Interview with Edgar Selge : I expect the New. The Unhedged

The conversation apartment of Edgar Selge and Franziska Walser in Prenzlauer Berg takes place in the attic. The for almost 35 years, married actor couple lives for family and professional reasons, times in Berlin, once in Munich. Born in 1948, Selge grew up in Herford, Germany, as the son of a youth prison's Director and played the first Theater with prisoners. According to the philosophy and German studies in Munich and as a fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, he moved to the theatre, played to the acting training from Munich to Berlin, Vienna, Zurich and Hamburg, at many stages, and succeeded in the cinema and on television, of Helmut Dietls "Kir Royal" and "Rossini" in the TV-film adaptation of "subjection" by his nephew Titus Selge. The guest performance of "submission" at the Berlin Volksbühne begins on Tuesday, with further performances on 19. 12., 30., 31. 1. and starting in April.

Mr Selge, they were chosen for their role in "subjection"to the actor of the year and get in Hamburg after more than 70 performances in sold-out Deutsches Schauspielhaus of 1200 viewers each and every Time Standing ovation. Now Michel Houellebecqs "submission" will be shown at the Berlin volksbühne. It was her idea to bring the novel as a soloist on the stage?

It was the brainchild of Karin Beier, the Director and artistic Director. A month after the book was published, she called me: I think we have a better chance of winning the lottery, we have the rights to the world premiere of "submission". I imagine that as a monologue of an older actor, she said, in the big house. Do you like to read the book and think about it? My answer was: I read the book, because I don't have to think about it! The set designer Olaf Altmann has proposed immediately to the cross.

A recordable, bekriechbare cross Beam in the middle of the black curtain as a single scene image. A sense of image, and for you in the game a tricky labyrinthine place.

After that we have read in Karin Beier's collection, I have talked about in their face. The first 83 pages, but I didn't and not even the spectators said, I can do it. So we have reduced it to 43 pages.

43 270 novel pages.

Nevertheless, are still come things, for which I have recruited.

What were the passages?

For example, the sex scenes, liked Karin Beier initially less. But I found that all of the dirt. Since she was also fast on my side. There are only a few texts that record so strong, the neuroses, Fears, upheavals of our time and a provocative to think. You need to take, unlike in our adaptation, which ran on television in the summer and in the outdoor scenes, other actors, as an actor in the Theater alone. As the narrative author. And if you can get the reasonably entertaining, then this is a full house.

"Shit." Edgar Selge in front of the guest game with "submission" in the interview in his Berlin apartment.Photo: Mike Wolff

your father-in-law, Martin Walser has seen you at a guest performance in Munich and, most recently, in the "time" of the beauty of the Evening talking and Nietzsche quotes. Wherein the image of women in the mentioned sex scenes in times of MeToo probably means a challenge.

Houellebecq care of himself and us in his novels, never. He decomposed himself, shows in his sad, greedy, lonely heroes in the dirtiest human, male pages. This is his literary and historical quality, so that he is intrigued. Belongs to the dark pages of the opportunism of the left-liberal Intellectuals– the dictatorship throws an Islamic Crescent, which raises in turn the women into "submission" except for the sexual and alcoholic addictions Central. And Houellebecq boxes in the I-narrator of his Provocation. There is no other author, the attack on this intellectual level, the Political Correctness and hits. Especially in France, he gets the receipt of the left-liberal media.

At the Hamburg Premiere in 2016, there was not the MeToo debate. Has not changed the perception since then?

We'll see in Berlin how the audience reacts. Some critics have accused the show, they refer, position. But I think it is your quality that you risked the contradictions, rugged textures and Houellebecqs sarcasm and dark light's point of view. I think that exactly this causes a deeper Thought in the audience: men and women, through Migration, Machismo, both Christians and Muslims, and the Temptation of a secular, in their cultural and political values unsettled society.

"subjugation" play in 2019 on the national stage: as a guest in an equally deeply unsettled house.

I have followed the debate over Frank Castorf's production detachment, of course, and many performances by Castorf. The focus of the dispute has surprised me a little, but I can understand the outrage over the culture of politics and the failure of the successor, Chris Dercon. Even though I believe that large Ensembles and theatre Director, Peter Stein at the schaubühne, or Dieter Dorn in Munich

they once belonged to the Munich chamber full Ensemble play to the fame of Rolf Boysen, Thomas Holtzmann, Gisela Stein, Sunnyi Melles...

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a film adaptation of literature: "Submission," "subjugation" is an artistic border-crossing

Peter Becker

– although the exhaust after ten, fifteen years. Then something New must come. This applies in principle also for Castorf. His popular stage had still a lot of vitality, and embodied a cultural East-identity. The disobey was to be a slap in the face of people at a time in which capitalism ensures that, even in East Berlin for uprooting, when the companies settled, houses are emptied and housing for many is priceless.

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