Schmeiß Dein Ego weg!

Screening of a video recording from 2011, followed by a discussion with Janina Audick, Diedrich Diederichsen, Christine Groß and Martin Wuttke

This show tonight does not represent an opinion. Or else it would be just one of these shows. No, this show is the theatre show par excellence. The show. Having attended it, you won’t be left thinking: “OK, yeah, this is one way to look at it”, for sure. Or think: “Never before have I seen it that way, how interesting! Mr. XY’s show has sparked off a few fresh ideas indeed!” No! Because there is no Mister, no master and definitely no idea. Fresh ideas are nothing other than opinions. And that’s what tonight’s show is certainly not. There is going to be no struggle consisting in one opinion competing with another. As long as opinions are competing, there is no solution. Competing opinions are the very opposite of a struggle. When the hard thinking from academic spheres hits our bodies, the Streetcar Named Opinion has reached the end of the line. It’s impossible to ask someone for “a bit” of a phone number, because it is no phone number then. It’s merely a piece of opinion in that case. You just can’t phone “a bit” of a number, because the reply is just an opinion, if there is a reply at all! After all, there is no being a little bit pregnant either, that’s just an opinion, too. Comfortable thoughts got to be dazed and confused before they can finally grow into an opinion and catch up with what really concerns us. But there must be some gateway out! Out of opinions! Like the opposite of freedom of expression! Then again, pluralism – being the lubricant it is – tolerates new ideas only if they are clearly identified as one among many. We are not so different, after all. We’re the same as everyone else. Just putting our pants on one leg at a time! And we expect our high-priced corduroy pants from the Opinion Manufactum to last longer! But no, from now on, I won’t be putting my pants on like everyone else. Oh dear, I’m not supposed to say all this, that this show tonight is THE theatre show and so on. All the more important is then perhaps that which is not talked about. More important, for sure, than that which is talked about and freedom of expression and what you’re not allowed to say. Which is the talk of the town – that which must not be spoken about. So, you feel you’re not being heard? Are you saying anything at all? Sometimes things are coming up all of a sudden, like when I run into a person I haven’t seen for a while, and I’m going: “Hi, Christian!”, and he says: “I know, I’ve changed, haven’t I?” The fact that comes up here is that there’s a lack. We are lacking the means to speak about it, that we have nothing to talk about, except for this one line: “Yes I know, I’ve changed.” It is telling in that it tells of our exhausted selves, of our being fed up with narrating our lives like a book, with a proper beginning and an end.

But that’s all we have. We just lack a narrative form to describe our becoming. And all this threatens to come up at any moment on any street, that there is nothing, no narrative about becoming, other than this one line used as a reply to the question, “Hi, Christian!” – which isn’t even a question, mind you. “I know, I’ve changed.” That’s all. And we don’t need anything more than this excuse, this fear of being faced. Fear. The fear. This never-ending fear. Which never stops.

Uraufführung am 12. Januar 2011 in der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

Following the screening, Diedrich Diederichsen talks with Janina Audick, Christine Groß and Martin Wuttke on the occasion of the first anniversary of René Pollesch’s passing about his productions and working practices and, looking towards the future, discusses possible perspectives on engaging with his work.

Title by Anton Spielmann, “Trocknet eure Tränen” (1000 Robota)