How to not do things with words

The visual layering of different projections on stage and the many simultaneously spoken texts in the piece Lyrics only have one goal: They should overwhelm the audience so much that the message of each passage gets blurry. The resulting confusion is the concept. It is the same feeling the teenagers on stage have. How can we still rebel against something when our parents have already done it? How can we create open spaces for ourselves when there are no real restrictions and everything is permitted? How can we cope with this flood of possibilities?

These feelings are not new, thinking about Bret Easton Ellis’ novel "Less Than Zero" e.g. Lyrics’ lacks the courage to take a stand though but prefers a disguise, even if it opens up discourses in the first place. Too bad, because those are exciting!

Von Constantin John

As a Mentor and formal advisor, René Pollesch offers Helene Hegemann the opportunity to find a way to express herself. The young and progressive energy she inherits is shown on stage by using Polleschs typical style: a stream of words - written and told, the mixture of media and the impossibility of the audience to understand the whole piece. We are witnesses of a collaboration, which shows the fears of a young generation fraught with uncertainty, illustrated by using the most important parts of a well going party night: good music, friends, cigarettes, playfulness, hilarity and a bit of seriousness. The honesty and frankness Hegemann uses to talk about her generation makes her vulnerable to be attacked by critics, but also makes her a leader of a doubtful generation. Let’s see if she can lead us the way out of the fog of uncertainty.

Von Jan Beller

The actor´s biggest reward is applause. One might think. But Helene Hegemann, this intellectual teenager-Janis Joplin, does not even appear on stage at the end of her play, although she is not only the writer and one of the directors – the other one is Kathrin Krottenthaler – but also one of the actors. The other performers do face the audience. But they seem bored and quite uninterested in the reaction of the spectators. One could even get the impression that they are making fun of them. And this after a performance which was in large parts acoustically incomprehensible, amateurishly acted and nearly without any story.

The behavior of teenagers, which brought our professor to the question: Do they even want to be liked? Well, everyone wants to be liked, even and especially teenagers. But this group does not want to make a great effort for it. Maybe because they cannot fail when they do not even try.

But it is not important whether the bad quality is intended or results from a lack of talent. This is just a group of teenagers doing bad and unentertaining theatre. And the fact that they can do that is the big message of their performance. It´s not theatre, but a comment on it.

Von Christina Lenzen