STANLEY KAUFFMANN
95
tographs, props and costumes, programs, with a phonograph that kept playing
Valentin songs. Everything to keep this dead clown fi-om dying.
The next day we left Munich for Berlin. At the Munich airpon we saw
again the vending machines for fi-esh flowers that we had seen in other
German airports. Behind banks of locked small glass doors stand bouquets in
glasses of water. You choose your bouquet, put a few marks in a slot, and
open the door. I said, "A national symbol. German Schonheit and German
efficiency combined." I shook my head. "Perfect." Impatiently Laura said,
"They're announcing our plane."
4.
The idea of Berlin seems devised by lonesco. The capital of a
country is transposed
to
a new country cut ofT from the original country.
Then the capital is divided . The eastern section becomes the capital of the old
country, and the western section remains part of the old country, which now
has a new capital. The wall that divides the old capital is now part of its life. I
asked an elderly theater critic in West Berlin what effect the wall had on him.
He shrugged.
" I
take my dog for walks there every day. He makes pee-pee
on it."
Laura and I went to a theater the afternoon we arrived. That evening
we strolled up the KurfUrstendamm. The neon was as I remembered, and
Laura soon noted it, too. The shop signs and large ads were the most
attractive I had ever seen. I had read laments about weak postwar artistic
imagination. Had it
all
gone into neon?
At night the neon signs made three German obsessions stand out.
Other than the staples, food and d rugs and cafes, most of the signs were for
Teppiche
and
Versichenmg
and
Pelze.
The Germans are mad for carpets and
insurance and furs. "Anyway," said Laura, "the signs make the place less
depressing by night."
We went
to
more theaters and met theater and film people. We went
to
East Berlin and saw Brecht's Be rliner Ensemble in their old ornate the–
ater, an odd home for terse Brechtian drama. The telex fi-iend, who had sent
us messages en route, had procured tickets , not easy to get, for the Komische
Oper in East Berlin. This theater was run by the renowned Walter Felsen–
stein. I had rcad much about Felsenstein's opera productions and was eager
to
go. Our friend grabbed the only available seats, and we journeyed again
to
East Berlin . What we saw was Felsenstein 's production of
Fiddler
on
the
Roof.
It was much inferior to the Broadway production . We enjoyed our
fiiend's embarrassment more than the show.
Our German trip was coming to an end. I reserved the last afternoon
in Berlin
to
visit a place I wanted Laura
to
see. I had seen it in 1967 and
had dreamecl of it since. It was a Catholic church in an outlying district,
