A training field for the obstacle race called life

About intimacy instead of polite distance, distance rule professionals and the surprising benefits of crisis.

Ursula Renneke has been a course instructor at the Volkshochschule Berlin Mitte since 2018. She teaches acting and theater courses. When she is not in our theater room, you can see her on German television and even more on stages in Germany. Today we talk about art and culture in pandemic times and how the experience of this new way of teaching has changed everyone.

Good morning, Mrs. Renneke. Good to see you. Have you already found the funny old woman inside you today?

No, I have not yet. I myself don’t perceive myself as old yet – it’s all a question of perspective ;-). But you’re probably asking because of director Vanessa Stern, who produced, among other things, one of the stage highlights of the Corona Year 2020 with the theater workshop “In Search of the Comic Old”, which also fell victim to this very pandemic, like so many events last year. With Vanessa Stern, I have produced two “theatrical films” within the last 12 months. In this pandemic hybrid art form between stage and film, I was able to work through the obstacles of being a freelance artist quite well and humorously as an actress. I was pretty lucky in that respect!

Dozentin Ursula Renneke beobachtet eine Übung der Teilnehmenden

Last year, our participants learned a lot in online courses. Teaching theater online? How is that supposed to work?

Yes, we asked ourselves that at the beginning, too. When we meet online, it challenges us in a very unique way. It’s harder to build an energetic connection with each other. But how much we need that and how we do that, again, we first became aware of through the online classes. With the first courses, which only had to switch to online mode after a few live sessions, it was still easy because a group feeling had already developed during the first dates in the theater room. With the new courses that started online from the beginning, I had to come up with something new. I did exercises with the participants that made us aware that an energetic connection is possible between us despite the technical medium!

The participants could listen to each other more attentively and observe each other more closely. The more attentive and interested we are in each other, the more entertaining are the activities we share. The active interest in the other person and the world I perceive is essential for acting exercises, and has made the online lessons much easier for us! Short breaks in between are important! Then it is easy to listen carefully and to let each other finish. Despite or even because of the lack of physicality, concentration was sometimes even stronger than in the face-to-face course before Corona.

I would not have expected that. What other experiences surprised you?

One of my adult education courses is “From the stage to the camera”. Even though I have worked as an actress in television productions, the theater stage is my home. However, playing believably in front of the camera is very different from playing on a big stage, where the audience is sometimes sitting very far away.

What luck that in the online course, the camera is always on anyway! Many of us had plenty of practice with video calls last year – privately or professionally. At some point, the camera is no longer a foreign body and we were able to record and analyze exercises wonderfully. It was a good fit for the course. In some courses, not all participants had a camera. They were then given more speaking time so that we didn’t lose sight of those who were only participating by voice.

More is possible online than I had previously thought. Every crisis is a good crisis. I am grateful and happy for the new experiences I would not have had without this pandemic. I am proud of myself and what I and my colleagues have achieved despite the pandemic. Of course, many have been hit hard: Families with children, people with little financial means, gastronomy and last but not least us artists, musicians, singers, dancers and actors. Many people are coping with this pandemic with enormous effort and patience. That impresses me.

We have switched back to face-to-face courses for the summer of 2021. How can I imagine that?

Despite the risks and the hygiene rules including rapid tests, the participants and I are grateful and happy to be able to work together in the theater room. It is unusual to be in a room with several people again. The hygiene rules reinforce this feeling of partiality. But since you move more consciously in acting classes than in everyday life anyway, this doesn’t get in the way of the lessons at all. On the contrary! What you learn first is the relationship of your own body to the space. Many participants are already able to do this when they come. For many people it is new to develop a sensitivity and awareness of this, but they learn it within a very short time. Among other things, this sensitivity makes it child’s play to adhere to spacing rules. Actors are spacing professionals.

I see that you have set up several plexiglass walls in the middle of the room. Doesn't that interfere with playing?

It would be nicer without. Sure! But this separation enables a closeness that we can rarely experience with others in everyday life at the moment. The participants can stand very close to each other, eye to eye (!) during partner exercises, without having to keep the minimum distance. This did everyone incredibly good in last year’s Pandemic Presence Course! And we laughed a lot with that plexiglass between us! That was crazy good!

There is an exercise in the adult education course on the Meisner Technique (link to course registration) where two participants face each other and name what they notice about the other person and what they find remarkable – only external appearances or observations concerning behavior. The other person then repeats the observation. So, “You’re tired.” – “I’m tired.” “You doubt.” – “I doubt.” This exercise can evoke strong impulses and emotions, such as amusement, frustration, joy, concern, or shame. Without the Plexiglas wall, facing speech could only happen at a great distance and would be less intense.

Even if touch is not possible, the presence of the body and the contact in the room is very important. In these times, we have to suppress natural impulses even more often in everyday life than we already do. But in the presence class we can allow them through the awareness for the distance to each other, experience them consciously and make them usable for our acting.

How have you experienced the last year and a half as an artist?

Well, our situation as artists, even without a pandemic, is usually to organize ourselves all the time. We have to plan and time our commissions and projects over and over again before we can start working artistically. That’s what the theatrical film about Schiller’s skull called “Knochenarbeit” is about, which we’ll soon be sending out into the world. What hits our bones? How do we deal with it? This theater film directed by my esteemed colleague Vanessa Stern does not serve realism. We observe and reflect phenomena and exaggerate them artistically. Many people appreciate this symbolism of theatrical means and many can’t do anything with it. As an actress, I like to work with both – with realism and artistic exaggeration.

To be honest, my first thought when the first lockdown was announced was something like “Phew, FINALLY, now I can rest without a guilty conscience” – but shortly after that, existential dread was breathing down my neck.

Longingly the film team and I are waiting for the premiere of the feature film “Ich bin voller Hass und das liebe ich”. It was directed by Oliver Grüttner. It’s about a boy who plans a rampage and I play the boy’s mother. As far as I can tell (I don’t really know the film yet) it’s a drama, although this genre description is perhaps too “classic”. The film is very special because there is only one camera shot per scene and we actors* have improvised everything – so high demands on the whole team. But I am sure that the film will be a feast for the eyes and a cinema festival!

I have already been allowed to direct two small projects this year. The Senate Department for Science and Research, which is responsible for universities, has allowed projects in presence if the teaching content cannot be adequately conveyed online. So it happened that we could work in teams of 3 (2 actresses & director) with distance and tests on stage.
With all these projects, the last year and a half have been special, but the artist’s life is always full of breaks and detours.

I think it’s important for people to be able to experience and make art. Performing arts is a training ground for the obstacle race called life. With my work, I want to make the performing arts tangible, because there is no insignificant moment here. In the condensation of dramatic reality, every moment is important. Acting exercises allow us to enjoy the unpredictable moment, however it is, that is, to be fully present, in the here and now.

Yes, how did you find acting in the first place and how did acting find you?

It all started with the Theaterjugendclub in Hildesheim, where I grew up. From the age of 15 to 19, I spent many weekends at the municipal theater: endless acting exercises and a big performance at the end of each season. It was an exciting time, and I burned for it. I grew up watching Hollywood movies and before that I thought only very special people could become actors and didn’t count myself among them. But I had an incredible amount of fun immersing myself in the fantasy world. Especially in adolescence, when you get to know yourself, it’s valuable to be allowed to act out all those “terrible” feelings. I overcame inhibitions and it was liberating to show anger, sadness or schadenfreude without being scolded for it. That opens up a new world for people.

But it took a few more years before I was accepted at the University of the Arts (UdK). During that time, I got by with an internship in a film studio and many other jobs, including as a dishwasher in the canteen of the employment office. I had also started a degree in applied cultural studies. I was really happy with my year at the UdK. They were all cheerful, interesting fellow students. The playwright David Gieselmann even wrote the play “Ernst in Bern” for us, which we performed on our own initiative at Schokoladen Berlin Mitte.

Did you go straight to a municipal theater after graduating?

No, I like it quite well in the independent scene. I’ve had various engagements, for example at the Deutsches Theater, the Maxim Gorki Theater and also in Jena and at the Staatstheater Stuttgart. But most of the time I’m off-scene here in Berlin. Right after I graduated, I acted in a film, then in student films and short films.

I'm more familiar with you from television or the media libraries of ARD and ZDF.

Yes, television only came along in 2017. My first leading role was an episode lead in “Ella Schön” with Annette Frier. I was also allowed to be in the feature film “Toni Erdmann,” even though the scene with me at the end had to be cut out because otherwise the film would have been too long and the scene wasn’t that important dramaturgically. But it was such a great day of shooting with Peter Simonischek – a huge event in a school auditorium in Aachen with hundreds of extras.

What is the next class at the Volkshochschule, that I can take with you?

That would be “Introduction to the Meisner Technique” in November 2021 (link to course registration). This is great training for spontaneous, lively and therefore believable acting. Even in a set scene on stage or in front of the camera, we want the play to look natural. That’s why part of it remains improvisation. When you are absolutely in the moment, which we rarely manage, it is so much fun. In contact with our playing partner, we practice reacting spontaneously. To do this, we have to overcome an inhibition threshold, because in everyday life we are often polite and controlled. In acting, we have to leave this polite distance aside in order to be able to allow intimacy when the role demands it. Right now, only 7 people are allowed in the drama room at the Adult Education Center. You’d better hurry to sign up. :-)

Mehr über Ursula Renneke

• Website of Ursula Renneke
• Profile of Ursuala Renneke at Agency Goldbaummanagement