BEHIND THE SCENES: Northern Line - What's this Linie 1 Anyways?

Writer-Producer-Critic-Historian (and BWW forum regular) Jonathon Collis tells us about Minmay Theatre Company and the origins behind their new production Northern Line.

It's no secret that a number of the participants on the BWW forums and staff work in the industry. Some of us act, others write. Some are in the business from birth, and others, like myself, came to it late: I'd always dreamed of joining the industry but it wasn't until I came to London to pursue my MA in Theatre Studies (a radical change in itself from a Military History BA) that it became a reality.

Minmay Theatre Company was founded in March 2009 after a period of frustration and a breaking point in life: jobs for arts administrators are few on the ground, often require years of unpaid experience which I lack, and it's not uncommon for 100 people to apply for each position. So there I was, a freelance writer, talking with a couple of actor friends after a particularly frustrating show, and put the offer on the table:

"If I do everything properly - get all the materials together, coordinate an actual rehearsal schedule, and hand you cash on the day - will you do a show for me?"

They were crazy enough to say yes. I was crazy enough to think that I could curate, manage, and finance a cabaret night full of songs none of the cast had heard of prior, and the Battersea Barge were crazy enough to think we'd get 50 people in. And somehow, through it all, Unidentified Floating Object made it to the stage, turned a profit, and Minmay Theatre Company was born.

Minmay? What's a Minmay? Lynn Minmay is an idol singer from the old Robotech cartoons, who ends a massive space war through pop music and cute dancing. Really. It's on Youtube. The idea of pop culture as a bridge between cultures and societies in general, and music's ability to make us feel is what drives the company artistically: MTC is about exploring human journeys - both inner and outer - through accessible and popular forms. We believe audiences are intelligent, and want something entertaining but that also lingers with them after they leave the theatre.

Our newest project, which we'll be writing about for a long time for BWW, is a musical entitled Northern Line,a new adaptation of a classic German musical called Linie 1 (Line 1). Now, most of the readers on this site have never heard of Linie 1, so here's a crash course:

For the last 40 years, the GRIPS Theatre in Berlin have been producing politically charged works of children's theatre. In 1986, they premiered their first full on musical and first work for teenagers and adults, the aforementioned Linie 1. Written by GRIPS founder Volker Ludwig and scored by Birger Heymann, the story revolves around a girl who comes from the West German countryside in search of her boyfriend, an up and coming pop singer who shared a brief fling with her and leaves her knocked up. The show uses this plot as a window into the underclasses of divided Berlin: prostitutes, drug dealers, the homeless, etc. while also looking at how everybody is equalised on the U-Bahn (Underground) from rich widows to truant schoolgirls and the disgruntled working classes.

Despite its heady themes and the pervasiveness of teen pregnancy, suicide, and drug abuse, Linie 1 was a massive hit, and is still a cornerstone of the GRIPS repertoire 23 years on. Much like Honk in England and the US, Linie 1 is now a mainstay of regional, community, school, and amateur companies in German speaking Europe, and a film version was spawned in 1988.

Most recently, the song Marias Lied (aka Hey du/"Hey You") has resurfaced in the German mainstream, being covered by pop group Beatsteaks and sampled by rapper Sido. Personally, I'm rather fond of the film version.

What makes Linie 1 fascinating, besides its catchy 80s pop score and deft blend of revue and book musical, is its international handling: excepting a series of festival appearances in the mid-1980s where the GRIPS cast performed the original show in English, international productions of Linie 1 are extensively rewritten to reflect local issues and characters.

The most successful of these international productions has been in Korea, where the adaptation Seoul Line 1 ran for 15 years, closing after 4000 performances to be retooled for a new era. The Barcelona production replaced the entire score, and merited a broadcast on Spanish television, and theatres in cities without underground systems such as Vilinus, Lithuania, have found their own ways to present the story, with the most recent adaptation being in Namibia, where the characters meet in shared taxis rather than trains.

Needless to say, the task of adapting such a beloved piece for a British setting and local audiences is daunting at best and terrifying at worst. However, Linie 1 is a fascinating musical, and we believe that our version will capture both the spirit of the original and a local feeling at the same time. But how does such a piece come together?

That, as they say, is a post of its own.

 

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