DIE PATEN
Credits
Concept Turbo Pascal
Artistic Direction Eva Plischke, Margret Schütz
Music Friedrich Greiling
Video Paula Reissig
Assistance Mona-Bawani Mühlhausen
Lightdesign & stage tech Frank Pahnke, Tobias Bischoff
Translation & Supertitels Kate Mcnaughton
With Frank Oberhäußer, Alper Yildiz
In the video students of Hector-Peterson-Oberschule: Abdellatif Assaf, Dardan Elezi-Grabia, Karima Fayad, Malak Issa, Marcel Kath, Hilal Kaya, Mustafa Eren Özdilberler, Rabia Rüdiger, Görkem Uslu, Yusuf Yilmaz, Kadir Yilmaz
Age 14 years and older
Duration 55 minutes
Time & Location
- 04/28/17 7:00 pm
SOPHIENSÆLE / Hochzeitssaal
accessible - 04/29/17 6:00 pm
SOPHIENSÆLE / Hochzeitssaal
accessible - 04/30/17 11:00 am
SOPHIENSÆLE / Hochzeitssaal
accessible
Supporters
Funded by: Berlin Project Fund for Cultural Education
A flat screen TV, a lamp and two rolling office chairs. Frank, a 38 year old theater maker from Berlin Neukölln and Alper, a 17 year old student from Berlin Kreuzberg, randomly met two years ago. A conversation about the film The Godfather and the character of the godfather became the starting point for a discussion about legacy and family, about honing one’s skills as a gangster and images of masculinity. Their views on this story about the mafia and family are very different. Which of them would make the better godfather?
Frank: “I would love to be Vito Corleone, the old godfather. When I’m in a good mood, I am a little bit like him. I can give off a feeling of calm and confidence in a group.”
Alper: “Most of all, I would like to be Michael Corleone, the son. I think I have a composure and natural authority like him. Even if I’m really the nicest guy, people are afraid of me.”
Alper Yildiz and Frank Oberhäußer already shared a stage in the production Weissagungen (2014). During the rehearsals, they started talking about the film The Godfather, which gave Alper the idea of turning it into a piece of theater. The result is a piece about the meeting of two men from different generations and family circumstances. “Layperson” and “professional” have nothing on each other and together develop an impression performance style as peers while their approach to the content of The Godfather provides new space for thought and interpretation by the audience.
Turbo Pascal is a theater collective based in Berlin which develops interactive stage performances and participative projects, including Algorithmen (2014/15) and Selbstbeschwichtigung (2016), both performed at Sophiensæle. Turbo Pascal has also worked for and with young people since 2010: Following X-Schulen (2010), the pieces Publikumsbeschwörung (2011) and Weissagungen (2014) were also created in cooperation with the Hector-Peterson-Schule Kreuzberg. The special nature of this type of work is that students and Turbo Pascal performers meet on stage and make their relationship to each other the subject of discussion.
Vote
On stage in the theater performance DIE PATEN by Turbo Pascal are two performers sitting on office chairs. The two performers are Frank and Alper, one is 38 and the other is 17. One is a theater maker, the other is a student. Both live in the Kreuzkölln area of Berlin.
At the rear of the stage, statements about the performers are displayed on a monitor which could be about both of them or neither of them. Possibilities and eventualities regarding how the performers met each other and what their lives and personalities could be like – all the way to the possibility that they both have the same shoe size. While these statements shift between clichés and attributions which could exist in theater spaces and in the heads of the people in them, they are not verified; instead, they are exposed, if necessary, by the performers by exaggerating the stereotypes.
Alper and Frank prefer to dedicate themselves to their shared passion: the films which make up The Godfather trilogy. Intergenerational and transgenerational questions regarding migration and immigrant society are posed through the figures and characters of the films as well as through the historical location of the films in 1940s New York. How would Frank and Alper have reacted in Vito (Corleone)’s shoes? Why does Michael, son of the godfather, treat his girlfriend Kay so roughly? In their postmigrant reality, there is a special focus on masculinity and images of masculinity which represent a binding reality for both of them. How do they confront this societal framework as men? How did their own grandfathers and fathers deal with it?
DIE PATEN by Turbo Pascal captivates not only through the outstanding interplay between Frank and Alper who are so similar and yet so different and all the same encounter each other as peers. It also captivates by the fact that the postmigrant society as lived reality is the starting point of the performance which leaves clichés and stereotypes far behind it and can make new, shared theatrical spaces possible.
Dr. Azadeh Sharifi