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Acting Serious, Living Rationally, Thinking Gay |
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Currently appearing in As You Like It at the White Bear Theatre, London |
All Rights Reserved Text: World Copyright Martin Foreman Copyright of pictures acknowledged where possible Having problems viewing this page? It performs best in Mozilla Firefox. 
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The skies were leaden. The apartment blocks lining the streets were a lighter shade of the same grey. The streets were inexplicably empty. We passed a large power station and the entrance of an apparently deserted underground station. In the distance we could see the occasional car and pedestrian. "This is Thursday, isn't it?" I asked Chris. "The early afternoon? Near the centre of a capital city with a population of over three million people? So why does it feel like the sequel of Twenty-Eight Days Later or I am Legend?" Later we learned that there was a bus and underground strike but that was only part of the answer. We were in old East Berlin which, almost twenty years after reunification has not yet shaken off its aura of desolation. As we headed further into the heart of the city, we came to an large deserted site where a massive concrete structure was frozen in the midst of destruction, its rusting iron girders thrusting through empty space and its concrete walls silent and motionless. On Unter den Linden a few brave souls, all apparently tourists, braved the cold and wind. We found a restaurant in the basement of the the Staatsoper - State Opera. It was large, warm, baroque and empty apart from a bürgerliche couple at a well- plenished table, complete with towering glasses of beer, and two tall well-built, handsome and shaven-head waiters. We sat back on comfortable seats and worked our way through red wine, large plates of well-presented and strongly-flavoured quiche, herring, potatoes, salad, apple strudel on swirls of custard and chocolate and a cappucino. The bill came to €55 (£42, $84) for the two of us. We still didn't understand Berlin, but we knew we were beginning to like it. Daytime Berlin Berlin may be young in European terms - it only came into being in the late thirteenth century - but it is above all a city of history. That rich past can be glimpsed through many different windows...
After the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the 1920s saw great hardship, with inflation so high that it cost 2 billion marks to put a stamp on a letter. It also saw a nightlife as varied and decadent as London in the early years of the 21st century. Every self-respecting gay visitor should spend at least two hours reviewing this and other homosexual history at the Schwules (Queer) Museum.
In addition to documentation and artefacts, there are also many works of art on display. Sascha Schneider painted many pictures in the early 20th century, although modern gay men may find his models too young (see picture above). My personal preference is for Jürgen Wittdorf (see top of page). Living in East Germany, his works reflected the prevaling ideology of men from all nations working together; the only difference is the Wittdorf's men were always good-looking, frequently bare-chested and on many occasions bare-legged too. The museum website is only in German, but on site there is good detailed English guide to the permanent display. Either before or after your visit, have something to drink at the Schwuz cafe at the entrance of the Museum. It's tired and run-down, but it's been a centre of Berlin gay life for many decades. Advertised as three to four hours, we were blessed with guide Mike, an enthusiastic New Zealander who moved to Berlin five years ago to indulge his passion for German history. No detail was too small for him to pass on to us as we traipsed our way across grass and rubble, stopping to stare at building after building, monument after monument. As the tour wore on and we wore down, Mike became more and more enthusiastic, striding confidently backwards down streets as we meekly followed, his voice rising in pitch and volume as he narrated the events, almost day by day, of the final act of the German and European tragedy. More than five hours after we started, as the tour ended at the site of Hitler's bunker, we were finally able to drag ourselves away, most definitely enriched by the experience, but in dire need of food and drink...
Nighttime (Gay) Berlin The local magazines list over 200 bars, clubs, restaurants, services and shops. We sampled half a dozen of them. Our impressions? Cogai aka Co Gai Vietnamese restaurant in Bülowstrasse 9, very near the gay Nollendorfplatz district. Make sure you get a comfortable bench seat. Excellent authentic dishes and very cute waiters; we particularly liked the S&M tie that one of them was wearing. Connection bar in the appropriately named Fuggerstrasse. Nicely designed small bar and small dance floor with a racially mixed and friendly crowd. You can stay there to drink and talk, or at 0.59, enter a side door which leads to a much bigger and darker world to explore. Goya on Nollendorfplatz is a converted theatre that hosts occasional gay nights. We were there for Propaganda, billed as the gay event of the month, and we were highly impressed by the decor and balconies and video display. But the lighting was a little too bright for our taste, the go-go boys were disappointing and although there were many good-looking young men, everyone seemed a little restrained, as if Mummy and Daddy were watching and they wanted to show them that gays could be nice, respectable people too. We left around two in the morning. Maybe that was the moment when the scene came alive, but we doubt it. Heile Welt bar (Motzstrasse 9 in the Nollendorfplatz gay area) is a good local bar for those who prefer civilian gear to leather. You'll hear English as often as German. If all the comfortable seats at the front are taken, squeeze past the bottleneck (what on earth was the designer thinking about?) to relax in the smoking area at the back. Roses bar (Oranienstrasse 187, in the racially mixed Kreuzberg area) is a throwback to another era, although we are not sure what era that is. Walls and ceiling coverd in pink fur. Disco globes, fairy lights, wings on loudspeakers, comfortable chairs. Definitely for locals who know each other, but we hung around long enough to get served the ubiquitous Beck's beer. Tom's bar (Motzstrasse 19, in the Nollendorfplatz gay area). It wasn't fair to visit this bar on our last night, a Sunday, in the middle of a transport strike, before midnight. The few customers who came in, drawn to the darkroom which we didn't get round to visit, seemed to be as old as we were and no more attractive. Personally, I wouldn't go back, but it's one of the oldest bars and I know people who like it, so don't take my word for it... 
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