Second season of the ZDF series “The Palace”: Dance through the transition

“Art is a daughter of freedom.” The revue ensemble dances their hearts out in front of the famous Schiller quote. It’s about a lot, actually it’s about everything: about the existence of the (Friedrichstadt) Palace.

In Berlin in 1990, in the center of the newly reunified city, the icon of East Berlin entertainment ended up on the Senate’s infamous “wind-up list”.

Every evening, barely more than half of the more than 1,800 spectator seats are sold, and Easterners feel drawn to the entertainment of the West.

Struggle for existence

This struggle for existence forms the core event of the second season of the ZDF series “The Palace”. For six episodes, old and new ensemble members, led by the still strict Regine Feldmann (Jeanette Hain), struggle for a future together.

Intendant Bernd Colberg wants to convert the palace into a casino with a gourmet restaurant plus an attached show troupe; the traditionalists in the house see their successes, their heritage, their DNA in the greatest danger, especially since cultural snobbery more than doubts the need for a “revue theater” in Berlin becomes.

Around this nuclear reactor, dilapidated old buildings in Prenzlauer Berg are occupied and defended in street fights against real estate speculators, the Love Parade celebrates alternative forms of love and life, the monetary union makes lucrative money exchange transactions possible, and Stasi involvement also plays a role.

In this German-German time window of limited to unlimited possibilities, the palace ensemble must take fate into their own hands.

The viewer should and will recognize the series. Rodica Döhnert wrote the script again and Uli Edel directed again. Döhnert has found a clever arrangement for this.

Because ballet director Feldmann wants to set up the prestigious “Kickline” of 64 legs, new dance talents are sought and these three are found: Luise (Lary Müller) and Lukas Jansen (Lukas Brandl) as well as Karla Tanner (Taynara Silva-Wolf).

The siblings come from the Baltic Sea coast, Karla from Munich. New in Berlin, they are tossed around by the time vortex.

Ambition, competition, dalliances – Lukas and Regine Feldmann fall in love – all of this happens in front of and in the backdrop of Berlin and the palace, where hopes and fears mix.

This is negotiated more lightly than heavily, after all, the Palace series slogan is: The show must go on.

The production creates an appropriate passe-partout, also because documentary material (Love Parade!) is woven into the sequence of images.

True historical fact does not always serve as a guiding principle; the narrated and the actual history of the largest show stage in the world diverge in some places, but the basic thesis of the television narrative is correct.

After reunification, the continued existence of the palace was seriously endangered and how the icon of the East finally developed into an institution in the new Berlin could become the subject of a third season.

Good Ossis, bad Wessis

“The Palace”, sometimes touted by ZDF as a “successful series” and sometimes as an “event series”, in the current sequel caresses the East German soul extensively, but the “Wessis”, by director Bernd Colberg (Benno Führmann with a dangerous shark-like smile), Senator for Culture Peter Balthar-Rönkil (Bernhard Schir with a weathervane attitude) to the real estate raffles act consistently unsympathetic.

The good guys, the young dance guard and the long-established residents meet in the old Prenzlauer Berg building. Martha Buschkowski (Jutta Wachowiak) and Erwin Schulz (Axel Werner) are focused on the future when it comes to German marks, secure living space and relationships.

In the ballet director Regine Feldmann’s life, the passages of time come together, whether they are private or the future of the palace.

Jeanette Hain gives the character the necessary liability and attitude, author Rocida Döhnert gives her the best dialogues, where otherwise there would be a rustling of paper.

The couple Theo Kupfer (Bernd Moss) and Bernd Meister (Matthias Matschke) shine again as sidekicks in the palace circle. With Lary Müller as Luise Jansen, Lukas Brandl as brother Lukas and Taynara Silva-Wolf as a quite cunning ensemble novice, the dancing skills are more convincing than the acting ones.

But what is impressive despite all the pros and cons are the dance scenes with their perfect choreography, dazzling costume party and immense presence. Here, Uli Edel’s otherwise solid direction shows fireworks of opulence.

There cannot be more or better advertising for the fictional “Palace” and the real Friedrichstadt Palace. And there is lasting evidence of how disastrous it would have been for the Revue Palace if the opening of the Wall had closed its gates.