Theater Thikwa and Glanz&Rawall: The pension points disappear into thin air

The curtain in the Thikwastadt Palace shines golden. The showgirls and showboys who throw their legs in a row also shine golden. The large balloon letters that they swirl around the stage are also golden. Until the motto of the evening emerges from the jumble of letters: “There’s nothing!” The inclusive Theater Thikwa and the music theater collective Glanz&Krawall are tackling the long-running hit Rente in their second collaboration. They courageously pile up their “big pension revue”, and so there is the Friedrichstadt-Palast satire right on top.

Sarah Taylor Ellis and Jana Sotzko compose songs that draw on the mainstream in a tongue-in-cheek manner. From pop songs to chanson to heavy metal, everything is on offer. And then you think that Brecht and Eisler have briefly been resurrected for the “Song of the Intergenerational Contract,” so precisely the sound and style are based on the model. The actors stand compactly in the middle of the stage and intone in chorus: “Solidarity and effort instead of personal gain, so that justice can flourish in our generational contract”.

In the remaining twenty numbers, the ensemble subjects this promise to a reality check and finds impressive images of the current imbalance. So about demographic change: First three, then two players shoulder a large puppet until Christian Schwaan collapses under the weight alone.

Or Jasmin Lutze as the “pensioner from Kreuzberg”: with a flute in her mouth and a bubble machine on her back, she moves across the stage into the hall and distributes pension points that disappear into thin air. Magic tricks become a metaphor: If the cloth disappears forever, then inflation has also eaten up the pension.

The ensemble even ventures into the completely absurd-looking pension formula, presents it on a golden fleece and explains it in an understandable way. With pension roulette, the audience can win a small or large pension, and at the same time it is a symbol of the principle of “chance” as to whether one succeeds in accumulating enough pension points for a dignified life in old age.

“There’s nothing – The big pension review” doesn’t stop at the topic of “statutory pension provision”, but rather looks at old age in general. The golden glitter has long been a thing of the past, the players are training themselves to exhaustion in tracksuits with an 80s look (costumes: Hsuan Huang), while drums and keyboards are pounding from the side and dry information about the deterioration of the body from the age of 25 floods the stage.

You could give yourself the bullet while watching: almost no pension points and already in the middle of physical decline. But there is Manuela Langkowski, retired and still on stage.

Shortly before the end she stands in the spot, singing tenderly and energetically at the same time: "And tomorrow I'll be here again / bones rotten like old branches / the body is gone, the soul eats bread from heaven / in the Thikwastadt Palace." There are now large holes in the show stairs. Because “politics” reduced levels during the show with the comment: “Everyone has to support the austerity measures.”

The ensemble has collected many questions and shares them with the audience. For example: What remains of us if no one thinks about us anymore? The last question of the evening is: What is free in life? Someone in the audience shouts: “love”. Tired smiles spread as people shout from the stage: “Thikwa forever”.