The New York Times: Barbara Mundel had hoped to start her tenure as artistic director of the Münchner Kammerspiele here with an outdoor production featuring 150 Munich residents in a colorful self-portrait of the city.
But the coronavirus put the brakes on that performance, along with other planned festivities to mark her arrival at the Kammerspiele, where she is the first female artistic director.
3 comments:
Despite the unfortunate circumstances of it all, the beginning of a pandemic opens a lot of unique doors for a new creative director. The need presents itself for even more creative theatrical pieces outside of what seems to be the absurdity of "usual" performances happening at the Münchner Kammerspiele. The few shows that were outlined in this article seemed very exciting and like a breath of fresh air, but the author and reviewer didn't seem to take to take to them as much as I may have. Such is the paradox of avant-garde art, I guess. Outside of the works themselves, there was a paragraph or so about blunders with safety protocols, wherein audience members were seated too close together and mask policies were not enforced (or maybe not properly written?). For a theatre that has built up such a reputation, it would be expected with almost complete certainty that these protocols would be completely set in stone and reviewed multiple times to ensure compliance with guidelines. Although it seems like it worked out in the end, I can only imagine other institutions with these kinds of slip-ups. In my position, though, it seems there is nothing that I can do but hope that it doesn't happen.
Despite the unfortunate circumstances of it all, the beginning of a pandemic opens a lot of unique doors for a new creative director. The need presents itself for even more creative theatrical pieces outside of what seems to be the absurdity of "usual" performances happening at the Münchner Kammerspiele. The few shows that were outlined in this article seemed very exciting and like a breath of fresh air, but the author and reviewer didn't seem to take to take to them as much as I may have. Such is the paradox of avant-garde art, I guess. Outside of the works themselves, there was a paragraph or so about blunders with safety protocols, wherein audience members were seated too close together and mask policies were not enforced (or maybe not properly written?). For a theatre that has built up such a reputation, it would be expected with almost complete certainty that these protocols would be completely set in stone and reviewed multiple times to ensure compliance with guidelines. Although it seems like it worked out in the end, I can only imagine other institutions with these kinds of slip-ups. In my position, though, it seems there is nothing that I can do but hope that it doesn't happen.
I think that it is fantastic that the theatre is trying to open back up with such out of the box shows. Originality in creativity is something that many theatres and writers strive for and in the current world with its unique challenges I think that it is hard to avoid some out of the box and almost strange ideas and productions. Mundel will certainly have a successful tenure at the theatre company if she is starting off so spectacularly in such a challenging atmosphere. I also think that it is fantastic that as the first female artistic director she is taking the productions in such a different direction. She will be sure to leave her mark on the company and the town by way of her strange productions. I am excited to see what she and her company come up with next and how they work around the challenges of producing theatre in the world of COVID.
Post a Comment