Literature - Series (4) "Polifon Pervers" pokes fun at the cultural sector
Author and theater man Béla Rothenbühler tells a mischievous theater fairy 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.
07.11.2024, 11:17
SDA
Over white wine and good humour, the two friends Sabine and Schanti found an association with which they want to realize theater projects. "Ergend öppis mösme jo mache", 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 the two were even able to pay themselves wages and afford a dramaturge.
High stakes
Lucerne author and dramaturge Béla Rothenbühler knows a lot about theater. He knows what is important: the play, 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 play high stakes. While one makes bold promises, the other struggles for a while with quiet scruples. Gradually, however, Sabine also acquires a taste for it. She discovers the social security of entertainers, including hemp farmers, as a second lucrative business area
Everything that the two of them concoct over a glass of wine and foist on the cultural sponsors seems to work. Only those who think they are too confident are in danger of becoming overconfident. "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 even more so at the policy of a 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 of the everyday life of independent cultural creation. The hardships and setbacks remain hidden between the lines until they finally break open and cause the enterprise 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 best ideas come 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.
