The new attraction on Berlin’s Rosa Luxemburg Platz is blue, 25m long and an instant hit: a temporary outdoor swimming pool erected in front of the Volksbühne (People’s Stage).
The theatre, a severe stone building from 1913, has acquired a reputation in the last decades for its attention-grabbing productions. But Matthias Lilienthal, the theatre’s incoming artistic director, has set a new standard even before the curtain rises on his first season in October. The West Berlin native has attracted headlines – and won over locals’ hearts – with what he views as his first, watery “production”.
In addition to the so-called Volksbad – People’s Pool – his team has erected a small wooden lido, changing rooms in shipping containers and a kiosk selling chips for €3.50.
There is no charge to swim provided you book a slot online, though the first week’s tickets vanished within minutes.
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Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the pool is not its scale, but how it popped up with minimal fuss. And this in Berlin, the city that required eight extra years – 14 in total – to open its new airport.
When Lilienthal welcomed the first batch of swimmers, the 66-year-old joked he had finally realised his childhood ambition to be a pool lifeguard. “We want to send a signal, we are starting here anew ... this is a declaration of love to the Berliners,” said Lilienthal, who worked at the Volksbühne for a decade until 2003 as deputy artistic director.
In many ways the pool is a realisation of a mantra held throughout his 40-year theatre career: better to do good social work than make bad art. To anyone who wonders what a pool has to do with theatre, Lilienthal points to the chatting people in the queue, the loungers on the deck and the crowd gathered outside to watch the swimmer spectacle.
Despite a pool depth of just 1.3m, the first swimmers are enthusiastic about this addition to the Berlin summer cityscape. “It’s very relaxing and a real happening,” said local woman Karla (34), as she completed a few cautious laps. “We’ve had people from all over the world here who’ve heard about it.”
Just as you don’t ask how Peter Pan flies, the important thing about the People’s Pool is not to question the cost – €300,000 for eight weeks’ of splashing around – within earshot of Lilienthal. Asked by one journalist whether it isn’t all a bit decadent, he bristled visibly. The bill for his pool is nothing, he said, compared with the €27 million Berlin is spending on a new motorway bridge.
As whataboutism goes, it’s not ideal: the new bridge is replacing a structure that lasted 50 years and carried nearly 200,000 cars daily. The People’s Pool, meanwhile, is open eight hours a day, five days a week and will close on October 1st.
To deflect the cost questions, Lilienthal has readied an agitprop narrative: the pool as protest against huge cuts to the city’s cultural budget in response to a state budget crisis. Again, not an ideal strategy. Berlin has 36 stages that receive some form of subsidy to help offset ticket prices and make the arts more accessible.
Alongside opera houses and concert houses, the Volksbühne is one of the most heavily-subsidised theatres. Last year it attracted about 124,000 visitors, with an average house capacity of 64 per cent. The average ticket price was €16.60 while the average subsidy per visitor was €192.40.
One leading Berlin theatre critic, who asked to remain nameless for reasons that will become obvious, told The Irish Times: “Every time I see some pretentious nonsense at the Volksbühne I just wish the box office lady had put the subsidy money in my hand and allowed me instead have a fun night somewhere else.”
The critic suggests it stretches credibility for a director on a six-figure salary to spend €300,000 on a pool for eight weeks then complain about a looming €500,000 budget cut.
Headlines about the pool are particularly hard for Berlin’s low-income independent artists. Many are struggling after disproportionately high cuts to their small grants, in particular through a €9 million cut last year to workshop and atelier subsidies.
Of course, back at the gurgling waters of the Volksbad, none of that matters. At a time of grim events such as the recent Pride parade attack, many guests say this pool is very welcome, whatever the price.
“The Volksbühne was always avant-garde,” said local man Dirk, bobbing around after his morning swim. “And if theatre is about bringing people together, then: mission accomplished.”
