“Polifon Pervers” takes a lusty jibe at the culture industry
Published: Thursday, Nov 7th 2024, 12:30
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Author and playwright Béla Rothenbühler tells a mischievous theatrical tale in "Polifon Pervers". Two young women shake up cultural life in a small town. The entertaining dialect novel has been nominated for the Swiss Book Prize.
Over white wine and good cheer, the two friends Sabine and Schanti found an association with which they want to realize theater projects. "I want to do something", they say to themselves and are immediately successful. Because they consistently see theater as entertainment and because the association's name Polifon Pervers sounds interesting, the cultural funding agency is also won over by their ideas. The funding poured in and soon they were even able to pay themselves wages and afford a dramaturge.
High stakes
Lucerne-based author and dramaturge Béla Rothenbühler knows a lot about theater. He knows what is important: plays, directing and acting, but also fundraising, media work and catering. His second dialect novel, which provides deep insights into cultural life, tells of all this. He idealizes theater work with a great deal of humour and writes beautifully.
Schanti and Sabine are playing high poker. While one makes bold promises, the other struggles for a while with quiet scruples. Gradually, however, Sabine also gets a taste for it. She discovers social security for entertainers, including hemp farmers, as a second lucrative business area
Everything the two of them concoct over a glass of wine and foist on the cultural promotion agency seems to succeed. But if you think you're too sure, you're in danger of getting cocky. "That does something to you, if you just shove everything up your ass." So it's no wonder that they overstep the mark.
Ambiguous theatrical fairy tale
Béla Rothenbühler pokes fun at the cultural sector, cultural funding and, above all, the politics of the freely regulated market, which culture should also obey. The juxtaposition of the ambitious projects with the provincial setting results in a comedy that is accentuated by the familiar everyday language, the Lucerne dialect. The dialect creates an alienating effect that shakes up the grandeur of the concepts and makes all the fashionable terms suddenly look strange: Säif Speis, Diitscheis and Diiler, Öifemesmos and Souschel Midia.
In a cunning way, "Polifon Pervers" tells the story of everyday life in the independent cultural sector. The hardships and setbacks remain hidden between the lines until they finally break open and cause the company to fail.
Rothenbühler's novel is a lively and thoroughly ambiguous theatrical fairy tale, which itself focuses on amusing entertainment and in the end does not even forget the moral mission, namely that the most beautiful ideas arise from friendship and in the end only the "Wörk-Läif-Bälänz" counts. Moral misgivings and cultural-political requirements cannot shake this.
*This text by Beat Mazenauer, Keystone-SDA, was realized with the help of the Gottlieb and Hans Vogt Foundation.
©Keystone/SDA
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