The plays of German writer and director René Pollesch take the form of installations. They analyse working and living conditions as they are affected by neo-liberalism and globalisation. In his dramatic art, he wonders about individual survival strategies in times of economic vulnerability. The Artistic Director of the Prater, a small theatre in Volksbühne headed by Frank Castorf, René Pollesch has invented a theatrical form that is far from the conventional structures of story-telling, and has forged his own mark with high-speed dialogues, splattered with sociological quotations and physically demanding action on stage from the actors who are closely associated with “agit-pop” theatre.
Pablo au supermarché Plus (Pablo at the Supermarket Plus)
Come, get away from it all, geopolitically and theatrically, that's what René Pollesch is saying. In a stage area formed by three container trucks (designed by Bert Neumann, the creative scenographer of the Volksbühne) where we can watch, amongst other things, a permanent video clip on a big screen, Pablo scrapes a living from his job as an employee at a discount supermarket, where work conditions are similar to those in a developed and choking big city in a developing country, and which are used as a social and urban model today in the big cities of the West. Pablo, surrounded by a sort of united community, in his daily grind as a laborious guinea-pig, has the experience of fake work contracts, biased labour conventions, misguided or restricted trade unionism, all of which have landed in Europe, on the Old Continent. Pablo au supermarché Plus is the final part of a trilogy and follows Telefavela et Svetlana in the Favela. Imitating Brazil's “telenovellas” – an endless stream of kitch television shows - René Pollesch's soap opera is a ruse, a digression in form and theme, a Trojan Horse introducing subversion in a simple and universally spread manner. The audience watches the improbable, hilarious and crazy tribulations of the staff in a German supermarket where the continuous flow of agitated words by-passes the old frontiers of hierarchy and geography to invent some new ones.
Distribution
text and direction : René Pollesch
cast : Inga Busch, Christine Groß, Gordon Murphy Kirchmeyer, Susanne Strenger, Volker Spengler
scenography : Bert Neumann
costumes : Nina von Mechow
video : Ute Schall
Production
production: Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen
en coproduction avec : leFestival d'Avignon, la Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin, le Rotterdamse Schouwbourg
avec le soutien : de l'Onda pour les surtitres
© photo Thomas Aurin