," the final segment plays out on video, with our actors in western costume, their bus replaced by horses. "We felt like new-borns," says Liz. "Our skin was like untracked snow."

So what's it all about? American myths seen from afar, certainly, and that fascinated gaze then refracted through American eyes; the ubiquity of cultural stereotypes, which may be true for all that; the longing for connection and context and home. Hunger is a metaphor and the cultural melting pot a kind of sustenance. Hopefulness is not dead. I guess.

It's about lots of things. As I finish this, it's past midnight, so I expect I'll digest it all as I sleep.

I enjoyed the cast. Nils Nellessen (Rob) is the romantic bad boy, Nicolai Tegeler (Micha) the alarmed pal who gets more than he'd hoped for and Lisa-Marie Janke (Kati) the laconic go-along who thinks she's a tough cowgirl but discovers another dimension. The Americans (both African-American, by the way) are Roland Sands, as a deceptively garrulous Ike, and Myxolydia Tyler, a fiery-sweet Liz.

If you're interested, you can arrange to catch "Start Up" on its travels as it heads south and westward, tracking it via www.ROADTHEATERUSA.org (the capital letters matter).

As to last night's tiny audience, my wife reminds me that's fine, because my job is to have and report on these experiences on behalf of you who don't have the time. But surely a couple of college classes (students of dramaturgy, filmmaking or Germany, for example) could have made this a class event? I wanted somebody to discuss it with, and Melanie Dreyer, the creator of that Stuttgart adventure and former director of Schimmelpfennig who probably could have explained it, escaped before I could waylay her to continue the cross-cultural dialogue.

The Week in Germany October 12, 2007

The Week in Germany: Culture

October 12, 2007

On the Road: German Theater Abroad Brings Contemporary German Theater to a Town Near You





Look for this bus on highways in America, Photo, Jean Cook

In its production of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s new play “Start Up”, the New York theater collective German Theater Abroad is going to great lengths to show that it takes setting seriously. In October and November, an international cast and crew will hit the road in a lime green school bus with a dark comedy about the travails of a group of young Germans that hope to strike it rich selling German culture in “Anytown, USA”.

From Paris, Texas to Death Valley Junction, California, many of the towns on GTA’s upcoming tour are far off the beaten path for contemporary European theater – if such a path even exists beyond the five boroughs of GTA’s US home base.



Roland Schimmelpfennig is one of Germany's most produced contemporary playwrights , Photo: GTA



Founded by the New York-based German-American actor Ronald Marx 10 years ago to mount contemporary German plays in translation abroad, GTA earned major critical attention with last year’s “Stadttheater New York Festival.” Stadttheater transplanted the typical offerings of a German state-funded theater to New York for a month. “Start Up” will be GTA’s first national tour.

Casinos, airplane hangars and ghost towns

According to associate producer Daniel Brunet, the idea of hitting the road began as a rather modest experiment with a handful of venues before snowballing into a cross country tour.

“We thought we might be able to do eight cities at first,” explains Brunet, who moved to Berlin to pursue a directing career in 2001 on a Fulbright Grant. A five-week location-scouting odyssey with Marx and dramaturg Dagmar Domrös, however, netted the company shows in 24 venues ranging from an airplane hangar in Alabama to the Armagosa Opera House in Death Valley Junction, California.

This real journey through an American landscape of ghost towns and roadside kitsch mirrors the onstage action and will figure large in the play through sketches shot by a team of videographers along the way.

Field of Dreams

The play itself is also a journey through the complex ways that Germans imagine America. For the hopeful entrepreneurs Rob, Micha and Kati, America is both a land of enormous material and psychic bounty and a lonely desert. On the one hand, it is a Styrofoam cornucopia of takeout food and high-calorie snacks and the perfect backdrop for a make-believe pioneer subplot (shot in hilarious costumes at a mock-up western village in northeastern Germany.) On the other hand, America is a dangerous and lonely place, where the failure to plan ahead puts one at the risk of starving between impossibly spaced gas stations and “certain practices” might land you in jail depending on what state you are in.

Of course, it does not help that the starving Germans’ business plan revolves around a particularly ethereal commodity – German theater. Their idea is to create a “cultural gas station”, an oasis where one can tank up the mind.

As it turns out, the market for the young Germans’ field of dreams in Anytown, USA might be smaller than anticipated. When their prospective landlord Ike expresses doubt about their business plan and suggests opening a video store instead, the earnest would-be importers are forced to examine whether they can reconcile their high ideals with peddling the classics of German cinema alongside American pop culture exports like Tremors and Pulp Fiction.

Schimmelpfennig’s script, which pokes as much fun at the naïve Germans as it does at America’s cultural exports, is pessimistic about the Germans’ prospects for taking German theater to market in the land of Hollywood and Broadway. GTA is forging ahead with pretty much the same plan anyway. After 10 years in the cultural import-export business, they know that there is more to it than money.

'külTHATSOUNDSCOOL October 13, 2007

Saturday, October 13, 2007

PLAY: "Start Up" (GTA's Road Theater USA)

Start Up is destined to be one of those plays that is more remembered for its vehicle (an obnoxiously green school bus on a sixteen-state road trip to bring theater to the heart of America) than for its concept. That's unfortunate, because the actual ideas of this play are some of Roland Schimmelpfennig's strongest, and certainly the most accessible for America. (No surprise, it was written for our uncultured shores.) Our three ambitious and clueless German heroes (Kati, Rob, and Micha) have come pursuing the loftiest of American dreams. They want to start a business, yes, but not an easily marketable one: they want to theatrically share German culture. Instead, the proprietor, Ike, keeps pleading that they open a video store instead ("There's a real need for a video store").

So what's more important: culture or capitalism? It's a very good question to be asking, especially for theater, an enterprise which isn't always economically feasible. GTA, a company run by actor Ronald Marx (who last brought us the 2006 Stadttheater at HERE Arts Center), is looking to do both, by boldly marketing eccentric modern shows not just to New Yorkers, but to those who would be tourists, and he'll be bringing the theater to Kentucky, Tennessee, George, Arizona, and a lot of other hub cities that we wouldn't normally associate German theater with.

To handle such an enterprise, however, GTA has turned to a shaky multimedia presentation that keeps getting in our faces, only to back away. Start Up starts up by pumping the audience up with the Rocky theme, but then plunges them into a darkness lit only by the tech team's open laptop computers and a microwave that is steadily working its way through a popcorn bag. Later, Micha and Liz start to get a little wild and crazy, only for the show to cut to a lengthy documentary-style segment that follows Rob, Kati, and Ike as they journey around NYC to get food. (This segment may have been filmed live, but it hardly matters: theater is never as raw as it is when it's directly in front of us.)

The only place where this works is when the pace breaks so that Micha can lecture us (complete with PowerPoint slides) on Germany's economic fall and rise ("Nobody remembers the Marshall plan anymore"). It's a ballsy demonstration of the very type of "theater" that nobody likes to sit through, but it's necessary for contrast with the only types of conversations Ike (the American) can have with anyone outside his culture, with films as a sort of bastardized universal language. America is, according to the characters, "a country of cinematography," and it's not hard to see that: clips of Das Boot segue into recently filmed segments of the touring Germans in front of local landmarks (like Doc Holliday's over on 10th and A, or Coney Island), and conversations often wax on a yearning for the Western vistas of rolling hills (one scene overlaps one such rustic monologue with a lengthy zoomed tracking shot of New Yorkers walking by PS 122).

The filmed portions of Start Up are a little hard to take in; Schimmelpfennig's writing works best in close proximity, where he can still surprise you with an act of violence (Start Up happens to be calm and demonstrative, but Roland Sands, as Ike, is able to at least threaten it at any moment). On stage, it's also easier to see the talents of the cast, who act so casually familiar with one another that it really does almost feel like we're intruding on their business affairs, even when there's a panel of people on laptops stage left, or a boom mike operator following them around. Which, you know, really does sound a lot like America after all.

Posted by Aaron Riccio

Freitag October 12, 2007

Go West
IM GESPRÄCH
Theater aus Deutschland tourt durch die USA

Seit elf Jahren arbeitet die Gruppe German Theater Abroad am Kulturaustausch zwischen Deutschland und Amerika. Jetzt treibt es die Theateraktivisten um Ronald Marx auf den Spuren der großen Trecks Richtung Westen: eine Theaterreise, von New York aus einmal quer durch die USA. Siebeneinhalb Wochen, 6.000 Meilen, 24 Orte. Das "Roadtheater USA" wird dokumentiert und kann online verfolgt werden. Im März soll die Aufführung in Berlin zu sehen sein.

FREITAG: Was haben die Amerikaner davon, wenn Sie deutsches Theater in die USA exportieren?

RONALD MARX: Sie lernen etwas Neues kennen. Zur Zeit unserer Gründung hatten wir das Anliegen, dem etwas einseitigen Import amerikanischer Kulturgüter etwas entgegenzusetzen. Am Anfang mussten wir erst einmal ein Display schaffen. Wir haben also in New York gezeigt, was es bei uns außer Brecht noch so gibt.

Sie wollten per Angebot eine Nachfrage generieren. Wie weit ist Ihnen das gelungen?

Mit dem Festival "New German Voices" haben wir in New York deutsche Autoren vorgestellt. Simone Schneider, Alexej Schipenko, Daniel Call, Thomas Jonigk, Albert Ostermeier und Marius von Mayenburg. Die waren damals alle noch ganz jung. Nach den Lesungen wurde mit dem Publikum diskutiert, über die Unterschiede der Gesellschaften geredet, in denen wir leben. Im vergangenen Jahr konnten wir das Projekt "Stadttheater New York" realisieren. Da haben wir Arbeitsweisen im deutschen Theaterbetrieb vorgestellt, die Traditionen, den Reichtum, den wir im Verhältnis zur dortigen Situation haben. Die Düsseldorfer Intendantin Amelie Niermeyer ist nach New York gekommen und hat von der Arbeit am Stadttheater erzählt. Das ist bei den Künstlern vor Ort auf großes Interesse gestoßen.

Wie arbeiten Sie für Ihre Produktionen zwischen New York und Berlin?

Wir stecken gerade mitten in den Proben mit einem gemischten Team. Die Schauspieler, die ich in den USA gecastet habe, mussten erst mal Pässe beantragen. Schon daraus lässt sich einiges schließen. Die Reibung in der Gruppe entsteht aus den unterschiedlichen Theaterkonventionen, die jeder im Rücken hat, und das vermittelt sich den Zuschauern. Denen wird nicht etwas Fertiges als deutsche Avantgarde vorgesetzt, es geht um den Dialog, intern und extern.

Wie lief die Zusammenarbeit mit Roland Schimmelpfennig, der "Start up" als Auftragswerk für das Projekt geschrieben hat?

Schimmelpfennig fand, dass es in diesem Stück um uns gehen müsste, und er musste eine Form finden, die an den verschiedensten Orten funktioniert. "Start up" ist eine Komödie, die davon handelt, wie junge Leute aus Deutschland in den USA Theater machen wollen. Sie suchen dafür einen Raum und verhandeln mit dem Vermieter, dem das alles sehr seltsam vorkommt. Das ist die sehr konkrete Ausgangssituation, mit der das Stück beginnt. Und viel mehr passiert da eigentlich auch nicht. Es geht um den Versuch, sich gegenseitig zu erklären und sich einander anzunähern, so schwer das ist.

Welchen Stellenwert hat die deutsch-amerikanische Geschichte für Ihr Projekt?

Eine Figur im Stück hält einen Monolog und referiert die Historie von 1945 bis heute. Das inszeniere ich als trockenen Powerpoint Vortrag. Das ist aber nicht die Art Kulturaustausch, die wir suchen. Wir machen etwas anderes, das sich auf der Ebene der Individuen abspielt. Da geht es um uns und unser Amerikabild, das stellen wir mit unserem Projekt zur Diskussion.

Welche Reaktionen erwarten Sie vor Ort?

Wir gastieren etwa in Edmonton, einem wunderschönen Ort mit 10.000 Einwohnern im Bundesstaat Kentucky. Dort wird seit zehn Jahren Der Zauberer von Oz gespielt, von einer Laienspielgruppe. Das ist alles, was es dort an Theater gibt. "Start up" ist für die Leute dort mit Sicherheit befremdlich. Keine Ahnung, was da passieren wird.

Stellen Sie irgendwelche Effekte Ihrer Arbeit auf die New Yorker Theaterszene fest?

Einige der von uns vorgestellten Autoren sind jedenfalls in New York nachgespielt worden, auch Schimmelpfennig. Tatsache ist, dass in New York seit zwei Jahren das Interesse an internationalen Gruppen, an Theaterarbeit aus Europa wächst. Ich sehe da aber mehr den Zusammenhang zur politischen Situation in den USA. Das hat mit dem Widerstand gegen Bush zu tun. Wir haben jedenfalls immer Leute getroffen, die unvoreingenommen waren und Lust hatten, nach den Aufführungen mit uns zu reden. Und das ist genau das, was wir wollen.

Das Gespräch führte Anna Opel
www.roadtheater.org

Back Stage October 10, 2007

Start Up
October 10, 2007
By A.J. Mell

This uncategorizable production from GTA's Road Theater USA casts a gently absurd light on German-American relations by using that most American of literary metaphors, the road trip. Written for the company by acclaimed German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig (and translated by Daniel Brunet), the piece sends up cultural stereotypes and mythologies in a charmingly oblique and playful way.

Fiction and reality bleed into each other at indeterminate points, because Start Up is a theatre piece about a German theatrical trio touring America in a whimsical green bus performed by a German-based troupe touring the country in a whimsical green bus. Our innocents abroad are Rob (Nils Nellessen), Micha (Nicolai Tegeler), and the more cynical Kati (Lisa-Marie Janke), who find themselves broke and hungry in an unnamed small town. A down-to-earth realtor named Ike (Roland Sands) takes them under his wing and rents them an empty storefront, which the three friends hope to turn into a performance space. Ike and his semi-nymphomaniac daughter Liz (Myxolydia Tyler), however, have agendas of their own.

This straightforward story alternates with large-screen projections (courtesy of Austrian video artists Claudia Rohrmoser and Herr Schobel) and occasional narrative digressions — notably a chronicle of German-American relations from the invasion of Normandy to the war in Iraq. Director Ronald Marx gives this motley assemblage an appropriately low-key rhythm that highlights the script's droll humor.

Start Up confirms how large the mythology of the West looms in the European image of America. For these idealistic, peripatetic artistes, the land east of the Mississippi might as well not exist; their America is all dusty little towns and wide-open spaces. (You can tell the Germans from the Americans because the Germans wear cowboy hats and Western shirts.) The piece has its bemusing moments as well as its occasional longueurs, but it wins you over with its formal adventurousness, charming performances, and sweetness of spirit.

Presented by GTA's Road Theater USA
at Performance Space 122, 150 First Ave., NYC.
Oct. 7-14. Tue.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 4:30 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung October 11, 2007

Premiere in New York
Hilfe, die Deutschen kommen im Bus!
Von Jordan Mejias, New York

Das ZDF ist auch dabei: Schimmelpfennigs Kultur-Bus

11. Oktober 2007

Lustiges, Ulkiges, Urkomisches hat das amerikanische Theaterpublikum gern, ob am Broadway oder bei einer sogenannten Performance in einem Atelier. Wenn ihm also nicht nur ein Stück, sondern ein Theaterabenteuer als hilarious angekündigt wird, ist das bereits die halbe Miete. Aber wie wäre die andere Hälfte zu bezahlen? Die Frage stellt sich umso dringender, als der zuständige Dramatiker aus Deutschland kommt. In jenen Breiten soll ja eher das Gegenteil von lustig geschätzt werden.

Alles nur Klischees? Das führt nun direkt zum Thema, dem sich Roland Schimmelpfennig in „Start Up“ widmet, seinem neuesten Theaterstück, das seine Uraufführung in New York erlebte. Oder zumindest eine seiner Uraufführungen. Denn was nächste Woche am Nationaltheater in Mannheim über die Bühne geht, wird mit den anderthalb Stunden im Performance Space 122, dem noch malerisch verschmuddelten Theaterlabor auf der Lower East Side, wohl kaum übereinstimmen. Es ließe sich sogar ohne größeres Risiko voraussagen, „Start Up“ sei in Amerika ein völlig anderes Produkt als in Deutschland. Nicht nur weil Schimmelpfennigs Text von Daniel Brunet geschickt ins Amerikanische übertragen wurde. „Start Up“, obwohl in New York sozusagen uraufgeführt, befindet sich weiterhin im Entstehen und bedient sich dabei neuester Technik.

Theater in Echtzeit und Video
Es beginnt auf der Straße vor dem sanierungsbedürftigen Backsteinbau. Dort steht ein grünlackierter Schulbus, der Thespiskarren des „German Theater Abroad“. In ihm wird die deutsch-amerikanische Truppe die kommenden sieben Wochen durch Amerika fahren, zwischendurch in einem verfallenen Casino in Las Vegas oder einer Galerie an der mexikanischen Grenze oder in einem Dorfgemeinschaftshaus in Arizona „Start Up“ aufführen und zugleich weiter entwickeln. Im Gepäck haben die fahrenden Komödianten nämlich nicht bloß ein paar Videokonserven, die es zwischen den live gespielten Szenen zu kosten gibt. Videokünstler begleiten die Tournee, und zwar so, dass sie sogleich in die Darbietung einfließen kann. Und als wäre das nicht genug, reist das ZDF mit, um das Ganze zu dokumentieren, und auch das Internet ist dabei.

Theater also in Echtzeit und in Video, sowohl aufgezeichnet als auch simultan, vermischt Gespieltes und Erlebtes. Damit aber nicht genug. Schimmelpfennig verarbeitet in „Start Up“ auch die Sisyphusarbeit des „German Theater Abroad“, eines transatlantisch aktiven Ensembles, das sich seit elf Jahren müht, den Kulturaustausch zwischen Amerika und Deutschland in Schwung zu bringen. Der deutsche Theaterbus rollt unter der Regie von Ronald Marx folglich durch Amerika ebenso wie durch die mal mehr, mal weniger fiktive Handlung.

Diese kreist um drei junge Deutsche, die es nach Amerika verschlagen hat. Auch seiner Mythen wegen. Gleichwohl legen es Kati, herb realistisch gemimt von Lisa-Marie Janke, und Rob, missionarisch verträumt gespielt von Nils Nellessen, und Micha, im missionarisch dozierenden Ton vorgeführt von Nicolai Tegeler, in ihrer Abenteuerlust darauf an, die amerikanischen Barbaren, für die sich das Leben in Angebot und Nachfrage erschöpft, mit deutscher Theaterkultur zu versorgen. In einem namenlosen Kaff treffen sie Ike, gespielt von Roland Sands, einen schwarzen Vietnamveteranen, der ihnen einen leeren Laden vermieten will, weil er Geld braucht, um das Gebiss seiner Tochter Liz, die von Myxolydia Tyler ungehemmt forsch hingestiefelt wird, karrieretauglich herrichten zu lassen. So bekommt das teutonische Trio reichlich Gelegenheit, in seinem importierten Überlegenheitsgefühl zu schwelgen.

Allzu dick aufgetragen
Wäre da nicht das Geld, das den Theaterexperimentatoren fehlt. Ihre Geschäftsidee: Sprit für den Kopf. Eine Kulturtankstelle. Es kommt, wie es kommen muss. Die Amis sind weniger doof, als von Berlin aus gedacht. Ike offenbart sich geradezu als Quelle der Lebensweisheit, und Liz verzehrt Micha auf dem Sofa, bevor er begreift, was ihm an vollends unpuritanischer Gastfreundlichkeit widerfährt. Allmählich verwischen sich die Nationalunterschiede, dafür formiert sich das Personal nach Charakterzügen. Kati, die Realistin, trennt sich von den beiden Phantasten, bleibt bei Ike und versucht es mit der Sesshaftigkeit. Liz schließt sich Rob und Micha an, um Amerika zu ergründen. Und sich selbst, klar. Nicht umsonst hat Jack Kerouacs Kultfahrtenbuch „On the Road“ dieses Jahr seinen fünfzigsten Geburtstag gefeiert.

Unterwegs im Auftrag der Kunst sind derzeit auch der amerikanische Filmemacher Mark Simon und der deutsche Medienkünstler Florian Thalhofer, der Erstere per Automobil durch Deutschland, der andere per Motorrad durch Amerika. „Start Up“ liegt somit voll im Trend. Deswegen führt das multimediale Spiel mit den Vorurteilen und Klischees, das Schimmelpfennig betreibt, nicht automatisch zu neuen, ungeahnten Einsichten.

Allzu dick aufgetragen ist die kulturmissionarische Naivität der drei Deutschen, allzu vorhersehbar der Wechsel im Kontrastprogramm. Oder will Schimmelpfennig, ein amerikanisches Provinzpublikum vor Augen, einen Jux sich mit einem pädagogisch wertvollen, binational verwendbaren Volksstück machen? Sollte das den ausgiebigen Lichtbildervortrag erklären, mit dem Micha, alles andere als uneigennützig und bestenfalls streckenweise lustig, einen Abriss der deutsch-amerikanischen Geschichte in einen Aufruf zur Völkerverständigung münden lässt? Aber vor dem kritischen Resumee, das nächstes Jahr nach der Darbietung des um die Reiseerfahrungen erweiterten Werks in Berlin zu ziehen wäre, sind noch sechstausend Meilen abzufahren. Darum jetzt nur: Gute Reise!

Text: F.A.Z., 11.10.2007, Nr. 236 / Seite 37
Bildmaterial: Jordan Mejias

Gothamist October 9, 2007

October 9, 2007
Daniel Brunet, Start Up
by John Del Signor

http://www.gothamist.com/

A new German theatrical road show called Start Up takes over P.S. 122 this week. The zany production fuses live performance with simulcast video to tell the story of some oh-so-sincere Germans as they struggle to acquaint America with their wondrous world of theater. Upon finishing their New York run this week, the team will pile into a tricked-out green school bus and embark on a 7 week tour of the states. But rather than bring their quirky show to the typical cosmopolitan cultural centers, the group will be performing in unconventional venues in tiny towns like Death Valley Junction and Edmonton, KY, where it’s likely the aging populous hasn’t seen German theater since D-Day.

Daniel Brunet, who translated the play into English, recently answered our questions about Start Up. The play continues through Sunday; tickets cost $20. (You can follow the group’s adventures virtually via their neat interactive website.)

What is Start Up? Start Up is a brand new play by Roland Schimmelpfennig commissioned by German Theater Abroad (GTA) especially for the Road Theater USA project. Schimmelpfennig is Germany's most produced contemporary playwright; his plays have been produced in over 50 countries and translated into over 20 languages.

Start Up is written for 3 German actors and 2 US actors and its premise, three young German traveling through the United States in search of a building to start up a business (a theater) mirrors our actual 7 week, 24 city road trip across the United States for performances of Start Up.

Tell us about a few of the venues where you will be performing your multimedia German performance piece. Our Artistic Director, Ronald Marx, dramaturg Dagmar Domrös, and myself set off on a five and a half week advance trip on May 28th, which took us from New York to Los Angeles in search of venues for the tour this fall. At the beginning, we were unsure how the response would be, particularly because we did NOT want to perform in traditional theater spaces…our production is actually built to be performed environmentally, site-specifically in a variety of non-theater spaces. We were amazed by the response and returned from the trip with 24 venues on our list. Some of the most interesting are:

An airport hangar in Birmingham, Alabama. Our contact there, Trish Coghlan, head of the Germany-Alabama Partnership, happens to operate a charter flight company out of it.

The Sanctuary of the Church of the Open Arms in Oklahoma City

The Aruba Hotel and Casino on the “wrong side” of the Strip in Las Vegas

And, perhaps the strangest place we’ll be performing is at the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel in Death Valley Junction, California, operated by Marta Beckett, who has been there ever since her trailer had a flat while she was vacationing in Death Valley with her then husband in 1967. Taking the trailer to a gas station, they came upon what was left of Death Valley Junction, an industrial town founded by the Pacific Borax Mining Company in 1924 and then abandoned in the 1940s. Marta caught a glimpse of the old community center through a hall in the wall and decided, on the spot, to refurbish it, turn it into a theater and perform her dance pantomimes there, which she has done ever since. She’s also painted an audience for herself on three walls of theater, a 16th century Spanish royal audience. We’ll perform in her old garage, where the trailer that brought her to Death Valley Junction still resides.

If someone at a gas station in Alabama asks you why he should come see Start Up, what will you tell him? I’d tell him that he should come out because we’ve come all the way from Berlin to thank him and the United States for everything that they’ve done for Germany since the second World War.

Part of the play delves into the horrific aspects of World War II. How do you feel about the current state of U.S.-German relations? Well, relations can refer to so many different levels…person to person, German and US relations are very open, affable and pleasant. And on the heads of state level, tension has certainly dissipated since the Chancellorship of Gerhard Schröder and Donald Rumsfeld’s invectives of “Old Germany”. Aside from Bush’s awkward massage of Angela Merkel last year, relations at the national level seem to be rosy.

Most New Yorkers oppose the Bush administration. Are most Germans able to distinguish between the actions of a rogue White House and the majority of Americans who bitterly disapprove of this administration? I think what always impresses me about Germans is the level of political awareness. I’ve certainly found myself in conversations with Germans who can discuss the minutia and fine details of US politics with me as articulately as any of their counterparts in the United States. A few years ago, an acquaintance expressed his frustration with the current state of world politics in a really enlightening manner, saying how unfair he found it that the actions of the United States often affect the entire world and yet the entire world does not have a voice in determining who runs the United States; they can only wait and hold their breath.

I think Germans are sometimes surprised by how relatively few people from the United States travel abroad. A figure I read a few years ago said that about 10% of US citizens hold passports; with the reforms concerning Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, that figure has climbed to 21%, a record. Given their level of political acumen, the Germans are also pretty clear on the fact the 2000 and 2004 elections have been pretty bitterly contested.

Speaking in vast generalizations, where do you think the United States will be in 50 years? Well, I think that depends an awful lot on the world’s ability to begin to make true, measurable, realistic progress on climate change and radically, radically reducing the United State’s consumption of fossil fuels. Remember the news story a few months ago claiming that if we don’t reverse things immediately that most marine life will be extinct by 2050? We’re at a crossroads, historically, in my opinion. The time of the United States as the world’s uncontested superpower seems to be fading rapidly in the face of the rise of China, not to mention Brazil and India.

Favorite New York restaurant? The whole team has been spending an awful lot of time at Yaffa in the East Village.

Strangest experience thus far in New York? Certainly one of our guerilla marketing runs where all 14 of us jumped onto the tour bus (a lime green former school bus, tricked out for us by my father, Jeff Brunet, in upstate New York) and drove to Times Square armed with flyers and a megaphone to catch Broadway audiences members and TKTS buyers to let them know there was something interesting going on downtown.

One thing about New York City you'd change if you could? It’d be nice to relax New York just a tick or two…I always find it silly that everyone here works so long and so hard that I’m forced to make appointments a week or so in advance to hang out with my friends.

Favorite aspect of New York? The energy. New York is a pressure cooker unlike any I’ve ever experienced…it’s good for me to get away from it a few months a year, but I’ve never lived anywhere where I’ve been so productive.

Given the option of residing in either New York or Berlin, which one would you choose and why? Well, I guess that’s one thing that makes me typically American. I’ll say both. I’ve been spending half the year in Berlin and half the year in New York for the last year, after living full time in Berlin for three years and in New York for two years. The contrast between the two cities, between the notion of living in the cultural capital of my own country and being a stranger in a strange land in my adopted country is really exciting for me.

Berlin is inspiring, and its proximity to so many interesting European cities lets me travel much more freely and easily than if I were starting my trips from Brooklyn. I find German theater and performance very, very exciting and the similarities between my neighborhoods in each city (Williamsburg/Bushwick in Brooklyn and Kreuzberg in Berlin) are really interesting to me…both are suffering from rapid rent increases and gentrification and both have traditional, historical populations who are being forced out and becoming increasingly disturbed by this.

What differentiates the current Berlin experimental theater scene from New York? There are a lot of similarities and, indeed, a LOT of cross over. More and more theater makers and other New York artists are finding their way to Berlin. Both tend to be more overtly political than their mainstream counterparts, although German theater in general is a much more political medium than U.S. theater, which tends to be more concerned with the internal human experience than the external world, if you'll allow me a generalization. But in both cities, the experimental scene is marked by found spaces and tight budgets. Although, to be fair, that tends to mark the "off" scene in Berlin more than the "experimental scene". Berlin, with its specific history, has five state subsidized theaters and one, the Volksbühne would have to be characterized as experimental were it to be compared to its counterparts in the United States. And this is a multi million euro institution with 2 major performance spaces and several other ancillary ones, not one, but two clubs and a primary audience demographic of 18-49. Its focus tends to be auteur driven performance with the director as the primary author of the evening, often based upon freely adapted literary sources.