mk_tortie | Enter Sandmann

I saw a play this evening - I'm attempting to see one a week in preparation for my dissertation, because I want to write about current German theatre. This evening I saw Enter Sandmann by David Lindemann. I really enjoyed it; the cast were excellent, the staging was excellent, the idea was interesting... but I have a feeling I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd actually had a clue what was going on. The idea was a kind of reworking of 1980s sci-fi cliches into a futuristic fairy-tale setting - in a world where the human race has grown too numerous, the young got fed up and took over, forcing anyone over 21 into a compulsory 'deep sleep'. If they didn't register themselves willingly, trained hitmen would kill them. The play follows five people as they come to terms with this and find an escape into the 'outside', destroying the world as they know it in the process. Or at least... that's what I understood. However, there were a lot of details I just didn't get - like the fact that early on in the play, each of the five seemed to 'register' themselves for the 'deep sleep' at least once, and yet didn't seem to have to go through with it.

I did understand some of the points the playwright was trying to make, though, or at least I think I did. The characters were portrayed as very 'young' - childish in their reactions and responses to each other and the world around them. The metaphors were fairly obvious - dealing with growing up and the realities of sexuality, relationships, and controlling your own life/rebelling against those who have previously controlled your life. I think also in the context of Berlin it was interesting too - there was a music and film sequence at the end of the play where the characters finally break loose from the surroundings of the stage and are videoed walking through Berlin - except in the film they are walking forwards and everything else is moving backwards. One character played a song over the top which I didn't catch all of but repeated the line 'They're all fascists' over again, and I think also 'But I still like them'. I might be wrong about that though, I was concentrating on too many things at once to really do the whole listening comprehension thing! Another interesting thing was the pop culture references - the play opened with another musical sequence, in which the characters named film stars and celebrities, mainly from the Hollywood 'Golden Years' and sing 'Everything was good then' in between. And the characters themselves were costumed as film stereotypes - the cowboy, superman, the precocious doll-like little girl, the space age sex kitten, the guy in black leathers and sunglasses.

I think it's a play I'd definitely need to read to really get a sense of what's going on, but it's high up on my list of possible focus points.