»Mephisto« at the Berliner Ensemble | Frank Castorf: Why does cold hurt?

Just an actor? Here politics becomes ballast for art. Photo: OSTKREUZ/Jörg Brüggemann Even if you have never read Klaus Mann's "Mephisto", you know at least one thing about it: it is a roman à clef. And the Mephistophelian figure in the center, Hendrik Höfgen, the star actor and salon Bolshevik in the interwar period and equally revered star actor and purified National Socialist during fascism - that much is also clear - is Gustaf Gründgens. This circumstance also attracted the attention of federal courts, which made publication impossible for years.

However, that doesn't interest Frank Castorf, who took on the novel and brought it to the stage of the Berliner Ensemble in mid-September. What does an actor of ancient times matter to us? Castorf takes Mann's statement "All figures represent types, not portraits," which one could hastily interpret as an unconvincing attempt at appeasement, extremely seriously.

In fast motion, the dubious career of Höfgen/Gründgen is explained to us right at the beginning. A party that blinks on the left but is not prepared to take any political risks gives up even the last remnants of conviction or decency for the opportunities that are available to it under the swastika. As the evening progresses, which lasts almost six and a half hours, things get merrily mixed up. And Barbara Bruckner is also called Erika Mann on stage, just as Nicoletta von Niebuhr is also called Pamela Wedekind. There is no need to keep a secret here that perhaps never was.

What is the appeal of such a staged approach? Frank Castorf leaves his index finger on the pages of the novel and leans towards raising it. No election results or party programs will be read out at Schiffbauerdamm. The dulling routine of historical comparisons should not be endured here. Instead of constantly claiming that 2026 is the new 1933, the director looks deep into the characters.

Shrill and yet concentrated: an unusual, quiet Castorf evening Photo: @ Joerg Brueggemann / OSTKREUZ Yes, it's about types. And the typical also appears to the audience as the transtemporal. The historical eras are difficult to compare. But people, in their limitations and egoisms, in their doubts and their conceit, remain surprisingly similar.

When will this Höfgen personally and with his art stand up for the Hamburg company Revolutionary Theater? The communist actor Otto Ulrichs (as alter ego Hans Otto) also wants to know this. But Höfgen is especially hungry for his own breakthrough in the theater - and for Juliette. She is a black dancer who he loves to have his ass spanked.

Klaus Mann invented Juliette in order to conceal the very flaw that should have prevented Gründgens from becoming a fascist figure: his homosexuality. Mann himself lived with him for some time.

Castorf includes the writer in his production, including his discomfort with his own desires. Mann shares homosexuality with Gründgens, but also with the SA leader Ernst Röhm. How much repressed sexual drive, as Wilhelm Reich asked, was there in National Socialism? And how much repressed reactionary sentiment perhaps also exists in the anti-fascist?

Castorf delivers here a theatrical artist self-inquiry with double or triple bottom line. To achieve this, he created an unusually tidy production. The length remains, but the playful excess, the volume, the escape into the live video (which is extremely elegant here) are extremely subdued. The scenes are built close to the novel.

The production about art and humanity is based entirely on an incredible ensemble. The old Volksbühne family isn't gathered here, and even less are you satisfied with what you think is Castorf's style of playing. Kathleen Morgeneyer and Constanze Becker are at their best under this director.

The title hero, however, is Jens Harzer, who gives up his otherwise completely internalized, poetically charged game for a completely different attempt. And so a group of experienced artists is taking a risk. However, there are occasional lengths.

"Mephisto" follows, so to speak, Castorf's most recent work at the Berliner Ensemble; he himself speaks of a "pseudo-trilogy": "Fabian" after Erich Kästner and "Little Man - what now?" after Hans Fallada. There are three contemporary novels that mark the transition from damaged democracy to barbaric fascism. Castorf refers particularly to his staging of Fallada's text.

Then as now, the fight song “Am Rio Jarama” from the Spanish Civil War can be heard. But how quickly will antifascism remain just folklore? This theater work also makes that clear. "But later and always and everywhere / When workers sit together / The song of the Jarama battle will sound / Hearts will be ignited to fight."

And once again Castorf quotes “The Battle,” Heiner Müller’s “Scenes from Germany.” In the “Night of the Long Knives” betrayal reigns, and just as fascism separates brother from brother, it also destroys the bonds of artists who were once connected. In the end, it is not the first Nazis who triumph, but rather those who can push their opportunism the furthest.

At some point during this thought-filled evening, the lines “Why are we so cold? Why does the cold hurt?”, a reminiscence of Erika Mann’s anti-fascist exile cabaret “Die Pfeffermühle”. The big answer remains. At the end they stand there, a bunch of actors, with a glowing sign above them: "I'm just an actor." Guys show themselves to us, not portraits. Rarely has something so disturbing been presented so beautifully.

The “nd.Genossenschaft” belongs to those who read and write it. With your contribution, you ensure that our journalism remains accessible to everyone - without any media corporation, billionaire or paywall.

→ report independently and critically → focus on overlooked topics → give marginalized voices a platform → counter misinformation → initiate and further develop left-wing debates

You can make the difference with “Voluntary Pay” or a cooperative share. You help keep this newspaper alive. So that nd remains.