German Theatre in America

So I saw the Schimmelphennig play Start Up three days ago and should write something about it before it fades from my memory. Not that it wasn't memorable, but it was not the groundbreaking, eye-opening experience I was expecting from one of Europe's hottest young dramatists, as yet undiscovered in the States. The play actually felt dated more than anything--not necessarily in a bad way. My strongest impression was of 1970s American plays, especially Sam Shepard, with a hint of Mamet here and there in the form of phatic phrases traded between characters in a rhythmic, subtly musical way. I guess one could say that in this play, in which three Germans set out to bring German culture to Americans but end up falling under the spell of American culture and abandoning their plan, it is somewhat interesting that the successful German playwright is getting his idea of America from a now-historical American theatrical tradition. If aping Shepard, Mamet, and Death of a Salesman was a deliberate choice, it would go along with the play's theme of the stereotypes that we acquire from our mediated lives in which countries increasingly exist for us in their movie versions, or in the impression we get of them through the news.

We notice the presence of Sam Shepard in the journey-quest of a group of young people into the mythic but corrupted American West. The synopsis of the play on the troupe's Web site says that the three Germans (the couple Kati and Rob and their friend Micha) have landed in "Anytown, USA" after a long trip on their private bus. The anonymity of the place and of the fairly flat characters they meet (Ike, a mildly philosophical but ultimately business-minded property owner who rents them a storefront for their theater, and his daughter Liz, who has become intellectually and sexually liberated in college) rings of Shepard or Wallace Shawn. And Ike's promotion of entrepreneurship and of turning a profit as the greatest goods, with a sober recognition that many such ventures will fail, seems to channel Horatio Alger by way of Willy Loman and Glengarry Glen Ross.

The greatest updating of these perennial American themes comes with the show's gimmick, which is that the play about three Germans traveling around the country, trying to sell German theater to Americans, is being performed by a group of Germans (and two American actors, and two Austrian video artists) traveling around the country on a bus. The video footage that is projected on the screen at times during the play is constantly updated as the group travels around the country. Certain very Shepard-like monologues, often involving a fairly heavy-handed description of a dramatic and significant near-miss at a railroad crossing, are pieced together from fragments of the speeches that the actors recorded at humorous places visited along their tour (a minor-league baseball stadium, closed for the off-season, where the famished Rob futilely searches for an open concession stand; a tourist-trap wild-west village; a kitschy antique shop filled with American-flag festooned knick-knacks). I called this a gimmick, and it can appear to be merely an advantageous use of advances in computer technology--to the left of the stage was a table where three or four crew members sat before Apple lap tops, controlling the video and sound projection. But the role of media is an important and interesting element of the play. About midway through, Micha, who has been left at the storefront while the others search for food, suddenly stands before a podium with a microphone, addressing a lecture on German-American relations to the audience. It is full of iconic images of the invasion of Normandy, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Airlift, and prominent members of the George W. Bush administration. While these images chart the ebb and flow of friendliness and cooperation between the two countries over the past sixty years, they also illustrate the role of mediated images in forming our perception and knowledge of these two nations. The Americans' knowledge of Germany mostly comes through these history-book images (and a single German film, Das Boot), while the Germans' understanding of America comes mainly through western films and more recent media images (a news magazine photograph of Colon Powell holding up the infamous vial of radioactive material figures prominently in Micha's history slideshow, as he comments on the cooling of German-American relations after Germany's post-9/11 support of America's military action in Afghanistan).

This idea of media-produced caricatures of countries and cultures becomes focused on the business that the Germans wish to start. While his compatriots waver in their support of the theater venture, Micha remains firm, idealistically believing that an offer of true German culture (which, however, the play never defines or depicts) will be welcomed by the populace of this nameless American town. Ike, however, takes the position of market populism in insisting that the Germans provide a service defined by already existing demand--either a gas station, a hot dog stand, or a video store. Rob, whether because of hunger-induced weakness or the seductions of Ike's American-dream rhetoric, begins to welcome the video store idea, but even he is dismayed by the logical conclusion of Ike's demand-driven business plan, which it turns out will lead their video store to provide a predominantly erotic selection, given the rental history of another video store that once occupied the same storefront. This conclusion offers a pessimistic commentary on both the logic of free market capitalism and the potential for quality culture in Anytown, USA. Yet, the German actors end up riding off into the sunset, with Kati choosing to stay behind with Ike while Liz and Micha (after hooking up for comically acrobatic sex while they were alone in the storefront), along with Rob, journey off into the great American unknown, much as these actors are doing as they head off to El Paso and other points west on their way to Los Angeles.