Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop all had their Berlin phases - and I think I've just concluded mine. Or at least one of mine. The concept has hung around for quite some time, although it has only been realised (and realisable) in recent months*.
This is the 'movie' edition incorporating the pieces 'Berliner Girlz', 'Marlene and Me' and 'Die Freudlosse Gass', with extra opening footage to give the whole work a cyclical feel, and the fourth 'satyr' segment, 'Weimar, Schmeimar...' which concludes the story on a bittersweet, but still light-hearted, note. I'm still seeking the opportunity to perform the whole sequence live some day, somewhere...though probably not on a smoky backlit stage.
There's a nice physical (as well as the obvious thematic) link to an earlier live work, my Brexit-inspired take on a couple of 'Cabaret' classics - in that both this and 'Berliner Girlz' uses the same prop chair.
*The first segment, 'Berlin Girlz', was actually first written some years ago, and incorporated as part of a one-act play within the text of my one professionally-published novel to date - whose very title shows that my Berlin phase has been in progress for some time, as well as its inescapable connection to retro erotica, as the novel is set in an establishment which dates from the Weimar period.
'Weimar, Schmeimar...'
Fell in love with a Berlin girl so many years ago
Strange to think how many things since then have come and quickly gone.
As Mr Hitler warred, and went,
and everyone was left quite bent
so out of shape, we thought we’d never
even write poetry again.
Yet, here we are.
A people scattered – we refugees.
We left the city on its knees
and fled, like all the lucky ones
Across the sea – all hail Manhattan.
Then one day, some day
I saw her, somewhere
Standing on a smoky backlit stage
She was on the path to self destruct,
I mean, man – she was really fucked
I grabbed her and I took her home with me.
She told me of the path she’d wandered
Prostitution, drugs, time squandered
How she almost ended up impaled
or, so she says...in vague detail
like a butterfly, in some entomologist’s case.
But it’s 1952, and – hey!
We’re in the land of opportunity
And every night, we dance together
To those old songs that brought us hither
And knock back whiskey, telling tales
of the nymphs and satyrs of the Domino house
Just down the road from the old White Mouse.
But all those days have gone, my friend
And while I hate to come across as picky -
The fun has fizzled, liberty’s been redefined -
The only mouse around here is Mickey.
Prosit.
(MB, September 2022)
Writer's note: while the Domino is a fictional establishment, the White Mouse is not, and was a hive of extremely liberal performance art in its day. I first found it referenced in Donald Spoto's biography of Marlene Dietrich back in the late 90s, and the reference has kicked around my head for all that time. Maybe my next Berlin-themed venture will be to try to replicate some of the more risqué acts from that period, like those made notorious by Anita Berber.
