Backstage / Onstage at Ref24. The Making of Berlin

I attend the performance The Making of Berlin by Compagnia Berlin at the Mattatoio in Rome as part of the Romaeuropa Festival. The first images we are treated to, ostensibly of documentation, are projected on a cloth placed near the stage step, a total disregard of expectations for those who, like me, expected to watch “some theater.” After about twenty-five minutes I almost gave in to the idea that I was actually witnessing a making of another work.

This first disregard of expectations was by no means the only one and by the end of the performance I was confused, not quite able to process in real time what I was witnessing. The mechanism architected by Yves Degryse is carefully and ingeniously constructed in all its parts but it is only in its entirety that it is possible to reflect on the complexity of the project.

Once the twenty-five minutes have passed, the curtain falls, showing another, semi-transparent one, an artifice by means of which the two-dimensionality of the video format is deconstructed, replacing it with a three-dimensionality in which the filmic medium is made to dialogue with the theatrical medium. In a nutshell, the stage is shown, and the actors, including actor-trained director Yves Degryse, enter the field.

The making-of projection continues in transparency while a large LED screen at the back of the stage shows the same images, for the first time, however, it appears that fiction has intruded into the video immersion. An actress plays a horn, declaring that part of the soundtrack is performed live, at the same time the director-actor intervenes on the video in real time by means of a camera and green screen, highlighting relevant stills within the filmic dramaturgy.

The dialogue between cinema, particularly documentary cinema, and theater seems to highlight a conflict between what is true (the music and documents shown) and fiction. However, this consideration is betrayed by the apparent intentions of the work. Why is a making of, at times almost televised, accompanied by such an impressive multimedia and multidisciplinary structure? The conceptual complexity is addressed by the dramaturgy of the documentary.

The narrative revolves around Friedrich Mohr, a member of the Berlin orchestra during World War II. The elderly man has a dream that he has never been able to see come to fruition, a project that has dragged on for as long as he can remember: the entire Berlin orchestra performing Siegfried’s funeral march from Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” deployed in 6 bunkers scattered around Berlin at the end of the war. We follow the crew as they interview the man while obtaining the money and permits to accomplish the feat.

Up to this point the documentary appears almost melancholy and the theatrical contaminations unnecessary. The turning point occurs at the moment when the director-actor within the narrative discovers, as in an intriguing detective story, that Friedrich has been lying. The project is now in an advanced state, and the entire crew decides to lie to everyone and have the orchestra perform the funeral march and play it on national live radio. At this point it is possible to think of this as a work whose central theme, that of fiction came to the surface naturally during the filming of the documentary, an opportunity to create something somehow self-sufficient to the making of the enterprise.As the minutes pass, the mysterious nature of the affair increases as everyone on stage continues, as if nothing is wrong. Something falls again: it is the transparent curtain. On stage the actors are moving and shifting everything. Within a minute the large led turns into six screens, with an additional screen on stage. The conductor starts the funeral march. The director-actor listens, the elderly liar does the same with deep emotion. A dream come true? Extremely fascinated but confused I clap my hands. The opera has concluded. From the credits I read that Friedrich Mohr is also an actor. It is all faked. It seems absurd to me not to have realized it.