René Pollesch, maverick pioneer of “discourse theatre”, blending pop with critical theory, and director of Berlin’s influential Volksbühne, has died aged 61, his theatre has announced.
“With dismay and deep sadness we must announce that the author and director René Pollesch died suddenly and unexpectedly in the morning of 26 February 2024,” said a spokesperson for the Volksbühne, which Pollesch had led since 2021. No cause of death has been named.
Hesse-born Pollesch was one of the most prominent practitioners of the “post-dramatic approach” to the dramatic arts that took hold of the biggest stages in the German-speaking world at the turn of the millennium, and one of the few who managed to make the genre genuinely popular.
Several of more than 200 plays that Pollesch wrote and retained the exclusive rights to direct – with aphoristic titles such as Love Is Colder Than Capital and Solidarity Is Suicide – were sell-out hits in spite of their sledgehammer approach to theatrical conventions, drawing young crowds that might previously have been more at home at concerts or nightclubs.
Dispensing with plot, dialogue, scenes and even the idea that a single actor would personify the same character over the course of a play, a typical Pollesch show would involve performers clowning around the stage while citing Theodor Adorno, Donna Haraway or Giorgio Agamben, before breaking out into a rendition of the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations or Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon.
Theatre to him was not about literature, Pollesch told Der Spiegel in 2005, but trying to stage everyday problems and reflecting on them philosophically. “Engaging with theory helps to organise your experiences”, he said. “It’s not about making sense of everything.”
Postmodern in its use of cut-and-paste techniques and love of pop culture, his theatre nonetheless centred on real social issues, such as urban gentrification and precarious working conditions, gender identity and sexual exploitation.
Born to a caretaker father in the town of Friedberg, Hesse, Pollesch studied Applied Theatre Science at the University of Giessen before joining the Volksbühne in 2001 to lead its off-site venue, Prater, until 2007.
After putting on plays at several stages across Germany, he returned to the Volksbühne as director in 2021. His appointment was seen as an attempt to steady the theatre after a turbulent period that had seen Belgian director Chris Dercon pushed out over fears that he could take the stage in a more commercial direction, and his interim successor Klaus Dörr resign over a #MeToo-style scandal (Dörr later managed to defend himself in court against one of the reported allegations).
Off-stage drama continued to play a part during his tenure: last year, an artist collective called Dust to Glitter staged protests at the Volksbühne, accusing Pollesch of reneging on promises to invert the theatre’s top-down structures.
Pollesch continued to write and stage his own plays. His most recent, a meditation on mental exhaustion in the time of pandemics, climate change and global wars called Yes, Nothing Is OK, premiered earlier this month.
