Berlin - Alexanderplatz - Text
Frische
A young person with a dog without a muzzle
Papa
Tired passersby
A chance encounter at an entrance to the next subway line.
Frische is out late at night. They have stomach pains and are frantically looking for a quiet corner. At the same time, a young person walks by with a dog.
The dog recognizes Frische, but Frische doesn’t know the dog.
The young person pulls on the leash and mutters to the dog:
Young Person: What's wrong with you?
Frische:
I have stomach pains.
Young Person:
Sorry, what?
Frische:
Do you know when the next subway comes?
I feel like I've been waiting here for hours.
Young Person:
Did you take something?
Frische (to themselves):
This is just normal life. I live like an intellectual dandy.
Sometimes it makes me think that the working class might not understand me.
I'm so embarrassed.
Frische:
I have stomach pains.
Young Person (thinking):
I hope they don’t look too closely at my face.
I’ve got greasy cream under my eyes.
Young Person looks at their device:
It won’t be here for another 20 minutes.
I have some pills that calm the stomach.
Frische:
Thanks. Where are you from?
Young Person:
Mannheim, but I’ve been living in Berlin for a while.
I’m meeting my dad soon, but he grew up here.
Frische's stomach growls, and they feel dizzy:
I heard they accidentally deported a German recently because he looked like a refugee.
Young Person (surprised):
Funny.
Frische (perhaps in a dream):
This responsibility is a problem.
My freedom, which I value so much,
yet I don’t understand the experiences of people who have truly been deprived of freedom.
Young Person (with the dog without a muzzle):
I love imagining I could be authentic.
At least for someone…
At the same time,
a man enters the shaft, looking confused at the ground as if searching for something, and bumps into the young person.
Papa bumps into the young person, looks up, playfully grinning:
Are you the last breath of an intellectual capable of radical action? cynically
Looks at Frische more closely, who seems slightly confused.
Today, you’ll all get stuck somewhere because the individualization system has eaten you up.
You’re the optimization for the new censorship mechanisms in the system.
Young Person (with the dog, in a good mood):
What do you mean?
Are you talking about social media, or the fact that I have a phone and can be super independent?
Papa:
Yeah, young people like you are the reason that we have to fight for our freedom again because of your own blindness and hypocrisy.
Puts his arm around the young person and makes a gestural hand movement as he speaks:
Waste, meaninglessness, and boredom.
Obviously, you’re a creative without a sense of reality.
Your representation is a reflection of your privileged and irresponsible life that sees itself as radical in its actual ineffectiveness. Meaningless and without any demands.
Frische:
Of course, freedom must be fought for, at least in a way that future generations can make sense of it so that their self-actualization is open to them.
Papa (judging Frische):
Do you realize how many people had to die so you can live the way you do today?
I don’t give a damn about your self-actualization.
Frische:
I seriously doubt that this kind of vigilantism will get us anywhere or that the collective good, which ultimately forces us into a spectator role, will be achieved.
The wounds of the Germans shouldn’t be underestimated.
And we can work with the means given and create a better system. Maybe your ideas of change are too radical.
I’m fighting here to pay my rent!
I have to protect this young person!
Papa:
You twist everything just as you need it, and this isn’t about you.
It’s not like everyone can just self-actualize here.
Just because there are people who think they have the freedom to choose their job or political opinion doesn’t mean they’re sovereign people who are socially relevant.
The fact that so many political systems in Germany have been tried with and without the population makes this country an accumulation of diseases and good artists.
Back then, now it’s a bunch of privileged people trying to please each other and living through an ideology.
Frische (with right hand on their stomach):
Say, do you two know each other?
Papa:
That’s my child.
Dog wags its tail.
Young Person to Frische:
Do you know that movie with Til Schweiger where he plays a punk, and his best friend, a punk named Zecke, plants a bomb in a big, powerful building in a wheelchair?
Papa reminds me of that guy.
Papa stands still and smiles:
Nazis out!
Both laugh.
Papa:
I remember the Berlin of the past…
Images would appear, but there’s no time for that.
Oh, it’s cold, and you’re shaking terribly.
Please dress properly when it’s cold outside.
Is this a friend of yours?
Frische:
I just have stomach pains.
(thinking)
They’re ugly people, and why do they expect me to have all the answers to this world?
Silence.
Tired passersby, gender distribution unclear, murmur, heavy steps, sometimes overlapping sounds:
The new sensual
continuous overwhelm
fragmented spaces
it’s about me at the surface
I turn my gaze from everything that could overwhelm me right now
you’re disgusting
I mean my grandson
you can’t help it
we’ll find an automatic way home
tactile neutral and stylish
what did you figure out from the discussion?
it’s pointless
indifference
everyone is alone with their ghosts
Frische’s body becomes part of the tired passersby as they bring them to the train — automatically.
The dog without a muzzle barks at the tired passersby, but Frische is already gone.
Papa to the young person with the dog without a muzzle:
I’ve created a standard of living for you, and you can’t even control your dog.
To the tired passersby:
Excuse the ruckus caused by my child’s dog.
Next time, I’ll make sure they only go out with a muzzle.
Tired passersby murmur to themselves:
The name of this group is a self-runner.
Tired passersby might have overlooked advertisements about public space, collectivity, privatization, climate protection, consumption, individuality vs. group, populism, opinion, gender, newspapers, education, hunger, ignorance, colonialism, racism, hate, demonstrations, technology, nation, meat, solidarity, and so on and so forth.
