Bennewitz, Goethe, 'Faust': German and Intercultural Stagings 9781442695900

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BENNEWITZ, GOETHE, FAUST German and Intercultural Stagings

GERMAN AND EUROPEAN STUDIES General Editor: Rebecca Wittmann

Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust German and Intercultural Stagings

DAVID G. JOHN

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2012 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-4333-8

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. German and European Studies

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication John, David G. (David Gethin), 1947– Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust : German and intercultural stagings / David G. John. (German and European studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-4333-8 1. Bennewitz, Fritz, 1926–1995 – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749–1832. Faust. 3. Theater – Germany – History – 20th century. 4. Intercultural communication in the performing arts – Germany. 5. Theatrical producers and directors – Germany – Biography. I. Title. II. Series: German and European studies PN2658.B46J64 2012

792.02′33092

C2011-907909-7

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.

Catharinae

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Abbreviations xi Introduction

3

Part I Fritz Bennewitz 1 Persona and Theory 17 2 Peers: Interviews with Erika Stephan, Dieter Görne, and Wolfgang Engel 44 Part II The German Stagings of Faust: Chronicle of a Society 3 Hooray for Socialism! Weimar 1965/67 71 4 Hooray for Socialism? Weimar 1975 103 5 Socialism? Weimar 1981/82 129 6 ‘Alles für die Katz’: Meiningen 1995 160 Part III The Intercultural Stagings of Faust 7 The First Black Gretchen: New York 1978 183 8 The Hindu Faust: Bombay 1994 205 9 The Christian Faust: Manila 1994 232 10 From Loyalist to Intercultural Pioneer 264

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Contents

Appendix 1. Fritz Bennewitz: Biographical Highlights 271 Appendix 2. Fritz Bennewitz’s Travels 274 Appendix 3. Plays Directed by Fritz Bennewitz 277 Appendix 4. Holdings of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive 285 Bibliography: Archival and Other Unpublished Sources Bibliography: Reviews 296 Bibliography: All Other Published Sources 303 Index

313

Illustrations follow page 204

289

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the following for their generous support, advice, and assistance: Rolf Rohmer, former intendant of the Deutsches Theater, Berlin; Rector of the Theaterhochschule, Leipzig; Professor of the History and Theory of Modern Theatre at the Theaterhochschule, Leipzig; a close friend of Bennewitz; and founder and curator of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive in Leipzig. He has been most forthcoming in granting me liberal access to the archival materials, despite the absence of supervisory staff, and a mine of informed advice. Dorothee Aders, Berlin Devendra Raj Ankur, New Delhi Hans Adler, Madison, Wisconsin Dirk Angelroth, Manila Rustom Bharucha, Kolkata Frank Boblenz, Weimar Helena Calogeridis, Waterloo Anne Rosette G. Crelencia, Manila Wolfgang Engel, Leipzig Brenda V. Fajardo, Manila Elke Fiedler, Meiningen Karen Francisco, Berlin Renate Frank, Leipzig Christoph Funke, Berlin Dieter Görne, Dresden

Karl-Christian Gürtler, Weimar Saskya Jain, Berlin Grit Kurth, Weimar Mirabel Legarda, Manila Grit Liebscher, Waterloo Juliane Lukas, Weimar Konstanze Mach-Meyerhofer, Berlin Shrimathi Madiman, Mumbai Erin B. Mee, Swarthmore, PA Vijaya Mehta, Mumbai Waltraut Mertes, Weimar Karl Obermanns, Babelsberg Lulu Paleczny, Waterloo Albert R. Pasch, Meiningen Ozzie Rodriguez, New York Marlies Ruß, Munich

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Dietrich and Sigrid Schade, Berlin Anandita Sharma, Dusseldorf James M. Skidmore, Waterloo Erika Stephan, Weimar

Helgrid Streidt, Berlin Petra Stuber, Leipzig Rodney Symington, Victoria Peter Ullrich, Berlin Christa Zagermann, Meiningen

Akademie der Künste, Theatersammlung, Berlin Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv, Berlin Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Babelsberg Deutsches Nationaltheater, Archiv, Weimar Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Weimar Humboldt Universitätsbliothek, Berlin La MaMa E.T.C. Archive, New York National Centre for the Performing Arts Archive, Mumbai National Library of the Philippines, Manila Porter Library, University of Waterloo Thüringisches Haupststaatsarchiv, Weimar David G. John University of Waterloo, Canada

Abbreviations

AdK

Akademie der Künste, Theaterarchiv. Robert-Koch-Platz 10, 10115 Berlin CETA Comprehensive Employment Training Act (U.S.) DGJ Private holding of the author DNT Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar DRA Stiftung Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Standort Babelsberg, Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 20, 14482 Potsdam-Babelsberg FBA Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, August-Bebel-Straße 54, 04275 Leipzig FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend FiW Faust in Weimar ISAM Institute for Studies in American Music iTi International Theatre Institute LMA La MaMa ETC, 74A East 4th St., New York, NY, 10003 NCPA National Centre for the Performing Arts, India. Library: Nariman Point, Mumbai 400 021, India NFG Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten, Weimar NSD National School of Drama, New Delhi, India PETA Philippine Educational Theatre Association SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands TAZ Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung (Erfurt) THW Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar, Marstallstraße 2, 99423 Weimar TLZ Thüringer Landeszeitung (Weimar) WA Weimarer or Sophienausgabe of Goethes Werke, 1887–1919

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Introduction

Prominent and lesser-known playwrights of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) turned frequently to the use of classical adaptation to create metaphors for the exploration of intellectual, social, and political conditions in their country. In doing so, they were able to engage the stage in a dialogue with its audiences despite the increasingly watchful eye of state censors. Their use of classical themes and models was also in keeping with the official GDR doctrine on the sustenance and development of the arts, which included an unabashed commitment to classical theatre as a vehicle to educate the citizenry, and while the works included classical dramas from both German and foreign legacies, the former meant Goethe above all (Emmerich 2000, 84–6). Dramatic renditions of the figure of Faust were popular, with treatments such as Hanns Eisler’s opera libretto Johann Faustus (1952) and Volker Braun’s Hans Faust (1968), recast as Hinze und Kunze (1973); as were dramatic adaptations of Goethe’s works, such as Karl Mickel’s Nausikäa (1968), Ulrich Plenzdorf’s Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (1972), Peter Hacks’s Jahrmarksfest zu Plündersweilen (1975), and even a highly popular biographical play by Hacks about Goethe and his inner social circle, Ein Gespräch im Hause Stein über den abwesenden Herrn Goethe (1976). The ‘Goethe industry’ was also a massive source of income and national pride for the GDR through its complete control of the almost sacred cultural centre of Weimar after the country’s division, the mecca of Goethe scholars and sentimental enthusiasts internationally. GDR reverence for Goethe had many dimensions, but its highest level was the staging of his Faust. Because it is so respected and so multifaceted, Faust offered a perfect medium for theatre directors and intendants to confront their own social history with the safety net of Goethe’s unquestioned legitimacy, and

4

Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust

they could massage their staging to that end. For the governing Socialist Unity Party (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) and its numerous politically loyal theatre directors, Faust was a perfect tool for state propaganda, an incontestable literary legacy utilized for political purposes. Beyond that, one of the reasons Goethe’s Faust has become a classic of the world stage is that much of it is ambivalent, polyvalent, self-contradictory, dialectical, unclear, even opaque, and thus a perfect medium for nuance and irony, the sophisticated tools of both artistic exploration and social commentary. For many directors and theatres in the GDR, then, stagings of Faust were both an exploration of ideas that were far from empty symbolism and at the same time an opportunity to pose questions and voice criticism with relative impunity. With a population that ranged from nineteen million in 1948 to sixteen million in 1990, the GDR boasted an unusually large number of subsidized theatres, approximately sixty-eight stages and two hundred other performance spaces, more than any other country in the world in relation to its population; see Handbuch Deutsche Demokratische Republik (hereafter Handbuch, 1984, 598) and Emmerich (2000, 348). GDR citizens were among the world’s leading theatregoers. The stage was clearly a vehicle not just for entertainment, but for social education and indoctrination. The massive state support enjoyed by these theatres came at the expense of censorship, ultimate external control, and the responsibility to propagate the state’s sociopolitical agenda. Very soon after 1949, the year the GDR was founded, specific theatres and directors became identified either with hard party-line stagings or risky, even daring interpretations that engaged in an ongoing critical discourse with citizens and politicians. Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble and the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, under various directors, are notable examples of the latter, but other theatres such as the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, Schauspiel Leipzig, and the Staatsschauspiel Dresden also represented pockets of social criticism and potential rebellion. One theatre that has never been included in the group walking that fine line between political conformity and critical dialogue is Weimar’s Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT), whose singular importance is indicated by its name. Initially, Fritz Bennewitz (1926–1995; see Appendix 1 for biographical highlights) was generally not interested in using the stage to political ends. He was thus a perfect fit for the DNT. Weimar carried the tradition of being a classical and humanistic centre, and not just because the GDR wished to gain notice and international favour by cultivating it. The tradition had existed from Goethe’s time through the Weimar Re-

Introduction

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public. Despite Bennewitz’s loyalty to GDR ideals and politics, the texts themselves of the authors he dramatized were always the driving force behind his interpretations, not matters external to them. By contrast, some notable GDR Faust stagings foregrounded social criticism, for example, Brecht and Egon Monk’s representation of the protagonist as an irresponsible egoist in their Urfaust of 1952/53 in the Schiffbauerdamm (soon thereafter the Berliner Ensemble); Adolf Dresen and Wolfgang Heinz’s Faust I in the Deutsches Theater Berlin in 1968, whose negative, pessimistic protagonist and suicide attempt were anathema to socialist party ethics and thus resulted in the production’s censorship and closure before Part II was even performed; Christoph Schroth’s genial Faust of 1979 in the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, in which Faust was depicted as racked with self-doubt; and Wolfgang Engel’s Dresden production of both parts in the reunification year 1989 which included four protagonists who symbolized the uncertainty and Angst of the socialist country in its final years. Bennewitz directed seven different stagings of Faust, four of them with both parts, in five different countries and in four languages; one of them ran for ninety-seven performances, in the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar (from 1981 to 1994). This book has three purposes. First, it documents Bennewitz’s seven stagings of Faust in some detail, for it is my belief that his accomplishment in directing Goethe’s Faust is unique in theatre history. I hope that other scholars will be stimulated to turn their attention to Bennewitz’s work, and not only his Faust stagings, but also his many hundreds of other productions, his extensive intercultural work abroad, and especially his work in India (see Appendix 2 and Appendix 3). Second, it is an attempt to interpret Bennewitz’s four German productions of Faust as a reflection of the sociopolitical development of the German Democratic Republic and the new united Germany in its early years. Third, on the basis of his three stagings of Faust abroad, this book explores the concepts of intercultural exchange to determine the extent to which Bennewitz contributed to them, concepts that in recent years have become recognized as essential for our understanding of the world. This group of seven stagings of Faust from the hand of a single director who produced them in both Germanies and three other far-flung countries, the United States, India, and the Philippines, offers an unusual opportunity to explore Goethe’s classic drama in artistic, political, and cultural terms, both in Germany and internationally. To my knowledge, beyond my own work, no scholarly studies of Bennewitz’s accomplishment have been published.

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Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust

This scant critical reception in academic circles, both East and West, suggests that despite his lifelong contribution to German and international theatre, Bennewitz’s output was insignificant for the development of the German drama on stage. This I do not believe, and I suggest here three reasons why Bennewitz’s work remains largely unrecognized: • Since the reunification, western Germany has been generally indifferent to East German history, including theatre history, and sceptical of its artistic accomplishments because they were tainted by socialist politics and the aesthetics of socialist realism. For many Westerners, the GDR was for years, and for some still is, an economic embarrassment and a focus of frustration because of the Western investments required for the East’s economic recovery. • Since Bennewitz was a not just an East German director, but was personally committed to the political and social ideals of that state, many Westerners have refused to take him seriously or investigate the possibility that he made a worthwhile artistic contribution; and Easterners who admired his work no longer had credibility in the new Germany. • After five years in Meiningen, Bennewitz spent almost his entire career at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar. For some of his East German theatre colleagues, this indicated an acceptance of the political norm of the GDR, a reluctance to challenge it, and the production of second-rate work. As the iconical stage of the East, the function of Weimar was always to be an exemplary organ of the state, not its critic. Weimar was to propagate the classical myth and cultivate the classical Erbe, a role rightly regarded with some cynicism in both East and West. I believe, however, and intend to show through his three productions of Faust in Weimar and one in Meiningen, in the united Germany, that Bennewitz used these stages and this work to criticize social developments in the GDR and then the reunited Germany, hence contributing to the public debate about its future; moreover, that Bennewitz’s three stagings of Faust in other lands show unique evidence of intercultural innovation and pioneering. Bennewitz’s three Weimar stagings of Faust I and II were each radically different, playing to thousands in very long runs, something few if any of his peers could boast. What is more, within the twenty-five

Introduction

7

years that the three productions span, the thematic development of the work and its protagonist make these much more than individual Faust stagings. They represent, in fact, an historical trilogy recording the evolution of the German Democratic Republic and that is how I shall interpret them. Whatever one’s judgment of the GDR and its social politics, Bennewitz’s three Weimar productions of Faust provide scholars with a singular body of evidence through which that country expressed itself, on its own self-appointed national stage, through Germany’s most vaunted literary work. This is a piece of unique artistic history. His fourth, Faust I and II of 1995 in Meiningen, produced within the context of the new united Germany, offers an instructive contrast to that cluster. Bennewitz’s stagings of Faust abroad, in English (New York), Hindi (Bombay), and Tagalog (Manila), posed questions that transcended their predecessors, questions relating to international and intercultural issues and artistic styles. They also direct us to consider his staging of Faust in a much broader context, for concurrently, between 1970 and 1994 Bennewitz directed dozens of plays in fourteen countries worldwide, most of them in the local language, a stunning achievement for an artist living under the travel restrictions of the GDR. Most of these were works by Brecht and Shakespeare. His directing career in India, a country that he visited eighteen times, remains particularly stunning. In terms of his international theatre work with Faust, Brecht, Shakespeare, and many more plays and authors, I would claim that Bennewitz towers above any other German director, including Peter Stein. This book is organized into four parts. The first offers information on Fritz Bennewitz himself, because there is so little available, and his approach to theatre and to interculturalism. There follow in this part interviews about his life and work with two prominent theatre practitioners and one distinguished theatre critic of the former GDR: Dieter Görne, who collaborated as dramaturge with Bennewitz on his first two Weimar stagings of Faust and was intendant of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden from 1990 until 2001, when he retired; Wolfgang Engel, who is an actor and director, and from 1995 to 2008 was intendant of Schauspiel Leipzig (now Centraltheater Leipzig; see Engel and Stephan 2007); and Erika Stephan, who was one of the most prominent GDR theatre critics from the 1960s to the reunification and, although officially retired since 1989, is still active in the field. Parts II and III of this book describe and discuss Bennewitz’s four German and three foreign stagings of Faust. A single thesis connects them: although the Fausts in America, India, and the Philippines automatically invoke the notion

8

Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust

of intercultural theatre, the facts that Bennewitz’s German productions of Faust were performed in two different Germanies, and that East Germany in the mid-1960s was a very different place from what it was in the 1980s, give a dimension of interculturality to those productions as well. This book’s final chapter, ‘From Loyalist to Intercultural Pioneer,’ serves as a summary and conclusion. It assesses Bennewitz’s contribution to intercultural exchange in his time before projecting it into our own and the numerous variants on the concept of interculturalism that have developed since his death. Finally, Part IV provides the documentation through extensive Appendices and a Bibliography. I apply various research methodologies in this book. Since one of its main purposes is to introduce Bennewitz to the fields of German and theatre studies, the chapters in Part I take biographical and historiographical approaches. The chapters in Parts II and III combine these with performance analysis. As the information on much of what I offer is unpublished and available only in archives, I substantiate a great deal of what I write through unpublished archival material, as indicated in the Bibliography. For theatre researchers, historiography is commonly understood to deal with events of the past that are gone forever, and questions about them spring from documents about those events, even if the researcher did not take part in the events themselves. Performance analysis, by contrast, is commonly understood to have its point of departure in the immediate experience of participating in the event. Here lies a problem, for in most cases this is what scholars lack. The problem is addressed in part by resorting to films, audio- and videotapes, notes, interviews, and other records concurrent with the performance or conducted soon afterward. Historiography and performance analysis become intertwined. That is the case in my investigation, since I saw none of the performances live but have had the good fortune to gain access to them through voluminous contemporary documents, post-performance interviews, and videotapes of the performances themselves. I agree with theatre semiotician Erika Fischer-Lichte when she insists, in The Show and the Gaze of Theatre: A European Perspective, that we must be careful about drawing strict borderlines between historiography and performance, for a blend of the two is valuable (1997, 11–12). Besides documenting the peformances, I therefore also conduct performance analyses of the stagings of Faust that Bennewitz directed, and when doing so apply the principles that cultural anthropologist and theatre practitioner Richard Schechner describes in his volumes Performance Theory ([1977] 1988), Between Theater and Anthropology (1985),

Introduction

9

and Performance Studies (2006). These have been supplemented by the work of others, most importantly Marvin Carlson’s emphasis on places of performance. The enduring influence on performance studies by Fischer-Lichte, Schechner, and Carlson is evident by their inclusion among the luminaries of performance theory in Philip Auslander’s four-volume collection of essays, Performance: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies (2005), in essence an anthology of the best on that subject. Bennewitz was a contemporary of Schechner’s, yet to my knowledge there is no mention of the American scholar among the materials in the Fritz Bennewitz Archive (FBA) in Leipzig, and to my inquiry in April 2000 about Bennewitz’s Faust, Professor Schechner replied helpfully that he knew who Bennewitz was but had never met him or seen anything he directed. Still, the parallels between their approaches to intercultural theatre are striking. Both also developed an intense interest in India and were active about the same time there, each insisting on the necessity to live in that culture for extended periods before becoming involved in its theatre. In 1976 Schechner even converted to Hinduism and described that experience in his later writings, for example, The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and Performance (1993, 1–4) and Performative Circumstances: From the Avant Garde to Ramlila (1983). It is suggested in Bennewitz’s letters that he also felt drawn to those beliefs and practices. Further, they both directed in Hindi, and Schechner’s home town of New York became a venue for Bennewitz’s Faust. While there is no record that either of the directors acknowledged the other publicly, some knowledgeable individuals in the theatre were aware of their connected approaches. In the post-performance discussion to Bennewitz’s Faust I in New York (1978) at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, reference was made to the parallel nature of their work. An eloquent speaker, recorded as Father Murphy, presumably a professor at Georgetown, saw Schechner’s work on stage, and likewise Bennewitz’s, as hermeneutic exercises, or ‘the fine art of interpreting a drama again and again, in a new time and in a new space’ (Georgetown Faust Video, 1). To understand performance, Schechner insists that we consider not just the performance on stage but ‘the whole performance sequence’ or all phases of preparation, performance, and post-performance release (1985, 16–21; 2006, 3, 225–50). His approach, well known and respected now for three decades, prescribes six avenues of inquiry to investigate performance: the dramatic and performance texts, the actors and director, the warm-up and rehearsals, the audience, the post-performance

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Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust

cool-down of the cast and production team, and the public critical reception. Marvin Carlson (1990, 1996, 2001), as well an esteemed performance analyst, besides adding the dimensions of performance space and place, along with Michael Quinn (1990) added the notion of celebrity. Schechner’s performance theory and methodology, and their extensions by others, do not require that all elements be pursued in every case, for the information to do so may not always be available, or some elements may not be relevant, so researchers are encouraged to pursue in each case those that prove fruitful, an approach to which I adhere. A basic question addressed in each chapter is the extent to which the performance reflects Goethe’s original text. Each analysis devotes some attention to Bennewitz’s director’s book (Strichbuch) and the emendations he made to Goethe’s text in it. In each case, this was the first major step towards the ultimate text performed or ‘performance text.’ Schechner uses the term ‘performance text’ to mean ‘all that happens during a performance both onstage and off, including audience participation’ (1985, 22), which he derives from theatre semiotician Patrice Pavis’s definition of the six kinds of texts used in theatre (1982, 160). I use this approach when finally defining the notion of the performance text of each example. While the first major step towards this from Goethe’s original was the director’s initial decisions regarding cuts and reorganization, thereafter, in the rehearsal phase, there were constant adjustments as a result of the actors’ input and all the other elements of performance, including the stage and its systems, the mise en scène, the actors’ kinetics, and the elements beyond the stage, the audience and critics, for Bennewitz’s performance texts were often adjusted in midstream as the entire performance grew. Schechner was, and remains, devoted to intercultural theatre, standing behind the credo: ‘Intercultural themes are present in my directing, my writings, and my hopes for the future of the world’ (1991, 308). Carl Weber (1991) expressed similar views in discussion with theatre practitioners in twentieth-century Western society who use foreign, especially Asian, impulses as models; he draws a line from Brecht to Artaud, Grotowski, Brook, Schechner, and I would add Bennewitz. Unlike Schechner, Bennewitz wrote no systematic theory about directing or staging either German or intercultural theatre, although he discussed many aspects of these in his voluminous correspondence, personal notations, and many (non-published) essays. The final chapter of this book attempts to redress this by providing a distillation of his contri-

Introduction

11

butions to the intercultural dialogue and arguing that Fritz Bennewitz deserves a place alongside those listed above. Documentation Many of the sources of information for this book are archival and unpublished. Many are located in the Fritz Bennewitz Archive in Leipzig and the Theaterdokumentationsstelle of the Akademie der Künste (AdK), Berlin, formerly connected to the East German version of the Academy, since the reunification to the combined Academy. Originally founded and organized by the Fritz-Bennewitz-Verein (Association) in the years immediately following its namesake’s death, the holdings of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive were organized by Renate Frank and are made available to interested scholars by the founder and curator of the archive Rolf Rohmer ([email protected]). The association now holds the legal rights to the administration of archive materials and Dr Rohmer is generous in arranging access. The current chair of the association is Jens-Uwe Günther, a musician and musical director who worked closely with Bennewitz in Weimar and composed and arranged for his stagings of Faust. The archive, located at August-Bebel-Straße 54, 04275 Leipzig, is financed by donations from association members, and its maintenance continues on that basis. The voluminous materials there fill the shelves of one narrow room approximately sixteen metres square. Although Dr Frank made admirable progress in organizing the materials into major groupings, time and funds did not allow her and others to completely catalogue items individually, a laborious task that would include thousands of pieces. The effort to organize and begin cataloguing continues, but in a limited fashion, and the end is currently not in sight. As a result, studies such as mine, which refer to and cite many specific documents in the archive, cannot make precise catalogue references, but those to which I refer appear in the Bibliography, so that they can be located in the archive by researchers. For their orientation, I have provided a brief overview of the FBA holdings in Appendix 4. All published and unpublished works cited appear in the Bibliography. Many of the latter are housed in the FBA, some are in other archival collections or in the author’s possession. Bennewitz was a man with an almost fanatical compulsion to document everything, often typing and updating by retyping long lists of major activities, tasks performed, schedules, and the like. One reason

12

Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust

for this was his obligation to notify GDR authorities of his activities, particularly those abroad, but such detail was also in his very nature. As well, he had a driving need to commit his thoughts and theories to paper, leaving a host of miniature commentaries and theoretical discourses on the theatre and cultural affairs, most of which are engaging and illuminating, but also often repetitive. Some of these are handwritten, most are typed, single-spaced, sometimes even on both sides of the page, which makes reading difficult. Bennewitz seems to have saved most of the letters he received and copies of many that he sent. His prolixity is further evident from a number of audio- and videotaped interviews. Bennewitz’s three Weimar stagings of Faust were documented extensively in printed, handwritten, photographed, audiotaped, and videotaped form, but only partially in published form by the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, and of that a relatively small part. There is the extensive published documentation of his 1981/82 Weimar Faust (see Faust in Weimar 1981/82). The 1965/67 and 1975 productions were documented by dramaturge Dieter Görne, but this body of knowledge has never been published as a complete unit, although some parts appeared as newspaper articles. Hence, Görne’s unpublished documentation, housed in the theatre collection of the Akademie der Künste, in Berlin, remains the most important source for research on the first two productions; these materials are to be found in the Bibliography against his name as separate critical works (see Görne, ed., ‘Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Faust I und II’), and hereafter will be cited for the 1965/67 production as (Görne, Sig. 3a, 46/1 or 2) and for the 1975 production as (Görne, Sig. 166a and b). Documentation for the 1982 publication (Faust in Weimar) is available in numerous locations, including Berlin’s Humboldt University library. Of course, there were many newspaper reviews of all three of Bennewitz’s Weimar stagings of Faust, as well as the others, which can still be consulted today, and they are included in the Bibliography (under ‘Reviews of Bennewitz’s Productions of Faust’). One of the most important documents in any performance study is the director’s book, or Strichbuch, as well as those of others in the directing and technical crew. In the case of Bennewitz’s Weimar productions of Faust, partly because of the vagaries of history connected with the collapse of the GDR, reunification, and the consolidation of archival materials, some of the director’s books have migrated from their original home in the DNT archive in Weimar, or indeed Bennewitz’s

Introduction

13

personal possession, to several other archives, including foremost the Fritz Bennewitz Archive in Leipzig, the theatre collection of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, and the Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Weimar (THW). This situation has been further complicated by the melding of former East and West German holdings of the AdK which has required some reorganization and relocation of materials, during which time they have not always been accessible to scholars. Indeed, the curators of some of these collections themselves are not certain of the holdings and whereabouts of the complete set of Bennewitz’s director’s books; unfortunately, some might indeed have been lost in the shuffle of time and the redefined authority and statehood. Fortunately, much of Bennewitz’s Faust opus has been preserved on videotape, including the complete Weimar Fausts of 1965/67 and 1975, the first part of the 1981/82 production, excerpts of the New York (1978) and Bombay (1994) Fausts, and the complete Fausts of Manila (1994) and Meiningen (1995). Even for modern times, this is a remarkable record of preservation, which attests to the dedicated following Frtiz Bennewitz had. All of these video recordings are important parts of the following chapters.

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PART I Fritz Bennewitz

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1 Persona and Theory

Slim Recognition For a man who was prominent on the East German and international theatre scenes for more than thirty years, who held the position as resident director of Weimar’s Nationaltheater for most of that time, who directed over a hundred plays there and dozens performed on other East German, West German, and international stages, biographical information on Fritz Bennewitz in theatre lexica is surprisingly slim. Brief, if incomplete, overviews of his career do appear in Rischbieter’s Theater-Lexikon (1983), Baumgartner and Hebig’s Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ/DDR (1996), Trilse-Finkelstein and Hammer’s Lexikon Theater International (1995), Sucher’s Theaterlexikon (1999), and Lal’s Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre (2004). An appreciative account of his early career years can be found in Erck, Erck, and Schaefer’s Kunst und Künstler in Meiningen 1945–1981, where a convincing argument based on statistics of repertoire and audience expansion is made to demonstrate Bennewitz’s great contribution to the development of that eminent theatre centre (1982, 34). But Bennewitz’s name is not even listed in many other theatre lexica or historical studies of German and even East German theatre. There exist no comprehensive scholarly studies of his accomplishments as a director, nor even partial ones, the closest being an article by the prominent East German theatre critic Erika Stephan, ‘Am wichtigsten ist der Dialog’ in Die deutsche Bühne (1995). Bennewitz’s work has been the subject of an unpublished East German Master’s thesis by Monika Hartmann (1967), and extensive commentary on his earliest Weimar Faust production is included in two unpublished major studies of Faust productions in the GDR generally: Helmut

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Fritz Bennewitz

Pollow’s Habilitationsschrift of 1971, revised into an unpublished book manuscript (n.d.), and Dieter Görne’s doctoral dissertation, ‘Erbe und Gegenwart: Zur “Faust”-Rezeption durch das sozialistische Theater der DDR (Leipzig-Weimar-Berlin-Halle)’ (1975a). While Bennewitz’s Weimar Faust production of 1981/82 is extensively documented in published form, this set of six volumes provides limited critical insight, for all of the contributing authors were GDR citizens or functionaries, and the volumes were produced for the most part to celebrate German classical literary tradition and to demonstrate that the Faust at hand made a contribution to the socialist mission of the GDR; see Faust in Weimar (1981/82), hereafter cited as FiW 81/82. All seven of Bennewitz’s stagings of Faust were widely reviewed, and newspapers and East German theatre journals published many commentaries and testimonials by and about him, but none of these could be called objective critical assessments or scholarship either. Critical attention afforded Bennewitz in the West has also been sparse indeed. Deborah Viëtor-Engländer’s study Faust in der DDR (1987) accords Bennewitz’s three Weimar productions of Faust together no more than one page. Daniel J. Farrelly’s Goethe in East Germany (1998) contains only a brief mention of his work. Peter Ullrich and Wolfgang Wöhlert’s sixty-page overview of German theatre (1998) and Günther Mahal’s ‘Goethes Faust auf dem deutschen Theater des 20. Jahrhunderts’ (1999) offer much the same. Only Bernd Mahl, in his 1998 Goethe’s Faust auf der Bühne (1806–1998) does a little better, with brief descriptions of all three of Bennewitz’s Weimar Faust stagings. Most surprisingly, Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer’s stimulating collection of essays on intercultural productions of Faust in the 1990s, Im Auftrieb: Grenzüberschreitungen mit Goethes ‘Faust’ in Inszenierungen der neunziger Jahre, accords Bennewitz only the briefest of mentions (2002, 222), and even in Ulrich Kühn’s article on productions by East Germans in the GDR there is only reference to his first Weimar Faust of 1965/67 (2002, 57). Biography1 Fritz Bennewitz was born into a working family in Chemnitz on 20 January 1926, the only child of Adolf Kurt Bennewitz, a metalworker

1 A brief survey of the biographical highlights of Bennewitz’s life can be found in Appendix 1.

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and locomotive driver, and Marie Johanne (Häcker), a seamstress. He remained single throughout his life, a cautious homosexual, partly as a matter of necessity in the early decades of the German Democratic Rrepublic, where for many years homosexuality was legally forbidden and always officially viewed with disapproval. Most, if not all, of Bennewitz’s theatre colleagues knew of his inclination but it was not of particular interest or concern to them. For decades he lived with Frau Waltraut Mertes, long-time secretary to the intendant of the Weimar Nationaltheater, who had lost her husband, and with whom he gradually shared a deep affection and sense of loyalty. In his youth he attended the Volks- and Oberschulen in Chemnitz and from 1936 to 1944 he was a member of the Hitlerjugend, as were most boys of his generation, having no particular function in that organization until 1943 when he was called up for military service as a labourer (Arbeitsmann) in the army and then as a sea cadet. In 1944 he became a reserve officer’s assistant in the navy and worked in the home flak battery, at the same time briefly joining the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeitspartei, i.e., Nazi) party as of 20 April 1944 (Kappelt 2009, 269). During this time he became engaged to Cornelia Brenner, but they did not marry. From April 1945 until June 1947 he was a prisoner of war near Waidhausen in the camps of Saaralpen, Marlebach, and Sankt Arnold, where he toiled as a coalminer and then worked for half a year as a messenger for the French civil affairs office. Already during his captivity as a prisoner of war, Faust became a staple of Bennewitz’s intellectual and emotional, perhaps even spiritual nourishment, although he would have rejected the last. Much later, in a speech given in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he recalled, ‘Zwei Jahre arbeitete ich als Kriegsgefangener in einer Kohlengrube und während ich auf die Einfahrt bis auf 850 Meter Tiefe wartete, zum Flöz und in den Tunnel, las ich, die Grubenlampe zwischen den Knieen, Goethes Faust und lernte ihn auswendig. … Sonntags teilte ich mir eine Hütte mit einem Priester – er hielt dort seine Morgenpredigt, ich rezitierte am Abend Goethes Faust’ (Rohmer 1994, 1). Faust became his secular parallel to the Christian homily. The little edition he read in that tunnel, his ‘Feldpostausgabe’ (Berlin: Hyperion, n.d.) with tiny print and a hand-sewn cloth backing, lies among the memorabilia of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive today. Released from Saaralpen on 22 June 1947, Bennewitz returned home, completed the Abitur in 1948, and enrolled in the Vorstudienanstalt für das Arbeiter- und Bauernstudium (VOSTA). Already in 1947 he had begun to teach litera-

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ture, transferring to the Arbeiter- und Bauernfakultät in Leipzig in 1949. His rapidly blossoming academic and professional career testified to his acute intelligence and growing endurance, both qualities that were lauded by contemporaries at home and abroad throughout his life. The new socialist state was also implementing its policy of providing opportunities to the offspring of workers, and discrimination against the middle and intellectual class. This is a matter of history, and individuals such as Bennewitz could hardly be faulted for seizing their chance. From 1949 to 1953 he studied Germanistik and philosophy in Leipzig and in tandem Theaterwissenschaft at the Deutsches Theaterinstitut in Weimar, there completing his diploma. During this time he became chief instructor (Lehrstuhlleiter) of the SED’s Central Party School for Art and Literature Rosa Luxembourg in Erfurt, and from 1953 to 1955 lecturer in aesthetics and theatre at the Theaterhochschule in Leipzig. He completed his studies in culture, literature, and philosophy at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and thereafter theatre studies at the Deutsches Theaterinstitut in Weimar and Hans Otto Theaterhochschule in Leipzig, where he also lectured in aesthetics and theatre. At first opportunity in 1948 Bennewitz joined the newly formed and governing Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands and continued his membership uninterrupted until its dissolution soon after the reunification of Germany. His loyalty right through to 1989 clearly indicated his heartfelt commitment to that party and its ideals. From 1948 he was also a member of the Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, from 1949 the Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft, from 1948 to 1953 the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), in 1950 a director of the FDJ-Schulgruppe at the Deutsches Theaterinstitut in Leipzig, in 1951 the same at the Deutsches Theaterinstitut in Weimar, and from 1960 to 1990 a member of the SED regional directorship in Weimar with various terms as city representative and several years as member of the DNT’s Kampfgruppe. From 1955 to 1960 Bennewitz was the chief director (Oberspielleiter) of the Meininger Theater, where he created a sensation with his direction of the first East German production of Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper in 1958, an event to be paralleled in New Delhi some sixteen years later. He was ambitious at this early stage in his career, wanting to make a name as a director in Berlin, which all acknowledged to be his profession’s highest rung in that state, and he tried his hand there in 1959 with a daring direction of Peter Hax’s Briquettes, later titled Die Sorgen um die Macht, but it was not well received. Still, his reputation from Meiningen secured him a position at the Deutsches

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Nationaltheater in Weimar, where he directed from 1960 to 1975, becoming senior director in 1975 until 1992 when, as in so many former East German organizations, the management and artistic staff were purged. During these years he served further as a member and vicepresident of the International Theatre Institute (iTi, from 1969), consultant on the iTi committee on the Third World (1972–84), and as a director on the boards of the German Shakespeare Society and friendship society DDR-India. In 1992, his sixty-seventh year, when his long service for East Germany’s national theatre in Weimar was terminated, he focused his final efforts on new Faust productions in Bombay, Manila, and Meiningen, and during the last died of cancer on 12 September 1995. Fritz Bennewitz directed more than a hundred plays and operas in Weimar and more than twenty television productions of theatre works. In Weimar and Leipzig he also co-directed with visiting colleagues the Indian Sanskrit classics Mudrarakshasa and Hayavadana (in Weimar in 1976 and 1984) and Shakuntala (in Leipzig in 1980), using German casts (Lal 2004, 45), as well as bringing the Indian-cast Chalk Circle adaptation Ajab Nyaya Vartulacha, in Marathi, to the annual Berlin Theatre Festival and the East German ‘Festival of India’ (September 1991 to April 1992). He once wrote a brief descriptive history of GDR and Weimar theatre, but with typical modesty left out most of his own accomplishments (FB, ‘History of Weimar and GDR Theatre,’ n.d.). High points of his directing career in Weimar were his three productions of Goethe’s Faust I and II in 1965/67, 1975, und 1981/82. He also visited twentyfive countries outside his homeland (see Appendix 2), for short or longer periods, including as director in fourteen (see Appendix 3). Often, especially in the case of India, the Philippines, and the United States, his trips included many cities and towns. Almost all of these visits occurred before the reunification, which was remarkable considering East German travel restrictions, and a sign of the political trust he enjoyed, but from his point of view useful for the cultural rather than political contribution he could make. One major reason behind his freedom to travel – as recounted to the author by Bennewitz’s colleague and friend Rolf Rohmer – was the steady support of Irene Gysi (1912–2007), for many years head of the GDR office for international relations of the Ministry of Culture and from 1977 to 1988 director of the GDR centre of the International Theatre Institute. Her liberal-minded, internationally oriented view of politics continues in Germany through her illustrious son Gregor Gysi (b. 1948). In the case of India, Bennewitz’s frequent travels and intensive cooperation were also facilitated by the officially

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sanctioned cultural exchange program between the two countries from 1979 to 1990. Some countries he visited repeatedly, and outstanding among these were his eighteen visits to India and eleven to the Philippines, his favourites by far, where he built widespread professional and personal relationships that are still strongly evident today. Indeed, it can be said that Bennewitz is a hero of the stage for many Indian and Filipino actors, academics, and theatre folk, even if most in his own land have forgotten him. There is nevertheless a strong and active group of people associated with him through the Fritz-Bennewitz-Verein, which maintains the archive bearing his name in Leipzig. This loyal following has a website (www.fritzbennewitz.com) that draws attention to his legacy and makes contributions towards the archive’s maintenance and special events commemorating his work, one of which took place in 2009 at his beloved Hiddensee, from 28 August (Goethe’s birthday) to 2 September. In the course of his career in Germany, Bennewitz guest-directed in Berlin’s Deutsches Theater, Volksbühne, Staatsoper, Berliner Ensemble, and in Dresden, Leipzig, Erfurt, Heidelberg, and Thale. He was awarded the Kunstpreis der DDR (1966), the Nationalpreis Dritte Klasse (1967), the Johannes R. Becher Medaille in Gold (1967), the Literatur- und Kunstpreis der Stadt Weimar (1967), the Stern der Völkerfreundschaft in Silber (1984), the Ehrennadel in Gold der Liga für Völkerfreundschaft, the Kunst- und Literaturpreis der Stadt Weimar (1986), and many other citations, medals, and prizes for outstanding achievement in theatre and socialist pursuits. He was a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Künste der DDR, the parallel to that of the same name in the West.Yet Bennewitz’s highest honours were perhaps those he received abroad, for they had no political strings attached. His Philippine production of Brecht’s Kreidekreis in 1977/78 was named the best of the year in that land and brought him the Philippines’ Kalinangan Award for contributions to art and criticism. In 1991 India’s President Venkataraman presented Bennewitz with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the highest distinction of the Indian Academy of Arts, for his twenty-year-long contribution to Indian theatre; he was only the second non-Asian to receive it. Given his success both at home and internationally, one might ask why Fritz Bennewitz stayed so long in Weimar and did not seek out a permanent position in Berlin at one of the country’s leading theatres, the Berliner Ensemble or Berlin’s Deutsches Theater. Amusingly, the same question could be asked about Goethe himself, who went to

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the small provincial capital for a short visit in 1775, when he was just twenty-six years old, upon the invitation of Duke Carl August, but stayed for more than five decades until his death. Nicholas Boyle asks and answers the question ‘Why Goethe stayed?’ in considerable detail, describing in lively fashion the great friendship between Goethe and the Duke, the intellectually stimulating court and cultural atmosphere which also attracted many other luminaries of the age, including Wieland, Herder, and Schiller, to name just three, the lively cultured social life directed by Duchess Anna Amalia, the stimulating scientific circles, and of course, the personal romances and intrigues with such extraordinary women as Charlotte von Stein (1991, 239–51). Weimar in Bennewitz’s time was, of course, a very different place, and in many ways a difficult place to develop, for it was the most conservative major theatre centre in the German Democratic Republic. The Deutsches Nationaltheater was, after all, the guardian of the cherished klassisches Erbe, the protector of the sanctity of Goethe and Schiller and the integrity of their works. It was not the place to experiment radically with them. The DNT senior administration and the powerful executors of the Weimar Nationalgedenkstätte would not tolerate it. Wouldn’t a director of ambition and ability naturally want to leave behind such a conservative corner, and one to which the best actors were not attracted? Several reasons for Bennewitz’s willingness to remain so long in Weimar come to mind. First, he was fundamentally a modest, unambitious man who simply wanted to make theatre. The road to Berlin was paved with ambition and self-promotion, which was not his way. Second, because all theatre professionals in the country were aware of Berlin’s cachet, there was enormous competition to get there, and a limited number of available places. Unlike the theatre culture in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), which was spread throughout that country with numerous nationally important theatre centres, such as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Mannheim, and Munich, none of which was in the capital city, East Germany’s theatre community was organized in a pyramid with its tip in Berlin. Such theatre centres as Dresden, Leipzig, Karl-Marx-Stadt, Halle, and Schwerin were indeed widely admired in their own right at various times, but for the most part, they were of regional rather than national significance. Occasionally they rose to that level, and many times special trains went down the tracks from Berlin loaded with theatre fans to see particular productions there, but in general, their audience and mandate were limited, while Berlin’s were national (see Emmerich 2000, 84; Funke interview, 2009). There are very

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few spaces free at the top of a pyramid, and Bennewitz was not the type of person to fight for one. A third reason why he avoided Berlin, as any researcher soon learns about Bennewitz, was that he was well known to be a director who constantly questioned and challenged theatre norms. He was in that sense constantly unsettled and rebellious. This rebelliousness had its advantages for theatre innovation, but it could have been a detriment, too, in the politically charged artistic climate of the capital city. On a personal level he could be a difficult man. Fourth, by remaining in the rather sleepy conservative environment of Weimar, Bennewitz found a freedom that was unheard of in Berlin, namely, to leave the country regularly to direct plays with very little control or restriction over what he did. His volume of directing abroad between 1973 and 1989 was astonishing, and was, perhaps, his greatest contribution to the theatre of his era. Fifth, and finally, in Bennewitz’s last Weimar Faust of 1981/82, which ran an astounding eighteen years in ninety-seven performances, the director actually did break through the wall of hallowed German classicism, and unlike other such attempts earlier in Berlin, escaped unscathed. For that, many knowledgeable theatre critics accorded Bennewitz their unfailing admiration (Funke interview, 2009). His decision to join the SED at the earliest opportunity, in 1948, undoubtedly worked to Bennewitz’s advantage throughout his career, and his continuing loyalty to the party and its ideals was evident throughout most of his life. Yet he was not simply an opportunist, but a true believer in the socialist system, even after it failed, and even if he was not known to be one who liked to discuss it. Bennewitz was intellectually and artistically committed to Marxist theory and aesthetics at a higher level than party politics, and his desire to converse, lecture (often his notion of conversing), and write about these in relation to his art seemed unlimited. Many GDR artists refused to support and endorse much of what their state came to be and represent. They criticized its weaknesses openly in their works, and suffered as a consequence. Although in time Bennewitz also saw the weaknesses of the GDR, and indeed addressed them in his Faust productions, he did so subtly and was never a forceful antagonist. He was tacitly complicit. His stance brought him a freedom that few other artists enjoyed: to travel, disseminate, and explore his craft in many other cultures and languages. This was for him an apolitical act. It was a human act, and his legacy in the countries he visited, particularly in India and the Philippines, attests still to the enormously positive effect he had on others as an art-

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ist, teacher, and friend. In a reflective interview near the end of his life, Bennewitz summarized his stance: Bis zur Wende bin ich zwanzig Jahre Bürger auf Besuch gewesen und habe mich mit den Hoffnungen auf eine gerechtere Welt und auf die Veränderbarkeit des Menschen in hohem Maße identifiziert. In der Ausnahmesituation eines intellektuellen Künstlers, der, wie sich heute herausstellt, einen ganz entscheidenden Fehler gemacht hat. Ich habe zwar als Künstler in grundsätzlichen Widerspruch zu jeder Ordnung gestanden. Aber ich habe der Ordnung recht gegeben und nicht mir. Und ich habe ein WeltbürgerErlebnis gehabt, das ich nicht fordernd in unsere Wirklichkeit eingebracht habe. Meine Identität wird sich vielleicht neu finden müssen, aber der Humus, aus dem wir leben, ist und bleibt unsere Kultur. (Quilitzsch 1994a)

Near the end of his life, Bennewitz continued to see German culture, which included his notions of politics and social order, to be his foundation, as the final sentence shows, but it is just as evident through his pride in having had a ‘Weltbürger-Erlebnis’ that he was aware of the validity of an entirely different cultural perspective as well. He had learned from both; he valued and was tolerant of both; he was an example of an individual who in the end was himself intercultural, and as a theatre director demonstrated that Goethe’s Faust could be the same. Dietrich Schade and Sigrid Schade created a videotape testimonial to Bennewitz’s life by recording statements from many German as well as international artists and associates who worked closely with him: ‘Was bleibt: Erinnerungen an Begegnungen mit dem Regisseur Fritz Bennewitz (1995–2006).’ The first part of the project was presented to him on his last birthday at his hospital bed. Bennewitz’s death caused an outpouring of sympathy to Frau Mertes from the international theatre community and friends from many domains. For example, one of the many letters and tributes came from Ted Ayers of Pensacola, Florida, who placed a floral arrangement and Bennewitz’s portrait at the altar of St John’s Episcopal Church for the service on 15 October 1995 (a photo and a copy of the order of service are in the FBA). A heartfelt expression of condolence arrived from Vijaya Mehta, repeatedly co-director with him, including of his Indian Faust in 1994, and executive director of India’s National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Bombay (Letters, Mehta, 19 Oct. 1995). Rolf Rohmer delivered the euology which incorporated much of Bennewitz’s international experience and many networks (‘Trauerrede für Fritz Bennewitz,’ FBA). The last word, how-

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ever, remained with the director himself, in two brief handwritten documents, one a will in which he gave all of his possessions to Waltraut Mertes, the other the following text in English: I require no tombstone, but If you require one for me I wish it to be inscribed: He made suggestions. We accepted them. By such an inscription we should All be honoured.

(Bennewitz, ‘Last Words’)

These are the final words of a modest man who valued others more than himself and believed in the power of communal effort. Bennewitz’s remains were buried in Weimar’s Hauptfriedhof on 29 September 1995 at 9:00 a.m. with some 150 friends attending. Directing to the end, he had himself prepared his memorial service: Brecht singt die Moritat von Mäcky Messer (historische Aufnahme 1929) Helene Weigel spricht Brecht: ‘Die Liebenden’ Trauerrede Prof. Dr Rolf Rohmer Romanze für Violine und Orchester von L. v. Beethoven Manfred Heine spricht ‘Der Türmer’ aus Goethes Faust II Mahalia Jackson singt. (Bennewitz, ‘Memorial Service Program’)

The last voice was international, the last German word from Faust. A binder in the archive, simply entitled ‘FRITZ,’ contains a record of many of the attendees’ signatures, letters of condolence to Frau Mertes, memorabilia of his life, and a copy of Rohmer’s eulogy. In a typed report dated 18 June 1996, hence after Bennewitz’s death, Frau Mertes commented on her life-partner’s fascination for directing Faust from his early years, even as a prisoner of war, until his last days (Mertes, ‘Bericht’). She described how as a captive interned in Bad Kreuzenach from 1945 to 1947 he initiated cultural performances and even then had a plan to produce a complete Faust, already rehearsing some scenes, to the delight of the other inmates. As his script he used his miniature Hyperion-Verlag edition, sometimes called the ‘Feldausgabe,’ the one he carried with him during the war and which became his talisman. Mertes confirmed that Bennewitz knew Faust I by heart

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and that despite his later love of Shakespeare and Brecht Goethe’s play remained the core and starting point for everything else he did. In an interview two years earlier, Bennewitz had been asked why he always returned to Goethe’s tragedy, and replied, ‘Faust ist ein Stück, das man sich nicht aussucht, es sucht einen heim’ (Quilitzsch 1994a). Split Personality Bennewitz was a private man who blossomed in the public sphere of the theatre. Although he and Frau Mertes had known each other for years before they drew together, it was his horrible auto accident in the autumn of 1976 that sealed their bond. One dark evening, Bennewitz was the sole passenger in a car when its male driver rammed into a tree on a slippery road. He was severely injured, his entire upper body suffering fractures and lacerations, and his face so disfigured that he was scarcely recognizable. He lost sight in his right eye for the rest of his life despite operations attempting to correct the damage. After the accident he wore glasses with one opaque lens, giving him at first a sinister look, but he carried on as before as if nothing had happened. Frau Mertes nursed him back to health. It was an act of great kindness which Bennewitz never forgot. After his recovery, Bennewitz was abroad for long periods with increasing frequency, during which their relationship is reflected through his unfailing personal and domestic correspondence with her. It was Frau Mertes as well who first collected his extensive writings, personal papers, director’s notes, books, and the many other objects connected with his theatre career, which she later entrusted to the Fritz Bennewitz Archive. Increasingly after the mid-1970s, Bennewitz led a double life in terms of his professional career, one at home in the GDR, the other abroad. His frequent long absences no doubt divorced him to a great extent from political developments and social trends in his homeland. He felt more a citizen of the world. After 1980 there was scarcely a year in which he failed to make at least two major directing trips, with India and the Philippines recurring as the common denominators. His activity in the International Theatre Institute was one justification for this, his ability to grasp and speak to the mentality and interests of various cultures another. Bennewitz was required to submit detailed reports of his activities in the iTi and abroad to his superiors upon his return, which would be a normal expectation for any supervisor, but in this case was no doubt a form of information gathering about both the trav-

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eller and the countries visited, which was part of the GDR’s compulsive surveillance of its citizens and those with whom they associated. In a sense, Bennewitz was spying for his state, even if he didn’t necessarily see it that way, one of the thousands of ‘IMs’ – innofizielle Mitarbeiter or informants – who peppered the country and salted many wounds. From reading these reports, one gets no sense that Bennewitz himself had this intention, however. The energy he poured into his directing and consulting trips, which almost always involved seminars and instruction in theatre aesthetics and acting, suggests rather that he was simply driven by his passion to make theatre all over the world. His international theatre activity with the iTi was paralleled by that of his friend and colleague Rolf Rohmer, who also enjoyed a great deal of travel freedom, guest-lecturing at universities, and attending international theatre conferences and meetings. In between, Bennewitz met his obligations directing in Weimar and other GDR cities. There is little doubt, too, that the periods away contributed to his satisfaction at home, for unlike most he never gave evidence of feeling confined physically or artistically by his state. After all, unlike almost all of his fellow citizens, he was able to escape it regularly. As a citizen of the world – the term, of course, invites definition within Goethe’s concept of Weltliteratur, to which Bennewitz often referred – he resonated to global issues and problems. Goethe formulated his understanding of the concept most clearly and succinctly in his conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann on 31 January 1827: Ich sehe immer mehr … daß die Poesie ein Gemeingut der Menschheit ist, und daß sie überall und zu allen Zeiten in hunderten und aber hunderten von Menschen hervortritt … Aber freilich wenn wir Deutschen nicht aus dem engen Kreise unserer eigenen Umgebung hinausblicken, so kommen wir gar zu leicht in [einen] pedantischen Dünkel. Ich sehe mich daher gerne bei fremden Nationen um und rate jedem, es auch seinerseits zu tun. National-Literatur will jetzt nicht viel sagen, die Epoche der WeltLiteratur ist an der Zeit und jeder muß jetzt dazu wirken, diese Epoche zu beschleunigen. (1986, 206–7)

Not many German writers and theatre practitioners shared and acted upon this Goethean admonition through the next century and a half, so Bennewitz’s open internationality is remarkable. At home, however, his calendar was overfilled with rehearsals, lectures, and public relations visits to schools and factories, as well as in-

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teractions with artists, audiences, the press, and the ministry of culture. He was tireless and generous with his time, unconcerned about his own needs, exhibiting boundless energy. He was also a passionate writer, note-taker, theorist, and commentator, thus leaving us with a wealth of archived insights into his activity and opinions. His enthusiasm for his work spilled over to whomever he encountered, so that he was admired and even loved inordinately by most of his professional colleagues. His only regular period of rest seems to have been a beloved summer holiday at the Hiddensee with Waltraut Mertes and a small circle of close friends, enjoying refreshment and recovery in nature’s arms, hence the location chosen by his friends for the commemorative event there, 28 August to 2 September 2009. While Bennewitz’s diaries include reference to meetings with many prominent figures worldwide, for example, Fidel Castro in Cuba in June 1987, it was through contacts with everyday people that his true personality glowed, and many of these meetings are documented in his extensive correspondence. Bennewitz loved to communicate with others. Despite his guarded personal life, he was gregarious beyond those limits, especially abroad. His papers include thousands of personal and business letters with thoughts on a wide variety of subjects, including human relations. The letters in the FBA begin in 1943, with one addressed to ‘Seekadett Fritz Bennewitz’ (Letters, Unknown sender) when he was serving as a junior member of the navy in Berlin, and at this early stage there is also a notable cluster of loving letters from his future fiancée Cornelia Brenner, suggesting that at least in his youth he enjoyed intimacy with the opposite sex as well. Despite the closeness evident in her letters, the two apparently also spent time discussing philosophy, or she listening to him opining on it, which was the more likely scenario (see Letters, Cornelia Brenner, 1944–). Bennewitz’s capacity for intimacy with the opposite sex is substantiated futher by a photo album in the archive which carries in small, fine, handwriting the inscription ‘Es war einmal anno 1948 im September auf der Insel Rügen’ and contains twenty-four small black-and-white photographs (two others have been removed), many of them bearing captions. A number of these captions supplement the inscriptions with fairytale terminology through allusions to folk tales of young lovers, and some to Faust. Particularly striking is one of Bennewitz lying on the beach beside a lovely young woman, both in bathing suits, entwined in partial embrace, with an older woman looking on kindly. The caption devilishly reads, ‘hab’ doch meine Freude dran!’ (Faust I,

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3543). Numerous other pictures present similar poses (Photo Album, FBA). One of the oldest letters in the archive, three pages long, dated 19 February 1945, contains an insightful analysis of the early circumstances that formed the basis of Bennewitz’s personality: Mein lieber Fritz! Zwei Briefe durfte ich nach unserem Abschied von meinem lieben Freunde in Empfang nehmen, und – wenn ich ehrlich sein will – nach großer Sorge, wie Du wohl den Brennpunkt Berlin überstanden haben würdest. Ja, Fritz, mir ist manchmal so, als würden zwei Welten zwischen Deinem Urlaub und jetzt liegen. Ich habe nie gewußt, warum die Tage der Vergangenheit uns immer in einem verklärenden Licht erscheinen, warum man in der Gegenwart das Schlechte und Schöne so streng voneinander trennt und warum man sich vor dem Unbekannten der Zukunft immer ein wenig fürchtet. Ich habe in diesen Tagen empfunden, was das Leben oder vielmehr das Lebendürfen bedeutet, wenn man als wehrloses Etwas den Kopf in den Kellerboden hineinbohren möchte und die Sekunden zwischen Abwurf und Einschlag jedesmal als Ewigkeit mißt. Ja, nun ist auch Chemnitz an den vollen Ernst des Krieges herangeführt worden. Gerade unsere Gegend hat ihn deutlich zu spüren bekommen, und unsere Wohnung auch. Wir wühlen den ganzen Tag in Dreck und Scherben, kein Raum kann mehr geheizt werden, das Wasser ist kostbares Gut, nach dem man sich stundenlang anstellen muß, Strom kannten wir auch tagelang nicht etc. Eine Seite Lektüre ist alles, was von allen feierlichen und besinnlichen Stunden übriggeblieben ist, eine Viertelstunde Musik ist schon ein Wegweiser zur Ewigkeit. (Ach, was schreibe ich da nur, ich meine natürlich Seligkeit.) … Erst am nächsten Abend kann ich fortsetzen, wir hatten wieder zwei Nachtalarme, Gott sei Dank nur Überflüge. Ich empfinde jede Stunde ohne diese Angst als Geschenk. Heute – dies nur nebenbei – habe ich mir das Buch über die Hamletdarstellung von Kainz geholt, dazu die Memoiren der Gräfin Marie d’ Augoult. Nur schade, daß ich so wenig zum Lesen komme. Fritz, ich bin jedesmal wieder sehr froh und hoffnungsvoll, wenn ich einen Brief von Dir in den Händen halten darf, auch wenn darin schwere und entschlußreiche Dinge Platz finden müssen. Ich kann Dich verstehen, mein lieber Fritz, vollkommen und ganz. Trotzdem aber bin ich nach vielem Überlegen zu dem Schluß gekommen, daß Du diesen Schritt ruhig

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noch um ein paar Wochen hättest verschieben können. Das soll kein feiges Ausweichen bedeuten, aber – seien wir doch einmal ganz Fatalisten: Warum befindest Du Dich jetzt auf einer Kriegsschule und nicht im vordersten Graben? Zufall – nein, bestimmt nicht! Es ist Fügung, Fritz, die Dich vielleicht gerade jetzt auf der Glücksschale wägt. Ein Leben ist nie unbedeutend, auch Dein jetziges nicht. Du kommst Dir nur unbedeutend und unbefriedigt vor, Du bist der Meinung, Deine jetzige Aufgabe entspräche nicht den Kräften, mit denen einzusetzen Du bereit bist. Lieber, ich bin weit davon entfernt, Dir Vorwürfe zu machen oder Deinen Weg mit kleinen Steinen des Nachdenkens zu bestreuen, denn ich bin der Meinung, von solch einem Entschluß kann man sich nicht mehr abbringen lassen, und das ist bei Dir und Deinem Dickschädel im besonderm Falle sowieso unmöglich. Aber – Du – […] – hast Du auch in Deinem Drang an Deine Mutter gedacht, der Du damit einen tiefen Schmerz bereitest? Idealismus ist ein hoher Begriff und nur wenigen Dingen würdig, auch wandelt sich das Begreifenkönnen und die Auffassung dieses Begriffes […]. Wir wollen nicht darüber grübeln – noch ist es nicht entschieden, noch hat das Schicksal alles in der Hand, Du bist ihm ja nur ein Stück entgegengekommen, hast es vielleicht nur herausgefordert. Meine besten Wünsche sind immer bei Dir, mein leiber Fritz, wir wollen alle tapfer sein und nicht alle Hoffnungen begraben. Laß es Dir recht gut gehen und schreibe mir bald wieder, was ich auch tun werde. Ich grüße Dich. Deine Margrit (Letters, Margrit)

The letter, from a sensitive, intelligent, and insightful friend of his youth and home town of Chemnitz, was written during the bombardment of Berlin, Chemnitz, and other cities in the last months of the Second World War and reflects the daily life that millions of Germans shared. At the time, Bennewitz was nineteen and nearing the end of his service as a sea cadet. Months later he would be taken as a prisoner of war and released only in 1947. Margrit’s reference to literature, particularly dramatic literature, lends insight into their shared belief in its function as a forum and solace for life. That sense was already firm in Bennewitz’s mind from youth and grew to be the touchstone of his career. A long paragraph suggests that he had avoided being sent to the front – indeed it is unusual that he had been spared that at age nineteen – and was suffering from pangs of conscience as a result. Whether or not he de-

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liberately avoided front-line conflict is difficult to determine, but guilt feelings were obviously present. Margrit comforts him by suggesting that the hand of fate was at work, gently relieving him of responsibility for his inaction and chiding him for his inflated idealism, an early quality that remained with him for life, be it for the potential of socialism, which so many shared in the GDR even to its end, or a broader idealism about international human rights and dignity. His Dickschädel stubbornness in holding on to these principles was a quality recognized by most of his friends to the end. The underlying conflict that Margrit describes also points to the dialectic that drove Bennewitz throughout his career, in terms of Marxist political theory and the general social order: the tension between individual responsibility and the general good, individual versus communal action, individual freedom versus historical and social change, idealism versus reality. These themes are prominent in Faust, which is no doubt one reason why Bennewitz was so attracted to it. The volumes of correspondence in the Fritz Bennewitz Archive are filled with evidence of his deep honesty and valuing of intimate, personal relationships of all kinds, as well as his tendency to introspection, rumination, and self-criticism. They also contain many testimonials to his kindness, particularly to hopeful actors. A typical example is a letter from twelve-year-old Maike of Naumburg, who has aspirations for a career on the stage (Letters, Maike, n.d.). It seems that Bennewitz never failed to respond to those who asked his advice, and he did so with consistent kindness. Without the slightest suggestion of condescension, yet with mature insight, he advised the girl to wait a while, then enter acting school in Leipzig or Berlin at seventeen or eighteen, and promised his personal help at that point (Letters, Bennewitz, n.d.). The archive contains many letters and testimonials that show how much his actors learned and appreciated, even loved him, some of which will be cited in later chapters. Bennewitz was renowned for his asceticism and capacity for work. He thought nothing of long hours, little food, extremely modest accommodations, and endless exploration through discussion, direction, and rehearsal. He was a windbag, but a beloved one, for he was also selfeffacing. He possessed a wit that often punctured the weariness of rehearsals and enlivened spirits to keep going. His last assistant director, Elke Fiedler for the Meiningen Faust in 1995, heard so many of his witticisms and aphorisms that she kept a list. Here are some samples:

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Ich gehör zur Bratwurst. Ich bin der Senf. Nehmen Sie sich Zeit; der Schauspieler, der die Bühne hat, gibt sie nicht freiwillig her. Faul wie Eier, die sich von selber legen. Ein Regisseur ist nichts anderes als die Leserbrille für Schauspieler. Ein Stück ist nur da, um die Kommas im Alltäglichen zu entdecken. Ich bin ein unendlicher Schwätzer. Manchmal kommt auch was raus dabei. Jeder muß sein eigenes Instrument weiterspielen und nicht den Ton vom Partner aufnehmen. Der Verstand des Schauspielers sitzt in den Därmen. Er nimmt nur manchmal den kürzeren Weg. Und dann wird’s beschissen. Gott hat Ihnen ein Gesicht gegeben, machen Sie was daraus! (Fiedler 1995)

Politics Although Bennewitz ’s enthusiasm for socialism and consistent party loyalty worked to his advantage in securing a position in Weimar, and allowed him almost unrestricted freedom to travel, still he trod a careful political path. He learned early that freedom of movement was a delicate matter in the German Democratic Republic, receiving this letter in his early days from Otto Lang, head of the Theaterhochschule in Leipzig, where he taught from 1953 to 1955: Sehr geehrter Herr Bennewitz! Da sie trotz eingehender Aussprache am 25. Oktober wieder ohne Urlaub und ohne Rücksprache mit der Direktion Leipzig verlassen haben, wird für diesen Tag einen Tagesgehalt von Ihrer Gage in Abzug gebracht. Ich erwarte von Ihnen, dass eine Wiederholung Ihres fehlerhaften Verhaltens jetzt nicht mehr eintreten wird. (Letters, Lang, 1 Nov. 1954)

So despite Bennewitz’s growing belief in the way of socialism, he remained, as other citizens, constantly cautious. The upcoming analysis of his three Weimar stagings of Faust will demonstrate this in the public sphere, and many of his unpublished writings in the private. Bennewitz’s conviction that socialism, Marxism, and the German Democratic Republic were the paths to follow remained with him to the end, but later in his career he had increasing doubts. For example, on 8 June 1986, after the general election, he wrote,

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Fritz Bennewitz Es ist so sehr lange noch nicht her – wir waren mit dem Kreidekreis von Brecht in den Schulen der Lower East Side von New York, in Brooklyn und den Kinderhaftanstalten der Bronx [1979]. Warum es ihnen so gut gefallen habe, fragten wir die Kinder. ‘Weil die Armen vor dem Richter sagen dürften, was sie sagen wollten’ – war eine der Antworten eines noch nicht 12-jährigen Mädchens. Das war Erfahrung verweigerter Demokratie an dem Hinterhof der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte. Mir fällt das neu ein, wenn ich mich zu unseren Wahlen äußere: Mit unserer Stimme bestimmen wir über uns selber, bekräftigen wir, was wir gemeinsam beraten und beschlossen haben, versprechen wir unsere Mitarbeit und Mitverantwortung denen, die wir durch unsere Wahl beauftragen. So verwirklicht sozialistische Demokratie Menschenrechte im Alltag. Und unser Alltag ist gleichermaßen historischer und globaler Ort – der Parteitag hat unseren Arbeitsplatz unseren Kampfplatz für den Frieden genannt. (Bennewitz, ‘Commentary’)

His statement that the poor in the United States had been denied democracy, while all citizens of the GDR enjoyed and participated in its direction with confidence in their political leaders is possibly ironic, for its juxtaposition with the current political situation in his homeland suggests that he saw a parallel, even if it wasn’t voiced. More important, however, is that Bennewitz in the end emphasized the transpolitical notion of international social freedom, so that his commitment to this principle can be seen to override his public national stance. It is often said that citizens of the GDR lived double lives, public, in which most people wisely kept their true personal opinions to themselves, and private, in which they might choose to voice different opinions within a circle of trusted friends and family members, some of whom we now know turned out to be informants. It is unlikely that Bennewitz was one of these, for his enthusiasm was really focused outside the GDR, as his reference to the globalen Ort shows. And while nowhere in his writings, nor in his personal conversations of which the author is informed, is there evidence of direct party or state disloyalty, his three Weimar stagings of Faust show an evolution in the nature of this support for his homeland’s politics and in his evaluation of its success. The support becomes muted over these three decades, and while it never reaches the level of opposition to the system itself, it definitely points to the weaknesses of its effects on society. In an interview in the last year of his life with Erika Stephan, theatre critic, former schoolmate, colleague, and friend, the director was asked, ‘Sie haben in den 25 Jahren

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Ihrer Auslandsarbeit immer wieder in Weimar inszeniert. Hier – und auch sonst in der DDR Theater gesehen. Trotzdem waren Sie Außenseiter.’ He replied, ‘Meine wesentlichen Einmischungen hier in Weimar, um jetzt nur auf die 80er Jahre zurückzublicken, … waren Faust I und II 1981/82 und Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe 1983. Danach funktionierte die Verständigung nicht mehr. Wenn du die Nöte deiner Umwelt nicht mitleidest, wie willst du hoffen, für sie repräsentativ zu sein? Der Dialog war gestört’ (Stephan 1995, 16). Comunications with his Weimar colleagues were clearly failing. His activity abroad was increasingly his chief motivation. In 1983, under the leadership of Peter Schroth und Peter Kleinert, the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar began to take a new direction. Bennewitz was less and less a factor in their plans. Outside his homeland, Bennewitz’s theatre work provided a channel for his political views, which can be said generally of those active in the International Theatre Institute, but these emphasized human rights and justice rather than models for socialism. In the document containing the reference to New York above, for example, Bennewitz went on to mention his 1985 production of Galilei in Cebu, the Philippines: Niemand kann sich nirgends der Verantwortung entziehen, welche die Geschichte ihm aufträgt. Im Plakat und im Bühnenbild der Aufführung war Leonardos Zeichnung vom Menschen als dem Maß der Dinge umgeben von den Flammen der Scheiterhaufen der Inquisition und der Rauchsäule des Atompilzes von Hiroshima; in die Collage waren die Köpfe Galileis und Einsteins mit der Formel und die vietnamesische Muttter mit dem ermordeten Kind auf den Armen gesetzt. Ein Bild, das tief betroffen macht: der Mensch, der beides zu verantworten hat – in Gefahr sein und gefährden. Und aus dem Stück wurde beides kraftig herausgeholt: Auftrag und Ermutigung – daß der Sieg der Vernunft nur der Sieg der Vernünftigen sein kann und der kräftigende Glaube auch, daß wir der sanften Gewalt der Vernunft (wie es Brecht sagt) und damit uns zum Siege verhelfen können. (Bennewitz, ‘Commentary’)

Here it is not GDR socialism but Brecht’s sociopolitical aesthetics that drive the doctrinal force for his argument. It is a position that sees current developments as part of a continuum of the philosophy of the European Enlightenment and its fundamental conviction of the power of reason. After the reunification of Germany there was some change in Bennewitz’s public political position. He had hoped that what he perceived

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to be the positive principles of GDR socialism would remain in the new state, but he became embittered as the Partei Deutscher Sozialisten, the SED’s post-reunification mutation, failed to bring this to fruition. In private correspondence he expressed his disillusionment candidly, writing here from New Delhi, on 20 January 1990: … im Kopf schon verfängt sich die hiesige Freude in der Sorge, was uns dort daheim geschieht, wo wir uns wieder in der Geschichte ohne Sinn für Maß zu geben scheinen … Ich habe keine Schwierigkeiten mit Mielke, Honecker, Tisch oder Sindermann – ich habe sie nicht gekannt und nicht getroffen. Ihre Mittelmäßigkeit hat mich freilich auch kaum verärgert, daß ich Fragen gefragt hätte. Der Luxus, den sie sich geleistet haben, ist mir eher lächerlich und gleichgültig – widerlich freilich ist der Verrat, die Verachtung der Kämpfe, Sehnsucht um Gerechtigkeit und Solidarität, aus denen sie aber doch selber gekommen waren. Was mich tiefer trifft ist, was ich in mir antreffe, daß ich den Tag und in die Zukunft dahingeglaubt und dahin gesagt habe, ohne es in meinem Verstande oder Herzen zu wenden und zu winden bis es zweifelsfrei war … Habe ich mich so dem allen, was seit spätestens 1968 offenkundig hat sein können, in meine asiatische Existenz entziehen dürfen, wie ich es bis zur Entfremdung getan habe? (Letters, Anon 1)

Consistent with his lifelong approach, his bitterness does not rest on the petty criminality of the GDR leaders, but on their failure to be true to the ideals of socialism in which he had always and still believed. Bennewitz looked at the big picture; he was an idealist through and through, and never changed in this. But he certainly became disillusioned about the prospects of realizing those visions. Capitalistic ideals and values were now overrunning his homeland and soon swept virtually all of the old ways aside. His formal party loyalty lapsed, and the remaining five years of his life could be described as a time of political disorientation and alienation towards Germany, although that did not affect his idealism and passion for human rights. He saw that Germany was facing not just a loss of socialism, but along with Europe and the world a completely new economic orientation, soon to be called globalization. In this respect he saw the world very much like one of the world’s leading cultural critics, Rustom Bharucha, with whom he became friends in India and who admired him in return, so much so that he dedicated his Politics of Cultural Practice: Thinking through Theatre in an Age of Globalization to ‘Fritz Bennewitz, an intercultural seeker and

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one-eyed director, who saw the world differently’ (2001, v). From his distant perspective, Bennewitz now openly questioned his own sense of responsibility in virtually abandoning the social and political debate at home by immersing himself in Asia and becoming an absentee German. Looking back at the early decades of his maturation, he commented to Erika Stephan (1995, 16–17): In den fünfzigern und sechziger Jahren bin ich vor ernstzunehmenden Angeboten immer zurückgewichen. Eine Unentschiedenheit, die als Feigheit zu deuten ich durchaus geneigt gewesen war. Heute weiß ich: diese Zögerlichkeit war das Warten auf mein Eigenes. Wie durch Zufall habe ich es bei meiner Arbeit in der Dritten Welt entdeckt: meine ganz eigene, aber in sich stimmige Kombination von ganz verschiedenen, aber sich ergänzenden Sensibilitäten – der künstlerischen, der pädagogischen und der kulturpolitischen Energie … / … Was ich aus diesen fünfundzwanzig Jahren mitbringe, ist ein reicheres Konzept der Menschheit. Ich habe das Glück gehabt, ‘Welt’ nicht als Abstraktum zu erleben. Und diese gescheiterte DDR ist nicht der Nabel der Welt.

Although it was Marxist politics and enthusiasm for a new social system that captured Bennewitz’s imagination after the Second World War and into the 1970s, in the early decades he was just a cog in the wheel of the socialist system, but thereafter, gradually, a new person who increasingly widened his professional scope and oriented his thinking far beyond that political and social milieu to become international and intercultural. Dogma and Theory As a committed socialist artist, the aesthetic theory of Bennezwitz cannot be separated from his politics. As Lehrstuhlleiter of the SED’s Central Party School for Art and Literature Rosa Luxembourg in Erfurt and as lecturer in aesthetics and theatre at the Theaterhochschule there and the Hans Otto Theaterhochschule in Leipzig, he was steeped in the writings of Marx and Engels and convinced of their merit. He was also a great admirer of Brecht. Bennewitz’s commentaries on the stage in general and his own efforts to direct were always underpinned by socialist dogma, rather than by apolitical aesthetic theory. The upcoming chapters on his Weimar stagings of Faust will present the dogmatic

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context of each production and attempt aesthetic assessments within it. His first Faust of 1965 (Part I) and 1967 (Part II) was the most deeply entrenched in this dogma, when he and many other GDR artists and citizens were highly optimistic about their new state and its politics. The extensive documentation and state-controlled press commentary surrounding these productions carried a singular political bias pronouncing their intention and manipulating audience reaction. The 1975 production began to shift this perspective, and substantial change became apparent in his final Weimar Faust of 1981/82. Erck, Erck, and Schaefer’s review of the first part of Bennewitz’s directing career in Kunst und Künstler in Meiningen 1945–1981 provides a useful guide to his theoretical foundation and early development. They point out that Bennewitz came to Meiningen, ‘mit der Absicht, nach Möglichkeit alles anders als bisher zu machen … Mit neuen Stücken, mit jungen Schauspielern, mit der Brechtschen Methode sollte ein Theater der Provokationen installiert warden – gerichtet gegen den Staub der ehemaligen Residenzstadt’ (1982, 33). His early enthusiasm was dampened when he found that audiences in Meiningen, accustomed to the grand tradition of naturalistic theatre, simply would not stand for being constantly subjected to political harangues. Still, he continued to apply Brecht’s theory in general, based on his major theoretical writings about theatre, and especially acting, for Bennewitz’s approach to theatre focused primarily on the actors themselves. He took pains to explain his theoretical position and the principles of its application to both actors and audiences, the former before they began rehearsals, the latter before they saw the performances. A born teacher, he gradually became in Meiningen, Germany, and many countries a respected preceptor, pundit, and mentor. By 1957 in Meiningen he wanted not just to instruct in the theatre, but demanded ‘ein lebendiges Theater,’ which revealed, in Brecht’s thinking: ‘die Veränderbarkeit der Welt – das ist die praktische Erfahrung unserer Epoche, die ein wissenschaftliches Zeitalter ist … Das Bekannte wird in Frage gestellt und das Unabänderliche gerät in Bewegung. Die Befreiung der Menschen ist das Thema … Wir wollen so spielen, daß der Zuschauer bewegt wird und doch in der Freiheit seines eigenen Urteils bleibt, weil er im Besitz seiner eignen Verantwortlichkeit bleiben muß’ (ibid., 32–3). The irony of such a call for freedom in the burgeoning, ever more restrictive, GDR did not seem to strike him. Just under twenty years later, when he had matured, in Faust’s final speech of Part II there would be evidence that it did.

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Seeing that the stick alone only alienated his audiences, in the following year Bennewitz added to his aesthetic concept the carrot in the idea of ‘Vergnügen,’ claiming that ‘Die Einheit von Wahrheit und Vergnügen an der Wahrheit’ (Erck, Erck, and Schaefer 1982, 34) was essential. He came to this conviction through Marx’s early aesthetic writings which were themselves very much an extension of the classical tradition. As Erika Stephan describes in her interview in the next chapter, Bennewitz’s conviction about the primacy of social justice was developed through aesthetic, not political thinking. Social justice for him was a necessary parallel to aesthetic sophistication, and the two were partners in his developing approach to theatre and society. Social justice became for Bennewitz the measure of a society’s quality and a kind of aestheticized political yardstick. It was based on the capacity in humans to reason and plan, as opposed merely to act. Only the fact that the plan was driving the action would ensure that the result would be successful, however much effort was expended. According to Stephan, Bennewitz was fond of expressing this notion throughout his career with the sentence: ‘Der Mensch unterscheidet sich von der Biene dadurch, dass er nicht aus dem Instinkt heraus, sondern nach vorweggenommenen Entwürfen arbeitet.’ As Stephan points out, the fundamental notion of this coupling came from Marx’s early manuscripts on philosophy and economics. There, using an analogy from the animal world, Marx wrote, ‘wie die Biene, Biber, Ameise etc. … das Tier formiert nur nach dem Maß und dem Bedürfnis der species, der es angehört, während der Mensch nach dem Maß jeder species zu produzieren weiß und überall das inhärente Maß dem Gegenstand anzulegen weiß; der Mensch formiert daher auch nach den Gesetzen der Schönheit (Marx and Engels 1962: Supplementary volume, part 1 [1968], 517). Marx referred to the same notion in Das Kapital: ‘eine Biene beschämt durch den Bau ihrer Wachszellen manchen menschlichen Baumeister. Was aber von vornherein den schlechtesten Baumeister vor der besten Biene auszeichnet, ist, dass er die Zelle in seinem Kopf gebaut hat, bevor er sie in Wachs baut. Am Ende des Arbeitsprozesses kommt ein Resultat heraus, das beim Beginn desselben schon in der Vorstellung des Arbeiters, also schon ideell vorhanden war’ (Marx and Engels 1962: vol. 23, 193). The primacy of the idea over the action carried for Marx, and then Bennewitz, aesthetic significance. For Bennewitz’s theory, it was these aesthetic laws that were the definitive elements for his thinking and directing, much more than such raw notions as Klassenkampf. His ‘Marxist’ politics are thus better described as early Marxist aesthet-

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ics. For the rest of his career Bennewitz strove for this balance between the poles of politics and aesthetics, and his ability to marry them was first evidenced by the climax of his five-year Meiningen tenure, a stunning production of Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper in 1958, so celebrated that it guested to acclaim during the Berliner Festwochen and no doubt paved the way to his new position and career in Weimar. Bennewitz also developed his own principles and theory of acting and directing. He was fond of linking Hamlet’s speech to the actors with Brecht’s ‘Rede an dänische Arbeiterschauspieler über die Kunst der Beobachtung,’ an English translation of which, interestingly enough, is in the FBA. In Shakespeare, Hamlet enjoins the actors to speak their lines ‘trippingly on the tongue,’ and to avoid overacting by exaggerating their voice, gestures, and rhetoric, while at the same time finding a ‘temperance that may give it smoothness.’ They should not be ‘too tame either,’ yet not overstep ‘the modesty of nature.’ In sum they should ‘imitate humanity’ and not give way to the tastes of some audience members who would have them stoop to excess (Hamlet, 3:2). This is essentially a primer in the style of natural acting. In Brecht’s address, the speaker invokes the Danish worker-actors to ask themselves for what purpose they are making theatre. It should not be merely to entertain. Those in the audience on the low benches, workers themselves, those dissatisfied with their lot, will ask Nein, sagen wir Unzufriedenen auf den niederen Bänken Genug! Das genügt nicht! Habt ihr denn Nicht gehört, daß es ruchbar geworden ist Wie dieses Netz von Menschen gestrickt und geworfen ist? Überall schon von den hundertstöckigen Städten Über die Meere, durchfurcht von menschenreichen Schiffen In die entfernten Dörfer wurde gemeldet Daß des Menschen Schicksal der Mensch ist! Darum Fordern wir nun von euch, den Schauspielern Unserer Zeit, Zeit des Umbruchs und der großen Meisterung Aller Natur, auch der menschlichen, euch Endlich umzustellen und uns die Menschenwelt So zu zeigen, wie sie ist: von den Menschen gemacht und veränderbar. (Brecht 1989c, 267)

The narrator continues with advice on how they can accomplish this

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goal: ‘to show society as it really is, created by mankind, and that mankind can change it.’ Das erste Was ihr zu lernen habt, ist die Kunst der Beobachtung. Du, der Schauspieler Mußt vor allen anderen Künsten Die Kunst der Beobachtung beherrschen. Nicht wie du aussiehst nämlich ist wichtig, sondern Was du gesehen hast und zeigst. Wissenswert Ist, was du weißt. Man wird dich beobachten, um zu sehen Wie gut du beobachtet hast. Aber Menschenkenntnisse erwirbt nicht Wer nur sich selbst beobachtet. Allzuviel Verbirgt er selbst vor sich selbst. Und keiner ist Klüger als sich selbst.

(ibid., 267–8)

He goes on to describe how the actor is to show how people live together, at home, in the district, the shops, streets, trains, the workplace, to make pictures of these and show them on stage. Actors must show historical processes, demonstrate people’s nature, and teach their audiences ‘die große Kunst des Zusammenlebens’ (271). Brecht’s pronounced didactic purpose, to shift the emphasis in theatre from the depiction of the seemingly uncontrollable fate of a few to the selfdetermined future of the many, suited perfectly the central theme of Faust’s striving and self-determination, and its effect on others, and was for Bennewitz a meaningful way to bring this message to audiences of the GDR and abroad. Bennewitz became renowned for repeating to his actors and co-producers the importance of observation and representation. Above any other this sense of realism was a fundamental principle of his directing. His public commentaries on the intentions of his Weimar stagings of Faust link them repeatedly and explicitly to the historical development of socialism and its progress in the German Democratic Republic. In the interview with Erika Stephan Bennewitz emphatically credited Brecht with teaching him to tell ‘die Fabel der Inszenierung,’ an extension of the realism described above. This, too, was a notion that remained central to his directing technique:

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Fritz Bennewitz Ich glaube, daß der Aufbau einer Rolle, das Auffinden eines Charakters, die Darstellung eines Charakters in gegebenen Situationen überhaupt erst die Enthüllungen der ganzen Differenziertheit, Widersprüchlichkeit der Figur ihren Reichtum, ihre Poesie enthüllen kann. In einer klaren, überschaubaren Erzählung der Fabel ist doch schon die wesentliche Ensemblearbeit eingeschlossen, nämlich die Entfaltung des Einzelnen im Aufeinandergewiesensein. So daß das Stückinterpretation, Ensemblepolitik, Entw[eder] von Schauspielerpersönlichkeiten, [oder der] Zusammenführung unterschiedlicher Persönlichkeiten zu einem geschlossenen Ensemble nicht auf getrennten Straßen vor sich geht, sondern daß wir Prozesse vor uns haben, die sich organisch einander bedingen. (Bennewitz, ‘Werkstattgespräch,’ 1965, 4)

This statement, made in conversation with Dieter Görne, can readily be seen as Bennewitz’s lifelong foundation for directing, both at home and abroad, and probably his greatest strength. Stunning examples of actors who under his tutelage went through a process of self- and role-character discovery, what Schechner called ‘transformation of consciousness’ (1985, 4–10), abounded in his productions, one of which is described here in chapter 7 on his New York Faust. Despite the constant political rhetoric designed for public consumption, what Bennewitz was most interested in was creating good theatre and helping his actors to bring out their best individually and as a team. He often turned to this aspect of theatre production, as in this reply to a question from the perceptive critic Klaus Hannuschka: Die Aufführung ist das Ergebnis unserer genauen Probearbeit. Dabei unternehmen wir den Versuch, soweit wie möglich die Persönlichkeit des Schauspielers zu entdecken. Von Vorstellung zu Vorstellung entfernt sich der Schauspieler von der Hand des Regisseurs in einem organischen Prozeß. Unterschiedlich in jedem Schauspieler vollzieht sich ein Wachstumsprozeß. Am Abend der Aufführung trifft das individuelle Wachstum aller Darsteller zu einer Einheit zusammen und damit zu einer neuen Qualität der Aufführung. ... Es waren einige Jahre sehr intensiver Vorarbeiten notwendig, bis wir zu einem formulierten Programm gelangten. Wir begannen, unsere Gedanken zum sozialistischen deutschen Nationaltheater zu begründen. Natürlich weichen diese unsere Prinzipien nicht von den allgemeinen Grundsätzen unserer sozialistischen Kulturpolitik und den Grundsätzen

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der Theaterarbeit in unserer Republik ab; aber im Spezifischen unterscheiden wir uns von anderen Bühnen. (Weimar 65/67 Reviews)

The first part of this statement shows Bennewitz’s conviction that the actors are the primary passage to create meaning on stage, and hence his first point of emphasis as a director. The final two sentences of the quotation reveal that despite his commitment to socialist principles, his work with actors and his productions on the stage strove to not just represent those principles but go beyond them and be unique. We have here one of the keys to Bennewitz’s greatest lifetime accomplishments, realized to some degree in Weimar and the GDR, but much more in other countries, foremost in India, the Philippines, and the United States. He could direct even inexperienced actors to produce convincing performances, mix novices with well-tempered stars to evoke masterful results, and use the stage as a medium to express and reflect their culture and world view. As he matured, and especially in his productions abroad, the final decisions in the production and performance text lay, in fact, not with the Bennewitz himself but with the actors. For him, cutting and manipulating the text was often necessary to make the work more transparent, but even more important than this were the actors’ freedom and imagination. Through his modified Brechtian approach, Bennewitz depended on his actors to ‘realize’ his theatre, cultivating a dialectical exchange between himself and them, blending in the end his own opinions and theirs. He believed in improvisation, often surprising his actors with the freedom he granted. For Bennewitz, improvisation served as a marvellous example of dialectics – every individual being a combination of many individuals. While this theoretical base remained fundamental to his directing throughout his career, Bennewitz’s increasing activity abroad from the late 1970s until his death caused unanticipated modifications of it in many different ways. From the start, Bennewitz’s policy was to try to direct in the language of his host country, and with accommodation for its theatrical norms, styles, and traditions. He realized that by directing actors in different countries, in different languages, even if he was directing German or English plays, he had to take into account the cultural differences of their acting and theatre, as well as the audiences’ horizon of expectations and capacity for change.

2 Peers: Interviews with Erika Stephan, Dieter Görne, and Wolfgang Engel

The following interviews are with three of Bennewitz’s contemporaries. They were all recorded personally by the author between 1999 and 2001, and their texts have been approved for publication by the interviewees. All three are eminent persons in the history of theatre in the German Democratic Republic and, after the reunification, German theatre in general. All still reside in eastern Germany. Erika Stephan (1929–) studied with Bennewitz in Weimar and was an instructor at the Theaterhochschule in Leipzig as well as a prominent theatre critic from 1960 until her official retirement in 1989; still, she recently co-edited a book with Wolfgang Engel on the history of Schauspiel Leipzig from 1957 to 2007 (Engel and Stephan 2007). Ms Stephan reviewed all four of Bennewitz’s German Fausts, three in Weimar and the one in Meiningen, and wrote numerous articles about him. Dr Dieter Görne (1936–) was the dramaturge with Bennewitz for his first two Weimar stagings of Faust (1965/67 and 1975). He worked as a researcher at the National Research Centre in Weimar, published on Goethe, among other subjects, held numerous theatre-related positions, and became an intendant, leading the Staatsschauspiel Dresden from 1990 to 2001, when he retired. Dr Görne also saw Bennewitz’s 1981 Faust. Wolfgang Engel (1943–) worked with Görne in Dresden, scarcely knew Bennewitz personally, but was well informed about his work during his own long career in GDR theatre and after the reunification as an actor, director, and intendant, notably of Schauspiel Leipzig from 1995 to 2008. He now directs at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. Mr Engel did not see any of Bennewitz’s productions of Faust. The comments of these three individuals provide a contemporary critical assessment of Bennewitz as director and person and shed light

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on his circumstances in the GDR. Ms Stephan’s interview provides insights into all four of Bennewitz’s German Fausts; Dr Görne provides a critical assessment of the three Weimar Fausts; and he and Mr Engel both set these and Bennewitz’s work generally into the broad context of GDR theatre and political history. Many of the points the interviewees make are expanded upon in the following chapters, with references back to what they have to say here. The questions asked are not included, as they were posed simply to start the discussion off in various directions. The author wishes to express his sincere gratitude to all three interviewees for their generous participation. Interview with Erika Stephan The following is an edited transcript of Erika Stephan’s responses to the author’s questions in an interview which took place in Leipzig on 2 July 2001. Von einem Menschen, der nicht in der DDR gelebt hat, Fragen, Beobachtungen vielleicht auch Rätsel zu hören, die für Sie mit der Biographie von Bennewitz zusammenhängen, ist für mich ungeheuer interessant, weil das immer wieder beweist, wie viele Dinge schwer zu erklären sind, wenn man sich nicht unter den DDR-Verhältnissen entwickelt hat. Ich bin fast der gleiche Jahrgang wie Fritz, er war Jahrgang ’26, ich bin Jahrgang ’29. Ich habe ihn 1950 kennen gelernt, als wir beide zu gleicher Zeit das Studium der Theaterwissenschaften in Belvedere bei Weimar aufnahmen, also dem damaligen Deutschen Theaterinstitut zur methodischen Erneuerung des deutschen Theaters. Wir waren eine sehr kleine Studentengruppe, dreizehn etwa. Fritz und sein Freund Klaus Wischnewski waren so etwas wie die intellektuellen Koryphäen unseres Studienjahres, das hing damit zusammen, dass Fritz die letzten Kriegsjahre aktiv miterlebt hatte, und dass sie beide ähnliche Lebenserfahrungen hatten und beide überdurchschnittliche Intelligenz und Begabung. Es war vielleicht typisch für die damalige Zeit, dass Fritz, ich denke etwa im dritten Studienjahr, schon als Hilfsassistent eingesetzt wurde und nun selbst Seminare, Vorlesungen mit uns, eigentlich seinen Kommilitonen, zu dem Thema ‘Marxistische Ästhetik’ gehalten hat. Es ist ganz eindeutig, dass sein Zugang zum Sozialismus und den Grundlagen dieses Staates sich über diese Theorie entwickelte. Die soziale Gerechtigkeit war ihm schon damals auch sehr wichtig. Die erkennbare soziale Qualität ist die eine Seite, die ästhetische die andere Seite. Der

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prägende Satz, der die Ästhetik-Vorstellungen und damit im Grunde genommen auch die ganze spätere Biographie, die künstlerische Biographie von Fritz bestimmt hat, war eine Stelle aus den philosophischökonomischen Manuskripten von Marx, eine der frühen Schriften, die lange Zeit in der DDR gar nicht sehr erwünscht waren. Man setzte sich lieber mit dem Kommunistischen Manifest auseinander. Die philosophisch-ökonomischen Schriften waren sehr utopisch, sehr auf die Zukunft gewandt und für Fritz war diese Stelle, die ich jetzt aus dem Gedächtnis zitieren kann, sehr wichtig: ‘Der Mensch unterscheidet sich von der Biene dadurch, dass er nicht aus dem Instinkt heraus, sondern nach vorweggenommenen Entwürfen arbeitet.’ In diesem Zusammenhang fällt der Satz von Marx: ‘Der Mensch formiert auch nach den Gesetzen der Schönheit.’ Diese Gesetze der Schönheit sind für Fritz immer die konstituierenden, auch marxistisch-theoretischen Elemente gewesen, die viel mehr als Begriffe wie ‘Klassenkampf’ bedeuteten. Unsere Wege trennten sich 1954 nach dem Diplom. Fritz ging nach Meiningen, ich blieb noch ein Jahr an der Hochschule, ging dann an ein kleines Theater in Thüringen, heute Sachsen-Anhalt, und anschließend für kurze Zeit in den Journalismus. 1960 begann ich eine Lehrtätigkeit an der Theaterwissenschaftlichen Abteilung der Theaterhochschule in Leipzig, die ich bis 1989 ausübte. In Verbindung mit meinem Lehrgiebiet arbeitete ich nebenberuflich als Theaterkritikerin. Als Ende der 60er Fritz Schauspieldirektor in Weimar wurde, im Deutschen Nationaltheater, nahmen wir die Verbindung wieder auf und ich bekam eines Tages ein Angebot von der Bezirkszeitung Das Volk in Erfurt. Dazu habe ich mich oft gefragt: ‘Wie kommen sie ausgerechnet auf mich?’ So berühmt war ich ja nun auch nicht. Dann stellte sich folgendes heraus: Das Nationaltheater hat sich bei dieser Tageszeitung des öfteren und sicherlich mit Recht über ein zu niedriges und nicht fachspezifisches Niveau der Kritiken beschwert. Es muss wohl der Vorschlag von Fritz gewesen sein: ‘Setzt euch mal mit der Stephan in Verbindung.’ So entstand dieser Kontakt wieder. Er war der einzige Regisseur, der für mich in einer praktizierenden Weise mit Kritik umgehen konnte. Denn es gab natürlich in dieser kontinuierlichen rezensierenden Begleitung, auch über diese damalige Zeitung, die Weimarer Inszenierungen betreffend, doch auch Dinge, die ich zu Recht oder zu Unrecht kritisierte. Fritz war mir nie böse, er hat nie etwas übel genommen. Er hatte aber ein unglaubliches Gedächtnis, hat sich alle Formulierungen merken können, hat mich manchmal damit konfrontiert und es gab immer zwei Möglichkeiten seiner Reaktion.

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Die eine war: ‘Du hast mich doch mal vor Jahren da etwas kritisiert und weil es von dir war, habe ich so lange darüber nachgedacht. Du hast, glaube ich, doch damals in eine richtige Richtung tendiert, ich sehe das heute auch anders.’ Der andere Gesichtspunkt war seine Reaktion auf die Beschreibung szenischer Vorgänge oder schauspielerischer Haltungen. Wir haben ja damals auch das Prinzip der Beschreibung zur heiligen Kuh erklärt. Es ging aber darum, dass eine Meinung, ein Urteil, rasch zu artikulieren ist; schwieriger ist es, zu beschreiben, was man gesehen hat. Solche Beschreibungen zu seinen Inszenierungen gingen ihm offenbar auch wirklich lange nach. Da seien ihm bestimmte Zusammenhänge und Motive oder konzeptionelle Aspekte, die ihn bewegt hätten, nachträglich bewusst geworden. Es gab also einen lebhaften Austausch und eine konstruktive Verständigung, auch zwischen einem wissenschaftlich-theoretischen Blick auf seine Arbeit und seiner kreativen Selbstverständigung. Fritz wusste sehr genau, dass er da fast ein Privilegierter war, dass man in ihm sozusagen die besten Hoffnungen real sah, ein Repräsentant dieses Staats, zumindest in den Ideen seines Programms, zu sein. Er hat vielleicht zu spät begriffen, dass er von dem real existierenden, sich im Alter verwirklichenden Sozialismus viel zu weit entfernt war. Er war auch ein Mensch, der mit seinem ganzen Interessensbereich eigentlich noch ein bisschen abgehoben in höheren Sphären lag. Und da er von Natur aus ungeheuer bescheiden und anspruchslos war, sind ihm die Mangelerscheinungen nie so wichtig gewesen. Fritz hätte sie da angeguckt mit den Worten: ‘Wieso brauchst du das? Ich nicht.’ Dass es dann eine ernsthafte Krise auch für ihn gegeben hat, konnte man endlich merken. Ich habe mich auch mit den Hoffnungen auf eine gerechtere Welt und auf die Veränderbarkeit des Menschen in hohem Maße identifiziert. Sich heute daran zu erinnern, ist schon ein Punkt, der sehr tiefe Auseinandersetzung fordert. Fritz war ein seltenes Beispiel für einen intellektuellen Künstler, der feststellt, dass er entscheidende Fehler gemacht hat. Sein Standpunkt: ‘Ich habe als Künstler im grundsätzlichen Widerspruch zu jeder Ordnung gestanden.’ Wie konnte man sich erdreisten? Das ist ja das Seltsame. ‘Aber ich habe der Öffentlichkeit Recht gegeben und nicht mir.’ [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1965/67] Bennewitz hat selbst gesagt, der Faust ist ein Bestandteil seines Lebens, der ihn immer wieder herausgefordert hat, der für ihn so wichtig war. Es gibt eine Formulierung von ihm, die Sie vielleicht auch schon anderweitig gefunden haben. Faust ist kein Stück, das man sich aussucht, Faust sucht einen heim. Das

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erklärt hier auch den immer neuen Zugriff und die immer neuen Gesichtspunkte, die er selber in den Inszenierungen entwickelt hat. Fritz hatte, glaube ich, bis ’65 hinein – und diese Meinung haben wir geteilt – ein euphorisches Sendungsbewusstsein: Wir leben in einem Staat, der im Begriff ist, die Widersprüche der menschlichen Gesellschaft aufzuheben und für sie eine Lösung zu finden. Sein Faust war damals von der Besetzung und von der konzeptionellen Lesart her sehr gebunden an ein Faustverständnis des ewig Strebenden, sich verzweifelnden, zur Gewissheit entwickelnden Mannes, der mit stolzem Selbstbewusstsein am Schluss sagt: ‘Solch ein Gewimmel möchte ich sehen.’ Er war bereit, ‘mit freiem Volk zu stehen,’ diese Utopie als eine greifbare realisierbare Perspektive der menschlichen Gesellschaft zu verteidigen, nicht in Frage zu stellen, sondern eine Figur zu sein, die über Widersprüche und über Rückschläge immer wieder die Kraft findet, sich zu neuen Aktivitäten durchzuringen und sinnvoll und ergebensreich zu arbeiten. Als Beispiel dafür dient die Vernichtung von Philemon und Baucis in Faust II, die zwar durch Mephisto vollzogen wird, aber Faust ist ja wohl der Auftraggeber gewesen. Man bedenke die Fragwürdigkeit dieser Industrialisierung, der Kanalbau mit sehr fragwürdigen Kräften, die drei Gewaltigen, dies alles doch als notwendige Unannehmlichkeit in Kauf zu nehmen und dann von sich aus wieder als Mittel zum Fortschritt zu nutzen. Oder die Befreiung der Figur vom Hexenglauben: ‘Nimm dich in Acht und sprich kein Zauberwort,’ sagt Faust und Fritz hat dies als eine Selbstkorrektur im Kontext der damals wissenschaftlichen oder späteren wissenschaftlich-theoretischen Analysen verstanden. Also nicht mehr Geister zu beschwören, sondern sich auf diese damals für unaufhaltsam geltende menschliche Fähigkeit zu verlassen. Was Fritz damals in der szenischen Realisierung des Fausttextes neu Theater-methodisch und Regie-methodisch entdeckt hat, war eine absolute Neuerung gegenüber Faustversuchen an anderen Bühnen. Fritz entdeckte das, was wir damals durchgehende Handlung, also ‘die Fabel der Inszenierung’ nannten, durch die Art und Weise, wie er das Verhältnis von Faust und Mephisto auf der Bühne organisierte. Es waren nicht zwei statuarische Prinzipien, sondern es waren zwei Figuren, die ständig im Clinch miteinander lagen. Der eine zog den anderen und ständig war Faust derjenige, der Bedingungen stellte, mit denen er Mephisto wieder zu neuen Initiativen unter Verweis auf den Pakt provozierte, verlockte, verführte oder nötigte. Dieses Prinzip, diese Achse, der Clinch, der zwischen Faust und Mephisto stattfand, das gab der Inszenierung eine ungeheure Geschlossenheit. Es zog sich immer durch

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diese zwei Figuren, die um die Realisierung eines Phänomens ringen. Das war auch, denke ich, eine Entdeckung und eine inszenatorische Leistung, die auf andere Faust-Inszenierungen weiter gewirkt hat, sehr stark auch auf die viel später folgende Inszenierung in Schwerin von Christoph Schroth, der zum ersten Mal versucht hat, beide Teile an einem Abend, auf fünf Stunden verkürzt, zu bringen, in einem sehr auf Volksstimmigkeit orientierten Theater. Fritz hat sich später von dieser naiven Fortschrittsgläubigkeit sehr distanziert. [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1975] Der erste Niederschlag war schon 1975, zehn Jahre später, das ist ja auch eine lange Zeit. Es war eine ganz andere Auffassung von Faust und Mephisto und auch eine ganz andere Auffassung der Gretchen Figur. Zwei Ereignisse spielten dafür eine Rolle. Über das erste hat Fritz sich sehr oft geäußert, das war die FaustInszenierung 1968 am Deutschen Theater Berlin von Adolf Dresen, die eben auf Grund des vernichtenden Verdikts, das die Inszenierung damals gefunden hat, den zweiten Teil nicht mehr realisieren konnte. Aber dort fand zum ersten Mal auf dem Boden der DDR eine Lesart des Faust, die überhaupt nichts mehr mit der progressiven Vorbildfigur, mit der Kämpfernatur zu tun hatte, statt. Das war natürlich alles im Umfeld dieser oft zitierten Walter-Ulbricht-These, der dritte Teil des Faust wird in der DDR geschrieben, wir sind im Grunde genommen alle Fäuste und also beschädigt uns doch bitte nicht unsere große Vorbildfigur. Fausts Betroffenheit wird beschrieben, echte Verzweiflung wird ihm zugebilligt, nicht bloß intellektuelle Attitüde. Man stellt eine unbedingte Vertiefung der existentiellen Tragik des Helden dar, die unmittelbare Rückschlüsse auf die verzweiflungsvolle Haltung bürgerlicher und kleinbürgerlicher Intellektueller unsere Zeit zulässt. Das war der empfindliche Nerv dieser Inszenierung, dass die Verzweiflung des Intellektuellen auf der Bühne Wirklichkeit würde und das passte natürlich gar nicht in das Selbstverständnis dieses Staates. Ich denke, dass Fritz in der Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Inszenierung sich selbst auch bewusster geworden ist, wie sehr das sein eigenes Problem ist, die Verzweiflung des Intellektuellen. Ich finde es ein Zeichen von Größe, daß er sich immer dazu bekennt, wie sehr diese Inszenierung am Deutschen Theater in seine späteren Inszenierungen hinein gewirkt hat. Der Faust der zweiten Inszenierung ’75 hat schon nichts mehr mit dem großen Pathos der makellosen widerspruchsfreien Figur zu tun. Ich sprach vorhin von zwei Einflüssen auf die zweiten und dritten Faust-Inszenierungen. Der eine ist das Erlebnis der Begegnung mit der Inszenierung am Deutschen Theater und der andere die Gunst der Umstände, dass

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Fritz ins westliche Ausland reisen durfte. Ich glaube, es war in Holland. Es gab auch Korrespondenz mit dem Bühnenbildner Franz Havemann. Sehr stark von der Optik der Bilder her bestimmte er den ersten Faust. Dieses ganze Bühnenbild eines emporstrebend-gotischen Turms aus Holz, in den die verschiedenen Spielflächen hineingesetzt waren, dieses aufstrebende aufklärerische Prinzip, direkt im Bild auf der Bühne, war dann 1975 völlig verschwunden und im Hintergrund gab es eine riesige Plattform mit Pieter Bruegels Sturz der gefallenen Engel. Das war die Metapher für das Lebensgefühl und die Sinnlichkeit dieser Inszenierung. Sie enthält Elemente von Ironie und kontert damit das Gefühl des Absturzes, des Scheiterns. Offen blieb die Frage: Wo ist der ‘positive Held’? Faust war eine sehr irdische Figur geworden, keinesfalls mehr die ideale Vorbildfigur. Und nun verlagerte sich – und auch das ist wohl etwas Typisches für Fritz, das Element des Beispielhaften, des Positiven auf die Gretchen-Gestalt. Für Gretchen hat Fritz zum ersten Mal den Begriff ‘Revolutionärin der Liebe’ verwendet. Ihr Monolog ‘Ach neige, du Schmerzenreiche’ findet nicht bei der Stadtmauer statt, sondern in ihrem Zimmer hängt ein Marienbild, an das sie sich zunächst wendet, aber es kommt keine Antwort. Gretchen steigert sich in eine Erregung hinein, bis sie es herunterreißt. Also direkt bewusste atheistische Aktivitäten sind eingesetzt. Die Überlegung kreist ja immer wieder um das Thema, was bedeutete Faust und mit Faust Goethe für Fritz Bennewitz? Interessant ist, dass er sich sonst für Goethe nicht so sehr interessiert hat. Mir fällt so mindestens jetzt keine andere Goethe-Inszenierung ein, die er gemacht hat. Tasso wäre vielleicht ein Stück für ihn gewesen, die Problematik des Künstlers in seiner Abhängigkeit. Es fiel ihm aber nicht zu. Vielmehr Shakespeare und ich denke, es gab innerlich eine starke Annäherung an Hamlet. [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1981] Die zunehmende Ironie, der aggressive oppositionelle Geist charakterisierte den dritten Faust. Ironie war eigentlich die staatsfeindlichste Haltung, zu der man sich versteigern konnte. Solche Tonfälle und Intonationen waren nicht beweisbar, aber man machte sich unbeliebt damit und das konnte für die Karriere dann schon ein paar Schatten auf irgendwelche Vorstellungen werfen. Diesbezüglich beschreibe ich das Bild, das ich am lebhaftesten in Erinnerung habe: Studierstube, Wagner, ganz deutlich eine Spitzelfigur, einer der schnüffelt, der so mal hinter dem Rücken von Faust überall nachguckt, ob da nicht irgend etwas ist, was man melden kann. So war’s

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von Fritz später auch bezeichnet. Man wusste über die staatlichen Geschichten Bescheid und sie waren bei dieser Figur ganz eindeutig. Die Leute haben es verstanden und fanden es sehr lustig. Man hatte keine Angst davor und hat sich verständigt. Dann in dem Osterspaziergang eine sehr grobe Szene, ein sehr primitives zynisches Volk, Soldaten, die die Mädchen vergewaltigen, ein Müllhaufen und dann der große Monolog: ‘Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich’s sein,’ aber mit drei Fragezeichen gesprochen und nicht mehr als eine Aussage von Faust. Wir hatten auch in den Farben der geputzten Kleider einen direkten Verweis auf die Natur und was jetzt drin stattfindet: Er hebt weggeworfene Blechbüchsen auf und hat sie in der Hand, als er den Monolog zu Ende spricht. Es ist ständig gebrochen, ständig relativiert. [Zur Meiningen Faust 1995] Der Meininger Faust, figürlich von Habitus auch von Sprachgestus her, war nicht auf demselben Niveau des künstlerischen Formats wie in Weimar, er hat die Inszenierung ja auch nicht vollenden können. Aber die Intention war gut zu erkennen. Der Faust-Darsteller spielte den schmalen, intellektuell-asketischen Typ, der zweifelt, der zum Zynismus neigt, der in ständiger Erregung ist, in keiner Weise selbstgewiss, der Zweifel hat. Entgegen kam die Erinnerung immer wieder an die 68er-Inszenierung im Deutschen Theater zu Berlin. Dort hat der Schauspieler Franke den Mephisto gespielt und hat damit zum ersten Mal in der DDR-Rezeption des Fausts den Volksteufel vorgeführt, der aus der Erde kommt, also wirklich mit Klumpfuß. Er war eine etwas behäbige Erscheinung, sehr witzig und sehr klug, aber in keiner Weise ein Sophist oder intellektueller Zyniker, sondern der Provokateur, der sich mit der Wucht seines Selbstverständnisses und seiner irdischen Gebundenheit dem Faust entgegenstellt. Eine solche Figur war auch wieder in Meiningen am Werk. Fritz ging an die Arbeit heran und sagte, er könne sich den Faust jetzt nur noch als Rebellen vorstellen. Es wurde versucht, das Aufsässige, das Unzufriedene, die Unruhe, die Unrast der Figur stark zu betonen. Dieser Versuch, den Rebellen Faust zu betonen, wurde aber nicht eindeutig realisiert. In Meiningen war auch ganz wichtig für ihn der Kontakt mit dem Ensemble, denn es gab diese fast romantische Verbindung, dass sein Eingangstheater, das erste Engagement im Jahre ’65, in Meiningen stattfand. Sein ganzes Leben schloss sich also. Das Ensemble hat ihn geliebt. Dort gab es auch immer diese Theaterwochen. In seinem letzten Lebensjahr war der Faust das zentrale Thema dieser Theaterwochen. Die Schauspieler hatten von sich aus ein paar alte Texte ausgegraben und einstudiert, Parodien auf das Verhältnis Faust-Mephisto. Es war

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alles ganz hinreißend, kreativ und lustig und getragen von dieser intensiven Atmosphäre hat Fritz eine Rede über sein Eindringen in die Faust-Konstellation gehalten, über sein Verhältnis zu dem Ensemble, gleichzeitig im Rückblick auf seine ganze Biographie, und wie er bestimmte Erfahrungen von vorher heute in einem neuen Lichte sieht. Er konnte sich auch in einer Art öffentlich mit sich auseinandersetzen, über Fehler und Irrtümer und ihre Aufhebung in einem neuen Licht reden. Er hat leider die fertige Inszenierung und ihre Wirkung aufs Publikum sowie die Premiere nicht miterlebt. Es gab eine sehr schöne Entscheidung, dass vor Beginn der Inszenierung das Porträt von Fritz heruntergelassen wurde und dort während der Vorstellung blieb, damit alles unter seinem Blick stattfand. Interview with Dieter Görne The following is an edited transcript of Dieter Görne’s responses to the author’s questions in an interview which took place in Dresden on 15 April 1999. Da muss ich zuerst sagen, dass Bennewitz ein ganz wichtiger Theatermann für die DDR war. Er ist nach Weimar gekommen in einer Zeit, in der das Weimarer Theater nicht durch besondere Leistungen glänzte. Er hat dort quasi eine neue Ära begonnen und das sowohl aufgrund seiner ausgeprägten persönlichen künstlerischen Handschrift als auch im Hinblick auf die geistige Schärfe, mit der er sein Programm zu verwirklichen suchte. Ich bin persönlich nach Weimar gekommen, als die Arbeit am Faust I begann. Das war 1965 und da waren dieser wichtigen Goethearbeit bereits die Shakespeare-Inszenierungen von Wintermärchen und Richard III vorausgegangen. Außerdem hatte sich Bennewitz auch schon intensiv mit Brecht befasst. Er hatte 1958 in Meiningen – also außerhalb des Berliner Ensembles – unter anderem Die Dreigroschenoper zu einer sensationellen Aufführung gebracht. Das war ein denkwürdiges Ereignis. Er hat in Weimar die Auseinandersetzung mit Brecht mit Leben des Galilei und mit einer interessanten Inszenierung von Die Tage der Commune fortgesetzt und bei den konzeptionellen Überlegungen zum Faust immer wieder betont: ‘Die Voraussetzungen dafür, dass ich Faust machen kann, bestehen in der Beschäftigung mit Brecht und mit Shakespeare.’ Speziell das Wintermärchen mit Wolfgang Dehler als Leontes war eine in der DDR viel beachtete Inszenierung. Bennewitz hat am Wintermärchen wohl vor allem den merkwürdigen

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Zeitumbruch – der hat ihn immer, auch bei anderen Stücken interessiert – zu fassen versucht, der dazu führt, dass Leontes, bis dahin ganz souveräner Herrscher, seinem besten Freund gegenüber von jetzt auf die nächste Sekunde – logisch nicht zu begründen – tödliches Misstrauen empfindet. Bennewitz fand, das sei nicht ein subjektiver Fehler, sondern Resultat einer Zeit, in der eine alte auf Treue und Glauben basierende Feudalgesellschaft mit allen ihren bisher für unzerstörbar gehaltenen Werten zerbricht und eine neue, die bürgerliche, beginnt. Das ist in der dramatischen Metapher bei Shakespeare gewissermaßen eine historische Sekunde, der der Mensch ‘ausgeliefert’ ist. Die Lösung des Konflikts ist darum so märchenhaft wie wahrhaftig; sie bedarf menschlicher Tatkraft ebenso wie der Harmonie schaffenden Macht der Musik. Diese Vielschichtigkeit hat für Bennewitz eine ungeheure Rolle gespielt und seine Arbeit am Faust maßgeblich beeinflusst. [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1965/67] Dieser Weimarer Faust von 1965/67 stand in Korrespondenz zu einer seinerzeit sehr bekannten Leipziger Aufführung von Faust I und II [1965]. Karl Kayser, der Regisseur, hatte seine Inszenierung der beiden Teile ausdrücklich als homogene Einheit verstanden, und er sah in Faust eine der größten und bedeutendsten Gestalten der deutschen Literatur. Er war für ihn in erster Linie Vorbild. Er ging deshalb bei seiner Inszenierung konzeptionell vom Schluss, also von der Rettung Faustens aus. Bennewitz schlug den entgegengesetzten Weg ein: Fausts Weg muss von Beginn an in Höhen und vor allem in Tiefen führen. Die Widersprüche der Figur, ihre Abstürze und Konflikte, weniger didaktische Gesichtspunkte waren für ihn von Interesse. Wie schuldig wird Faust Gretchen gegenüber? Wie bewältigt er, der schuldig Gewordene, nach der Heilung durch die Naturgeister den zweiten Teil mit seinen divergierenden und doch zusammengehörenden ‘Weltenkreisen.’ Entscheidende Bedeutung maß Bennewitz dem 1. Akt des zweiten Teils zu: in ihm sah er metaphorisch abermals eine Zeitwende gestaltet. Der hoch verschuldete Kaiser lässt zu, dass mit der mephistophelisch-faustischen Erfindung des Papiergeldes eine der wichtigsten Säulen seiner wirtschaftlichen Macht destabilisiert wird. Er lässt außerdem – gegen den ausdrücklichen Widerstand des Erzkanzlers – zu, dass mit Faust und Mephisto der bislang nie geduldete ‘Zweifel’ Besitz von der Hofgesellschaft greift, und er provoziert mit seinem Wunsch, Paris und Helena leibhaftig vor sich zu sehen, eine dritte, für das Mittelalter gefährliche Sprengkraft: die Rückbesinnung auf die Antike und ihre vitalen Heldengestalten. Mit großen theatralischen Erfindungen hat Bennewitz diese drei von Goethe vorgezeichne-

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ten Handlungsstränge auf der Bühne lebendig werden lassen und auf diese Weise einleuchtend den 4. und 5. Akt vorbereitet. Dabei spielte auch eine wichtige Rolle, dass das Verhältnis von Faust und Mephistopheles als ein dialektisches verstanden wurde, in dem keineswegs Faust allein Gang und Entwicklung der Handlung bestimmte. Insofern waren Bennewitz’ Ausgangspunkte durchaus denen verwandt, die 1968 Adolf Dresen und Wolfgang Heinz ihrer Interpretation des Faust am Deutschen Theater Berlin zugrunde legten. Als wir aber die Inszenierung kennenn lernten, wurde uns klar, wie weit wir von einer wirklichen neuen, radikalen Analyse des Werkes entfernt waren. Da hatten uns Dresen und Heinz wirklich einen entscheidenden Schritt voraus. Es war eine faszienierende Aufführung. Je länger sie zurückliegt, umso deutlicher wird mir das. Eine wirklich große Leistung! [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1975] Es hat 1975 eine weitere Inszenierung von Faust I und II gegeben, in der Bennewitz durchaus von einem radikaleren Ausgangspunkt ausging: Faust im ersten Studierzimmer erschien nun wirklich (auch in der theatralischen Umsetzung) als entschiedener, kompromissloser Zweifler. Gemessen an Dresens Radikalität (die ihre Wurzeln auch in den heftigen Auseinandersetzungen hatte, die um Egon Monks Urfaust-Inszenierung und um Hanns Eislers geplante Faust-Oper geführt wurden) blieb aber auch diese zweite Inszenierung, so aufregend und interessant (und in Weimar heftige Debatten hervorrufend) sie auch war, relativ moderat. Es gab ein damaliges offizielles Faust-Verständnis. Faust wurde gewissermaßen eine nationale Vorbild-Figur. Walter Ulbricht sprach damals davon, das Volk der DDR schreibe nun den (sozialistischen) III. Teil des Faust. Bei der Inszenierung 1975 war ich wieder der Dramaturg. Wir haben uns sehr bemüht, Adolf Dresen nicht einfach zu kopieren oder nachzuholen. Zugleich hatten wir, ich sagte es schon, durchaus radikalere Vorstellungen. Das ist uns partiell wohl auch gelungen, und wir sind vielleicht sowohl in der Absichtserklärung als auch in der künstlerischen Umsetzung ein Stück weiter vorangekommen, auch in der Zuspitzung von Situationen und auch in der Verschärfung von Konflikten. Dennoch blieb der künstlerische Gesamteindruck (so jedenfalls sehe ich es rückwirkend) schwächer als der der Inszenierung von 1965/67. Es begann mit Faust und Mephisto. Das ‘Gespann’ Heine/Böstel war nicht dasselbe wie zuvor Dehler/Diesko. Heine war allgemeiner, tönender. Zu dieser Gefahr neigte Wolfgang Dehler durchaus auch, aber auch ein scharfer Regisseur, der Bennewitz gewesen ist, konnte ihn in der

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Auseinandersetzung fordern, fördern und lenken. Heine blieb letzlich plakativ. Unterm Strich blieb es unverbindlicher. Ich habe das damals so nicht gesehen und habe selbst eher die ideellen Fortschritte betont, die wir zweifellos gemacht haben. Aber ich wiederhole es, künstlerisch waren wir nicht wirklich auf der Höhe. Auch was die Bewältigung des zweiten Teils anlangt, vom Optischen her und von der Zuordnung der einzelnen Konflikte, ist es kein wirklicher Fortschritt gewesen. Was den zweiten Teil angeht, beispielsweise im 1. Akt, wurden wiederum die drei Sprengkräfte bemüht. Ich kann gar nicht sagen, dass es falsch war. Wenn man aber eine Sache zweimal macht und in diesem speziellen Fall letztlich doch mit dem im Grunde gleichen Konzept arbeitet, wird alles leicht opulenter, auch perfekter, aber nicht wirklich tiefer. Die Aufführung hatte riesigen Erfolg – schon deshalb, weil wir die Inszenierung in den 70-er Jahren tatsächlich von vorn beginnen und in einem Zug beenden konnten. In der ersten Inszenierung 1965/67 lagen zwei Jahre dazwischen, aber hier ging es um einen Probenzeitraum, in dem wir uns der spannenden Einheit im Widerspruch, der die beiden Teile verbindet, mit hoher Konzentration widmen konnten. Das ist auch im Bühnenbild durchaus spürbar. Natürlich haben wir nie die ‘Rettung’ am Ende im Auge gehabt. Im Gegenteil, in der Inszenierung der siebziger Jahre ist jene ‘Rettung’ sogar wesentlich fragwürdiger, offener geblieben als 1965/67. Das sind so die kleinen Details, wo ich schon sagen möchte, dass Entwicklungsprozesse stattgefunden haben. Aber der ganz große neue Wurf ist es nicht geworden. [Zur Faust-Inszenierung 1981/82] Die dritte, an der ich nicht beteiligt war, ist meiner Meinung nach ein Fehlschlag gewesen und hinter dem zurückgeblieben, was die beiden vorangehenden schon erreicht hatten. Ich habe das in einer in Weimar stattfindenden Tagung des Theaterverbandes nach der Aufführung auch ziemlich direkt gesagt. Das hat zu einem irreparablen Bruch zwischen Bennewitz und mir geführt. Bennewitz war natürlich nicht derselben Meinung. Er war fest überzeugt, einen wichtigen Schritt nach vorn getan zu haben. Deshalb war er wirklich enttäuscht über meine Äußerungen, und wir haben heftig gestritten ... Ich glaube kaum, dass jemand innerhalb von zwanzig Jahren dreimal dieses Riesenwerk anders und wirklich neu machen kann. Ich habe das schon gemerkt beim zweiten Mal. Da gab es Ansatzpunkte. Auch ich persönlich wäre völlig außer Stande gewesen, ihn als Dramaturg, der ich, wie gesagt, damals nicht mehr war, zu etwas Neuem zu animieren. So ist es zu Äußerlichkeiten und zu Spielereien gekommen. Natürlich war auch diese Aufführung professionell, aber sie blieb

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bunt, sie war nicht farbig, sondern bunt – so jedenfalls habe ich sie in Erinnerung. [Zum Theater generell in den achtzigern] Es hat Tendenzen gegeben, in Ostdeutschland ein wenig später als in Westdeutschland. Aber keineswegs durch die Bank weg. Zum Beispiel das Deutsche Theater Berlin: die haben mit Zähnen und Klauen an einem hoch künstlerischen, hoch professionellen weiten Realismusbegriff festgehalten, die Regisseure sowohl als auch das wunderbare Ensemble. Daneben gab es ein paar andere Häuser, andere Regisseure, die lärmende Buntheit fur modern hielten. Das sage ich nicht, um die einzelnen Macher zu diffamieren, weil ich selbstverständlich weiß, dass in den meisten Fällen (auf jeden Fall bei Bennewitz), die Basis trotzdem durchaus seriös und aufrichtig war. Das sind oft subjektiv ernsthafte Versuche gewesen, die man deshalb auch seriös behandeln muss. Aber ich selbst habe seinerzeit keinen Zugang zu dieser Ästhetik gefunden. Das gilt auf eine andere Weise im Übrigen auch für die Hallenser Faust-Aufführung von Horst Schönemann. Das war eine sehr lebendige, fröhliche Inszenierung, aber die wirklichen Ecken und Kanten und Widersprüche blieben auch auf der Strecke. Letztlich zeigte sie vor allem, wie herrlich weit wir es gebracht haben. Darüber hat es nach der Aufführung viele Auseinandersetzungen gegeben. Schönemann war ganz anderer Meinung als ich. [Gerhard] Wolfram als damaliger Hallenser Theaterleiter hat das schon genauer und präziser gesehen und, ich denke, auch mitgetragen. Ich sage das deshalb, weil er, Wolfram, derjenige war, der mich in das Dramaturgenschicksal gebracht hat, hier in Dresden zum dritten Mal beide Teile Fausts als Dramaturg in der Inszenierung von Wolfgang Engel betreuen zu können. Das war nun wieder eine wirklich neue Arbeit – wobei die Initialzündung von Engel ausging. [Zur Wende] Ich kann immer noch sagen, wenn die Wende nicht gekommen wäre, wären wir sicherlich in größere Schwierigkeiten gekommen mit dieser Art von Interpretation. Als die Wende kam, gab es nicht nur keine Schwierigkeiten, sondern von einingen zugereisten ‘Kritikern’ eine Art mitleidliches Lächeln: ‘Na und, was wollt Ihr den? Na und, das, denkt Ihr, ist etwas Besonderes? Ach, du lieber Gott!’ Was ganz ungerecht war. Engel hatte – die ‘zwei Seelen’ in Fausts Brust nehmend – die strenge personale Trennung von Faust und Mephisto aufgegeben zugunsten von zwei ‘Faust-Mephistos,’ die im Wechsel miteinander, gleich gekleidet, also eine Art Zwillingswesen von den goetheschen Vorgaben Texte aufnahmen und aufgaben. Es war ein Konzept, das keineswegs ohne Probleme war. Es gab Abstriche, die

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gemacht wurden, damit es aufging, und die beiden Faust-Darsteller haben auch im Verlaufe der drei Abende auf unterschiedliche Weise spielerisch mit diesen Texten umgehen können, weil dann durchaus Passagen kamen, wo dann doch wieder die goethesche Diktion – das sagt Mephisto, das sagt Faust – an einen der beiden über längere Strecken gekettet worden ist. Die Geschichte war insgesamt ein hoch interessanter Versuch. Inszenatorisch gehört das, glaube ich, zu den wirklich herausragenden Leistungen der jüngeren Dresdner Theatergeschichte. Ein großes Erlebnis! Da, denke ich, war der Ansatz wirklich neu. Und das hat wiederum mit einer in der Zuspitzung von Konflikten wirklich komplizierten Zeit zu tun, aus der heraus ein Engel, ein ungemein wacher und politisch denkender und empfindender Regisseur, einen wirklichen Gewinn zog. Das war ein wirklicher Neuansatz. [Zur allgemeinen Bewertung von Bennewitz’ Theaterarbeit] Wintermärchen und Richard III, Die Tage der Commune, Sturm, natürlich Faust, Käthchen von Heilbronn, das waren schon Inszenierungen, die weit über Weimar hinaus Anerkennung fanden. Die Dreigroschenoper am Anfang habe ich nicht gesehen, aber der Ruf der Aufführung war hervorragend. Hinzu kam, dass sie in Meiningen und nicht in Berlin herauskam. Ich glaube, Bennewitz ist immer ein sehr guter Regisseur gewesen, selbst wenn ich ihn nicht in jedem Fall mit zum Beispiel Adolf Dresen oder Alexander Lang gleichstellen würde. Ich weiß nicht, wie ‘gut’ er als Regisseur im Ausland war, worwiegend in Indien. Aber dort war er als Theaterenthusiast und einer, der für Theater wirklich mit aller Leidenschaft und Konsequenz lebte. Er war dort im besten Sinn Künstler und Lehrer in einem und in dieser Verbindung, denke ich, unglaublich und unentbehrlich ... Er war ein neugieriger Mensch, er wollte nicht abgekapselt leben, sondern wollte, wenn er nun schon da war, das Land und seine Menschen wirklich kennenlernen. Von einem ersten Besuche in Indien ist er schwerkrank nach Hause gekommen, weil er Eisenbahn gefahren ist, letzte Klasse, und irgendwann verseuchtes Wasser getrunken hat. Er hat Jahre daran laboriert. Ich werde es nicht vergessen – wir sind mal nach seiner ersten Indienreise gemeinsam nach Chemnitz gefahren. Da hat er wirklich die zwei Stunden, die wir gefahren sind, ununterbrochen von seinen Erlebnissen in Indien erzählt. Er quoll richtig über und es überrascht mich gar nicht, dass er Korrespondenzen gehabt hat bis zu den untersten Schichten und dass er da Verbindungen gehabt hat. Das ist typisch für ihn. [Zu seinem Verhältnis zu FB] Was die Zeit nach Weimar anlangt, kann ich Ihnen nichts sagen. Ich war in Karl-Marx-Stadt und dann in

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Dresden. Wir haben uns seltener gesehen und dann nach 1989 noch seltener. Da hat es, wie gesagt, für mein Gefühl auch einen gewissen Bruch gegeben. Unser Verhältnis war ein außerordentlich gutes Arbeitsverhältnis und kein so sehr enges persönliches. Als die Arbeit vorbei war und man im Freundeskreis beisammen war, da hatte er den seinen und ich den meinen. Es gibt ganz wenige Momente, an die ich mich erinnere, wo er über die Arbeit hinaus sich in ein persönliches Gespräch mit mir begeben hat. Ich habe das immer respektiert und, wie gesagt – ich hoffe, das wird deutlich –, ich habe ihn als einen meiner wichtigsten Arbeitspartner immer geschätzt und schätze ihn auch im Rückblick nach wie vor als einen für mich ganz wichtigen und wesentlichen Mann. Ich bin nicht in der SED gewesen und habe aus meiner sehr kritischen Haltung diesem Staatswesen gegenüber, ihm gegenüber, nie einen Hehl gemacht. Ich war kein Widerstandskämpfer und habe nicht zum Umsturz aufgerufen. Aber ich konnte ihm in jeder Hinsicht offene meine Meinung sagen und der Faust ist eine Materie, wo man schnell auf aktuelle Bezüge kommt. Da gab es viele Meinungsverschiedenheiten, daraus ist aber nie wirklich ein Problem entstanden. Das muss ich ausdrücklich, als zu den sehr guten Erinnerungen gehörenden, hinzufügen. Sie haben vorhin [zu Bennewitz’ Mitgliedschaft in der SED] gefragt: ‘Musste er das?’ Ich glaube, er musste nicht, er wollte. In der Zeit, in der ich mit ihm zusammengearbeitet habe, hat er mir imponiert, dass er nie vordergründig der Karriere wegen opportunistisch ‘überzeugt’ war, sondern er war einfach überzeugt. Gerade deshalb hatte er zunehmend mit einer dogmatischer werdenden Theaterleitung auch auf Parteiebene eher Schwierigkeiten als etwa Vorteile. Und unmittelbar bevor er seinen schweren Autounfall hatte, sah er sich Vorwürfen der ‘Partei’ ausgesetzt, galt er als nicht zuverlässig und zu intellektuell. Eher sollte er eingeengt werden als aufgebaut. Dass er nach Indien – jetzt sage ich mal ‘ausgewichen’ oder ‘geflohen’ ist – das hatte nicht nur künstlerische Gründe. Er war sich wohl einer gewissen stagnierenden Situation bewusst, und sah, dass im Gegensatz dazu seine Kreativität wach wurde in der Begegnung und der Reibung mit einem ganz anderen Kulturkreis. Das hatte, glaube ich, durchaus etwas mit Flucht aus der Enge zu tun. Denn er war ein wirklich scharfer Analytiker und ein hochintelligenter Mann. Überzeugung hin, Überzeugung her, dass es in Weimar eng geworden war und dass es furchtbar viel Dummheit gab, das hat er natürlich gemerkt, wie ich auch. Aber auch zu Zeiten, wo er d’accord war mit der Obrigkeit, staatlich und parteilich, war es

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immer möglich, mit ihm offen und geradezu zu reden. Das habe ich ihm außerordentlich hoch angerechnet, und er ist ausdrücklich keiner, der die Parteimitgliedschaft zu Karrierezwecken ausgenutzt hat. Dann wäre er nicht so lange in Weimar geblieben. Dann hätte er sich nicht den Ärger auf Dauer aufgehalst, den er mit den Partnern in Weimar zunehmend bekam. Dann hätte er also – und das Instrumentarium war bekannt, an wen man sich da zu wenden hatte – eine andere Entwicklung genommen. Dass er es bis ans Ende und übers Ende hinaus seine Überzeugung bewahrt hat, muss man nicht teilen. Aber Vorteilsdenken war es unter gar keinen Umständen. Er ist auch in Weimar nicht als der ‘Genosse Bennewitz’ gefeiert worden, sondern wirklich als der Inszenator einiger bedeutender Inszenierungen. Als sie dann gelegentlich misslangen, hat seine Parteimitgliedschaft nicht davor geschützt, von der Kritik mächtig ‘verdroschen’ zu werden, und er hat nie den Versuch unternommen, das etwa über die Parteigremien einzuschränken. Da halte ich ihn für einen lauteren Charakter. Er war ein Mensch mit Widersprüchen und keineswegs ohne Fehl und Tadel, aber in bestimmten Grundpositionen, glaube ich, wirklich ein anständiger, integrer Mann. Interview with Wolfgang Engel The following is an edited transcript of Wolfgang Engel’s responses to the author’s questions in an interview which took place in Leipzig on 21 April 1999. [Zu Faust-Inszenierungen auf DDR-Bühnen allgemein] Bevor ich mich erstmals mit Faust beschäftigte, hatte ich eine große Aversion gegen den Faust. Das war meine Grundhaltung: Ich war skeptisch gegenüber einer Staatsinterpretation, sowohl im Osten, also zur damaligen Zeit der DDR, als auch im Westen: Faust war immer die Gallionsfigur des jeweiligen Staates. Das war bei den Nazis so, das war in der Weimarer Republik so, das war schon im ersten Weltkrieg so – im Tornister der deutschen Soldaten gab es eine Feldpostausgabe von Faust I – das war in der Bundesrepublik so und das war in der DDR so. Die Intellektuellen sagten: ‘Damit wollen wir nichts zu tun haben!’ Ich wollte mit dieser Gallionsfigur auch nichts zu tun haben, die da heißt: Faust der ‘Tatmensch’ und ‘der immer strebend sich bemüht, den könnten wir erlösen.’ Das haben sowohl die Kommunisten auf ihre Fahnen geschrieben als auch die bürgerliche Gesellschaft.

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Meine erste Begegnung, wo ich diesen Text ganz spannend fand, war ’68 die Aufführung von Adolf Dresen in Berlin am Deutschen Theater. Diese Aufführung hat ja die DDR-Kulturpolitik auf die Palme gebracht. Also zum allerersten Mal, zumindest seit Bestehen der DDR, war dieser Faust ein in sich zerissener Grübler, Zweifler und er war am Ende. Und an dem Punkt beginnt das Stück, wo er Selbstmord begehen will. Der Schauspieler, der das damals gespielt hat, Fred Düren, hatte sogar nichts von einem Vertreter des Heldenfachs. Es war ein zierlicher, dünner, blutleer wirkender Intellektueller, der da um Hilfe schrie, weil er nicht wusste, wie er leben soll. Das war 1968 und diese Grundthese des Dresenschen Materials gilt für mich noch heute. Es hat sich nichts, aber auch gar nichts an dieser These geändert. Die Spirale – diese Entwicklung – geht nicht nach oben, wie uns Jahrhunderte der Interpretation haben weismachen wollen, sondern sie geht nach unten. In der DDR war Selbstmord eins der Tabuthemen. Es gab keine Selbstmordstatistik zu Zeiten der DDR. Dieser Selbstmordversuch von Faust wurde noch hochstilisiert als der unbändige Drang eines Tatmenschen, hinter die Wand zu gucken, hinter die Wand des realen Lebens zu gucken. Einen solchen Schwachsinn muss man sich vorstellen: Selbstmord so positiv gesehen, seltsame Bocksprünge, die eine DDRKulturpolitik gemacht hat, um diesen Selbstmord. Ansonsten war Selbstmord in der DDR tabu. Das hat zum ersten Mal Dresen ganz bewusst unterlaufen – den Text genau gelesen. Das hat dazu geführt, dass die tschechische Botschaft, das war 1968, drei Tage nach der Premiere, im DDR-Kultusministerium angerufen haben soll, und gesagt hat: ‘So fing es bei uns auch an mit der Konterrevolution. Ihr müsst aufpassen, liebe Genossen!’ Wir haben 1989, dieser These von Dresen von ’68 verpflichtet, einfach versucht, uns umfassender damit zu beschäftigen. An drei Abenden, also in drei Teilen. Wir haben es auch an Wochenden ganz lange gespielt, also samstags von 19.00 bis 23.00 Uhr und sonntags von mittags bis nachts. Und dieser Faust, also meines Erachtens, schreit in achtzig Prozent des Textes immer noch um Hilfe, weil er nicht weiß, wie er leben soll. Ich arbeite an diesem Text jetzt unter dem gleichen Aspekt. Man weiß am Schluß nicht, ob dieses vage ‘vielleicht’ von Faust, also, in diesem berühmten Text, ‘Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen: Verweile doch, du bist so schön’ [11501–2] aufgelöst wird. Mit der Möglichkeitsform in der Grammatik, ‘dürft ich sagen,’ beschreibt Faust zumindest eine unsichere, vage Zukunft. Und Mephisto sagt: ‘Ach, es war das Nichts,’ das ‘Ewig-Leere’ [11603]. Es hat sich, was meine Konzeption betrifft, nichts geändert. Jetzt in

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Leipzig, was immer noch Bestand hatte, waren die Texte von Dresen. Das hatte Bestand, und immer noch. Dann konnte auch niemand mehr an Christoph Schroths Inszenierung von 1979/80 in Schwerin vorbeikommen. Sein sehr vergnüglicher Faust, sein volkstümlicher Faust hatte unter anderem was damit zu tun, ein Theaterfest zu veranstalten, wo man dem Publikum den ganzen Faust zumutet. Und die Leute haben sich gefreut, dass man sie für klug hält, für intelligent genug hält, beide Teile zu sehen und das an einem Tag zu sehen. Das hat ungeheuer gut funktioniert, war ja eingebettet in den Rahmen dieser sogenannten Schweriner Entdeckungen, wo die Schweriner mindestens alle zwei Jahre große Theaterspektakel gemacht haben. Wo man Tag und Nacht in allen Räumen Theater gespielt hat, viele Stücke an einem Abend. Das Theater war ein Fest, ein Volksfest. [Zu Bennewitz’ Politik und zur Politik allgemein] Jetzt muss ich eines vorwegschicken. Für mich war es einfach. Ich bin nie in einer Partei gewesen und wusste irgendwann, ich werde immer in der zweiten Reihe bleiben. Ich werde nie irgendwo Chefregisseur oder Intendant werden können. So war es ja zu DDR-Zeiten. Das war wie Berufsverbot. Ich war in keiner Partei. Ich war weder in einer Blockpartei, noch in der SED. So blieb ich schön in der zweiten Reihe. Ich sage mal, es hat sehr oft – und so ist das vielleicht auch übertragbar – auch in meinem Leben Situationen gegeben, wo – das ist nun mal in einer Diktatur so – wo du vor Entscheidungen gestellt wirst. Ein Beispiel: Es wird von offizieller Seite verlangt, zu einem Ereignis irgendeine Manifestation zu unterschreiben. Das heißt, man ist gegen einen Angriff der Amerikaner dort und dort. Jetzt brauchte die Partei die Unterschriften oder Erklärungen oder sowas. Ich kenne einen Regisseur, das war mein Chef, der hat als einer der ganz wenigen 1968, als der Einmarsch der Russen in die Tschechoslowakei war, an seinem Theater, an dem ich auch war, übrigens war das in Schwerin, das nicht gemacht – eine Willenserklärung der Mitglieder dieses Theaters. Das hat ihn auch den Job gekostet, zwar vier Jahre später erst, aber es hat ihn den Job gekostet. Er hat gesagt: ‘Mach’ ich nicht!’ Das war ein Zeichen von Zivilcourage, die der an den Tag gelegt hat. Sehr oft ist es aber auch so gewesen, dass du gesagt hast: ‘Also gut, ich unterschreib’ das jetzt, damit wir hier noch weiter existieren können.’ Im August 1989 bekam ich die Aufforderung, mich darauf vorzubereiten, dass ich am 7. Oktober 1989 den Nationalpreis kriegen sollte. Den hab ich abgelehnt. Mit Günter de Bruyn, dem Schriftsteller. Wir beide haben ihn abgelehnt. Ich kriegte eine Einladung Ende August.

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Es war nach der Öffnung der Mauer in Ungarn, nach der Öffnung der Grenze. Ich kriegte eine Einladung, dass ich mich bereithalten sollte, am 7. Oktober den Nationalpreis entgegenzunehmen. Da habe ich eine Nacht lang überlegt und habe gesagt: ‘So, jetzt hab’ ich die Schnauze voll! Den Preis nehme ich nicht an!’ und habe das meinem Intendanten mitgeteilt, dem Gerhard Wolfram, der gesagt hat: ‘Ich verstehe Sie!’ Der hat mich sehr unterstützt, war ganz toll! Und dann habe ich das auch dem Ensemble erzählt. Einige Schauspieler sagten: ‘Nimm den Preis! Schenk’ das Preisgeld irgendeinem Kindergarten! Wir wollen hier noch weiter Theater machen!’ Einen Tag später, als ich meine Ablehnung dem Kultusminister geschrieben hatte, war die Stasi im Haus. Es wurden einige zu Verhören über mich, gegen mich, gerufen! Es war nur dann die DDR zu Ende. Dann war alles glücklich und wunderbar. Ich will damit nur sagen, dass sehr viele vor diesen Konflikten standen. Also er, Fritz Bennewitz – ich weiß gar nicht, wann er in die SED eingetreten ist – er gehörte noch einer Generation an, wie mein Intendant in Dresden, die noch als Pimpfe in der Naziarmee gewesen sind und dann wollten sie es besser machen. Und dann standen sie am Ende ihres Lebens wieder vor Trümmern. Bei Wolfram und Schönemann in Dresden durfte ich alles machen. Ich durfte so ziemlich inszenieren, was ich wollte. Da haben die beiden, die Genossen waren, ihre Hände drüber gehalten. Und da sie Mitglieder der Akademie der Künste waren, in Berlin, hatten sie eine gewisse Verbindung zu Leuten. Die haben mich beschützt. Viele Theaterleute der DDR waren SED-Mitglieder. Sie haben ihre Mitgliedsbeiträge brav bezahlt und wir konnten, ich sag mal so, wir konnten mit dieser Art von ‘Schizophrenie’ sehr gut umgehen. Dass sie dich beschädigt auf die Dauer, ist was völlig anderes. Die Grenzen sind ja fließend. Wenn man immer so schön wüsste, wann der Opportunismus anfängt oder bis wann eigenes Verhalten noch als taktisches Verhalten zu begreifen ist. In der Diktatur weiß man das nicht. Das weiß man am Ende seines Lebens, oder andere meinen, das immer zu wissen. Außenstehende. Das finde ich das Dümmste, was stattgefunden hat, dass wir uns die Diskussion über die DDR nach der Wende aus der Hand haben nehmen lassen. Wir hätten sie selber führen müssen. Und hätten uns verbieten müssen, dass uns irgendjemand da reinredet oder beschreibt, wie er’s findet, wie wir waren, oder sowas! Diesen Alltag kann gar keiner beschreiben, wer ihn nicht erlebt hat. Insofern ist das, was Sie jetzt als einen Widerspruch beschreiben, bei Bennewitz keiner. So wie ich ihn kannte, kann es gar keiner sein, das heißt, er hat sich entschieden, der zahlt monatlich seinen Beitrag, klebt

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die Marken irgendwo ein, und wird sich nicht mit Dreck beschmissen haben. Du wirst an dem überprüft, was du machst, nicht daran, in welcher Partei du bist. Ich glaube, das wird zu allen Zeiten so gewesen sein. Ich sage Ihnen, ich kenne auch ein paar Schweine – um die mache ich einen Bogen, wenn ich sie heute sehe – wo ich gar nicht tolerant bin, wo ich überhaupt nicht tolerant bin! Wenn ich Ihnen sage, dass mich in Dresden, in diesem wunderbaren Dresden, zehn Jahre lang neunzehn Leute bespitzelt haben, neunzehn! Ich habe eine Akte von 500 Seiten! Ich hatte die letzten drei Jahre in der Wohnung eine Wanze. Also jeden Geschlechtsverkehr in dieser Zeit habe ich als Staatssicherheitsprotokoll. Es ist so albern und dumm, aber gab’s auch schon Momente, als ich die Akte das erste Mal gelesen habe und dachte : ‘Oh, Gott, der auch? Der auch?’ Ich weiß nicht, ob die Art von Widerstand, zu der ich 1989 in der Lage war, ob sie ein Teil meines Charakters war oder ob sie nur dadurch entstanden ist, dass ich auch bereits überregional Erfolg hatte als Regisseur und ich mich einfach mehr getraut habe. Mich konnte man nicht mehr anfassen. Das war nicht mehr möglich, dazu war ich zu bekannt, verstehen Sie? Mit diesem wachsenden Erfolg Mitte der 80er Jahre habe ich jede Art von Angst verloren. Als die Mauer geöffnet wurde, war ich nicht freier als ich vorher war. Ich hab’ mir einfach nichts mehr gefallen lassen. Und sicherlich ist richtig, dass das eine Summe ist: Wie man erzogen worden ist, mit welchen Leuten man in seinem frühesten Alter Umgang hatte. Ich hatte Glück. Ich war in Schwerin in einem Theater, wo ein junger Schauspieldirektor, der einfach – eben ’68 – so eine Courage hatte und einfach sagte: ‘Nee, ich mach’ das nicht mit meinem Ensemble! Hier gibt es keine Verpflichtung, dass wir alle den Einmarsch in die Tschechoslowakei toll fanden. ‘Ich fand ihn beschissen! So Schluss aus,’ hat er gesagt, hat sich getraut und so war das Klima in dem Haus. Und das war dasselbe später, die 10 Jahre in Dresden – Wolfram und Schönemann – durch Wolfram den Intendanten, Schönemann den Schauspieldirektor geprägt. Waren absolut tolerant. Waren Kommunisten und gleichzeitig Demokraten und ganz unglücklich darüber, wie sich dieses, ihr Land, in das sie ihr ganzes Leben eingebracht haben, sich entwickelt hat. Die kleine DDR war ein absolutistischer Zentralstaat. Sie haben riskiert und wir hatten dadurch noch mehr Glück. Für das Zentralkomitee der SED war Dresden schon Sibirien. Das hat sich gar nicht vorstellen können, so wie Berliner heute noch sind, dass

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außerhalb ihrer Sphäre überhaupt etwas existieren oder sich entwickeln kann. Und dann, als sie auf Dresden gekuckt haben, war’s zu spät. Da haben wirklich auch Journalisten aus Westdeutschland geholfen. Aus der Bundesrepublik, die ganz behutsam uns gebaut haben, nicht spektakulär, sondern ganz behutsam. Und dann, als das ZK [Zentralkomitee] drauf guckte, war’s zu spät. Das war dann, hatte dann auch schon was mit dem Zerfall dieses Landes zu tun. Also ich sag mal so: Von einem meiner besten Freunde, ein super Schauspieler, mit dem ich sehr viel in Dresden gemacht habe, wusste ich nicht, dass der bei der Stasi war, dass der über mich die albernsten Berichte geschrieben hat, bis ’89. Ich habe dem dann einen Brief irgendwann geschrieben, und habe gesagt: ‘Ich will Dich ein paar Jahre einfach mal nicht sehen. Das könnt’ ich nicht ertragen.’ Weil man sich so entehrt vorkommt. So entwürdigt. Wenn ich Ihnen aber sage, was der für ein Elternhaus hatte! Diese Eltern habe ich durch Zufall, bei einer Premiere mal kennengelernt. Sein Vater war Offizier bei der nationalen Volksarmee, seine Mutter eine kleine Angestellte in der SED-Kreisleitung aus der Nähe von Dresden. Ihren geistigen Horizont haben sie in ihren Sohn hineinprojeziert. Da kann ich ja nur von Glück sagen, was ich für ein Elternhaus hatte. Es hätte auch anders sein könnnen. Ich habe nach der Wende auch wirklich Leute aus dem Westen erlebt, die in öffentlichen Diskussionen beschrieben haben, wie sie sich verhalten hätten, wenn sie an unserer Stelle gewesen wären. Und ich habe gesagt: ‘Entschuldigt bitte mal, ihr habt einfach nur Glück gehabt.’ Es ist nämlich einfach nur eine Frage der Geographie. Rechts von Deutschland die Russen, links von Deutschland die Amerikaner. Es hätte auch seitenverkehrt sein können. Zivilcourage ist nicht angeboren, es ist eine Summe von kleinen Dingen. Ich war am Theater in Schwerin nach dem Abitur und eines Tages hat mich die Stasi, die Staatssicherheit, zu einem Verhör bestellt. Ich war zwanzig Jahre alt. Sie haben mich in einen Wald gefahren, in der Nähe von Schwerin. Ich habe Todesangst gehabt. Ich habe immer nur gedacht: ‘Wenn die dich verprügeln, es hört gar keiner, wenn du schreist.’ Es hing damit zusammen, dass eine Kollegin von mir, mit der ich sehr befreundet war, eine Schauspielerin, die war von ihren Brüdern ‘rausgekauft’ worden, die im Westen waren und ich hatte keinen Grund, das im Theater zu verschweigen. Ich wusste das von ihr. Sie hatte eine Nachricht über die ständige Vertretung geschickt; in meinem Briefkasten lag die eines Tages: ‘Ich bin drüben, es ist alles in Ordnung, brauchst keine Angst haben. Hoffentlich sehen wir uns bald.’ Ich hatte

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keinen Grund, diesen Zettel unter Freunden im Theater zu verschweigen. Weil man nicht wusste, wenn sowas passierte, wie es ist. Vielleicht sitzt sie in einem Gefängnis oder es ist was passiert. Und da musste mir die Staatssicherheit einfach ihre Instrumente zeigen. Das ging nicht, dass jemand öffentlich gesagt hat: ‘Die ist rausgekauft worden!’ Also, weil es diesen Vorgang nicht geben konnte, haben sie mich in einen Wald gefahren, mich sehr unter Druck gesetzt ein paar Stunden lang, und dann wollten sie mich werben, als ich jetzt ganz unten war. ‘Du kannst sowas verhindern, was da passiert ist,’ sagten sie. Und ich habe nur noch ab dem Punkt ‘Nein’ gesagt. ‘Nein.’ Wie entsteht so ein ‘Nein,’ wenn Du zwanzig Jahre alt bist? Die Summe der Leute, die ich kannte, und ich hätte auch, wenn es andere Menschen gewesen wären, die zu meinem Umfeld gehört hätten, hätte ‘Ja’ sagen können. Also ich hätte nicht für mich garantieren können. Also ich hatte Glück! Durch Erziehung, meine Umwelt, besondere Freunde, die Welt des Theaters. Dass ich meine Stasiakte haben wollte, war, weil ich das Protokoll dieser Vernehmung sehen wollte. Die DDR war so toll organisiert, dass ein Protokoll von 1964 oder 1965 noch 1991 da war, alles schön sauber aufgehoben. Der Vorgesetzte, der dieses Protokoll bearbeitet hat, hat daneben geschrieben, hat seinen Kollegen bescheinigt, dass sie schlecht gearbeitet haben. Sie hätten mich nur unter Druck setzen und dann nach Hause fahren sollen, und nach vierzehn Tagen wieder holen. Und nach vier Wochen sagen: ‘Willste nicht für uns arbeiten?’ Er sagt: ‘So war das zu spontan. Es mobilisiert sich in jedem Menschen der Widerstand, wenn man so fertig gemacht wird. Das muss er erst über ein paar Wochen verarbeiten.’ Also, insofern kann ich jetzt über meinen Freund nicht den Stab brechen. Ich will ihn nicht mehr sehen, aber ich weiß, wie er’s geworden ist. Und natürlich ist es richtig: Was mich nach der Wende sehr angekotzt hat, ist einfach, dass man mit einem Mal den Eindruck hatte, man lebt mit sechzehn Millionen Opfern zusammen. Alle beschrieben den Staat als ungeheuer gefährlich, aber es wurde ja mindestens seit fünfzehn oder zwanzig Jahren niemand mehr hingerichtet in der DDR. Das ist was anderes. Wer jetzt die DDR mit dem Nazireich vergleicht, ist schwachsinnig, ist einfach schwachsinnig! Es hat sich nur über die vierzig Jahre sowas hersausgebildet, ich sage mal so, wie eine Art von Selbstzensur, dass du schon in deinem Kopf gedacht hast: ‘Na, riskier’ ich das jetzt? Hat das überhaupt Erfolg, eine Chance auf Erfolg, oder so?’ Das ist ja viel schlimmer gewesen. Das, was durch so eine langsame Nivellierung, also diese flächendeckende Bespitzelung, hat ja was

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damit zu tun, das durchsickern zu lassen in die Bevölkerung. Und jeder fing an, sich vorzusehen, sich zurückzunehmen oder aber diesen geschickten Schachzug, den sie die letzten Jahre gemacht haben, die Leute doch mal fahren zu lassen, in den Westen. Ich weiß genau, dass als ich das das erste Mal tat – ich durfte 1983 das erste Mal im Westen inszenieren – das hat mörderisch viel Mühe gekostet. Wir waren auf einem Gastspiel im Westen gewesen, also ein kommerzielles Unternehmen, organisiert durch eine Künstleragentur, und wir haben von Dresden aus mit drei Stücken drei Wochen im Westen gastiert, in Kulturhäusern oder ehemaligen Theatern, eine Menge Geld verdient, Devisen für den Staat gebracht und ich kriegte von Saarbrücken eine Einladung zum Inszenieren. Selig hab’ ich dieses Papier beguckt. Ich war achtunddreißig Jahre alt und noch nie im Westen gewesen. Von allen Seiten kamen gute Ratschläge, wie man das machen müsste. Man müsste jede Woche einmal im Kultusministerium anrufen und so lange fragen, bis man denen so auf den Wecker fällt, dass man fahren darf. Sonst wird das gar nichts. Da mein Intendant das wollte, hat der versucht, das zu betreiben. Das ging dann auch gut. Ich bin dann auch gefahren. Und schon setzte etwas ein, dass man sagt: ‘Jetzt muss ich mich anständig benehmen, damit sie mich auch fahren lassen.’ Also so und in dieser Art, schleichend, hat diese Art von Unterdrückung stattgefunden. Und dazu kommt immer noch: Ich kenne auch Leute, die in der DDR kaputtgegangen sind. Ich bin es nicht. Das hängt mit meinem Beruf zusammen, mit dem ganzen Umfeld. Theater war ja für uns auch die Insel. Das heißt, in einem überschaubaren Rahmen. Ein Stadttheater ist eine Welt für sich, sie kann, wenn sie das Geld von außen bekommt, alleine existieren. Du brauchst keinen weiteren Zulieferer, weil du alles in dem Theater hast, um dein Produkt herzustellen. Und da fängst du an, also hermetisch, diese Insel zu bauen, die es dann auch war. Wo ein Schauspieler damals ’89 bei uns in Dresden gesagt hat: ‘Ich kann so schizophren jetzt nicht mehr leben. Von 10 bis 14 Uhr, wenn ich hier im Theater bin, funktioniert alles wunderbar, aber dann will ich nicht mehr raus.’ Und so schwierig wurde das, also was Spielweisen im Theater betrifft. Wie man mit verbundenem Maul trotzdem zu reden lernt? Das ist das gute DDR-Theater gewesen, zweisprachig sozusagen! Das eine zu sagen und das andere zu meinen, das ist überhaupt kein schizophrener Vorgang, sondern ein ganz lustvoller. Viele West-Theaterleute werfen uns DDR-Leuten vor, dass wir arschkalt gewesen sein müssen, so intellektuell eben. Das war aber für uns ein ganz existentieller gefühlsbetonter Vorgang, was Außenstehende nicht verstehen. Und ab

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dem Moment, wo der Zuschauer gemerkt hat, dass eine Botschaft vermittelt wird, trotz verbundenem Maul, waren die Theater voll. Das hat kein anderes Medium erreicht, geschweige denn überhaupt versucht. Das waren unsere vollen Theater. Wenn eine Vorstellung nur zu achtzig Prozent besucht war, haben wir gedacht: ‘Um Gottes Willen, die Welt geht unter!’ Und dies war natürlich insofern einfacher, weil es eine Diktatur war. Weil du wusstest, früh um zehn, wenn du ins Theater gingst, wusste man, wogegen man war. Und da fiel viel persönlicher Kram unter den Tisch. Mein Problem wurde zusehends im DDR-Theater, ob ich denn auch zu einer Art von Aktion fähig bin? Also nicht nur zu reagieren auf etwas, sondern auch zu agieren. Das, was man in diesen Berufen wahrscheinlich sein ganzes Leben lang sowieso nicht weiß. Das hat weniger was mit einer Diktatur zu tun, als das es grundsätzlich unser Problem ist: Ob ich etwas erfinde oder etwas nachvollziehe? Also diesen Konflikt haben wir immer. Und insofern kann ich auf Ihre Frage zurückkommen. Ich kann nichts, was die DDR betrifft, generalisieren, sondern kann das immer nur an ganz konkreten Dingen festmachen. Ich kenne Leute, die sechszundzwanzig waren und wieder aus der SED ausgetreten sind, z.B. schon Mitte der achtziger Jahre der Sohn von Hans Peter Minetti, Daniel Minetti, Schauspieler in Dresden. Ich werde es bis zu meinem Lebensende vermeiden, diesem Hans Peter Minetti zu begegnen! Daniel Minetti, sein Sohn, Schauspieler in Dresden, der natürlich auch in der Partei war, ist Mitte der 80er Jahre ausgetreten. Was das für ein Schritt war für den, kann niemand nachvollziehen. Das war, glaube ich, für den wie eine Geburt. Sich ganz individuell zu verhalten und das zu einem Zeitpunkt, wo noch nicht abzusehen war, wo das Land hindriftet.

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PART II The German Stagings of Faust: Chronicle of a Society

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3 Hooray for Socialism! Weimar 1965/67

Background The fact that Fritz Bennewitz’s first Weimar Faust was produced for the GDR’s ‘Nationaltheater’ in Weimar, that its Part I premièred on 7 October, the celebration of the founding day of the German Democratic Republic (Tag der Republik), that Part II was scheduled to première on the same day two years later, and that it was filmed for national television and broadcast repeatedly, are all signs that this Faust was meant to be a grand statement of East German politics and social order through the medium of art, a validation of the GDR’s accomplishments and promising future. The production was linked explicitly by Bennewitz to a famous statement made by SED Secretary General Walter Ulbricht in 1958: ‘Wenn ihr wissen wollt, auf welchem Weg es vorwärts geht, so müßt ihr Goethes “Faust” und Marx’ “Kommunistisches Manifest” lesen (Bennewitz, ‘Werkstattgespräch,’ 1965, 2). From a socialist perspective, he could not have put Goethe’s tragedy into more esteemed company, and in doing so he made clear the importance of the work for the GDR’s political and social agenda. This link was reinforced many times in interviews, commentaries, and reviews thereafter, as in

This production was captured on videotape with copies now in the FBA and in the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (DRA) in Babelsberg (Faust 65/67 DRA). There is also extensive unpublished and published documentation surrounding it (see Görne, ed., AdK, Sig. 3a, 46/1 and 2). These, along with newspaper articles and reviews, and some of Bennewitz’s unpublished writings, are the major sources for this chapter.

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this remark to Bennewitz by a reporter for Erfurt’s Das Volk: ‘Als im Oktober 1965 “Faust I” am Deutschen Nationaltheater Premiere hatte, erklärten Sie, Genosse Bennewitz, unserer Zeitung, daß “das ganze Unternehmen auf Perspektive angelegt und von der Erkenntnis bestimmt” sei, “die Walter Ulbricht ausgesprochen hat, daß hier in der DDR im Grunde der III. Teil des Faust im täglichen Leben geschrieben und gelebt wird”’ (Weimar 65/67 Reviews). Furthermore, as Erika Stephan commented in her interview, ‘Das war natürlich alles im Umfeld dieser oft zitierten Walter-Ulbricht-These, der dritte Teil des Faust wird in der DDR geschrieben, wir sind im Grunde genommen alle Fäuste’ (chapter 2, p. 49). Another foundation of the production was ‘Der Bitterfelder Weg,’ the programmatic socio-aesthetic credo established by GDR writers at their general meetings in 1959 and 1964, in which Ulbricht took a leading role (Schweikle 1990, 57; Barner 1994, 285–5, 507–8). The famous resolution appealed to workers to become writers and to make their activity part of the national literary culture, as well as the reverse. The pithy slogan, ‘Kumpel, greif zur Feder,’ became its signature. On many occasions Bennewitz stated his belief in the importance and efficacy of these guidelines for artists. Beyond the involvement of workers in the creation and reception of literature and art, two of the essential aesthetic prerequisites for socialist artistic productions were ‘Volkstümlichkeit’ and ‘Heiterkeit,’ each of which was central to his conception of the 1965/67 Weimar Faust. We should also recall that in the years between the ‘Bitterfelder Weg’ and Bennewitz’s first Faust, Spitzeldienste – informants’ activities and interrogations – were increasingly frequent. Thousands of GDR citizens had already disappeared into Stasi (state police) jails, some three million citizens had fled to the Federal Republic of Germany, the Berlin Wall had been built in 1961 to ‘protect the country from the capitalist west’ – ‘antifaschistischer Schutzwall’ it was called (Emmerich 2000, 176) – and propaganda was intensified within a climate of increasing repression. State censorship clamped down on books and stage productions, and as is so often the case in repressive states, self-censorship followed closely on its heels, stifling literary freedom and artistic expression on the stage. Playwrights maintained some degree of artistic liberty and a voice for their views by continuing to adapt the classics as metaphors. Subtly, they posed fundamental questions about personal liberty and social structures, which the sophisticated GDR audiences understood in silent appreciation, and discussed in animated privacy.

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In the political sphere, Ulbricht had introduced reforms to the economic system, particularly for quasi-capitalistic building initiatives which were to address the acute housing shortage. He also provided fresh impetus to the German-Soviet friendship, which for a time at least created an atmosphere of optimism despite pockets of brooding scepticism beneath the surface. The Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) had been firmly re-established after it had been suppressed during the Nazi regime, and soon three-quarters of all youth between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five were members (the younger children graduated from the Thälmann Pioneers). Thus, the brainwashing of the nation’s youth to become dedicated socialists, ready to defend their country ideologically, and if necessary physically alongside the national army, was in full force. Youth who refused were disadvantaged socially and educationally. One of the FDJ’s first chairmen (1946–55), Erich Honecker, was an exemplary member, already in training to succeed as party leader; see Emmerich (2000, 174–238), Mählert (2007, 98–113), Damals in der DDR (hereafter Damals; 2005, disk 1). The political situation notwithstanding, Bennewitz’s 1965/67 Faust might have been the best of his Weimar versions in artistic terms, as Görne stated emphatically in his interview (chapter 2, p. 53–4), even if it was seen by the state as a propaganda piece. It demonstrated Bennewitz’s ability to satisfy the state’s demands to honour and glorify socialist convictions and at the same time maintain considerable artistic independence and integrity. In a 1967 interview with Görne the director stated, ‘es kann nicht anders den Wahrheitsgehalt des Werkes entdekken, als wenn sie von der marxistisch-leninistischen Weltanschauung ausgeht’ (Bennewitz, ‘Werkstattgespräch,’ 1965, 22), yet anyone who views the videotaped performance today would not immediately notice the Marxist slant in most of the performance itself. The production did not emerge from a vacuum, it belonged to a continuum, a chain with links back to the première of the complete Part I of Faust in 1829 (in Braunschweig), and ongoing stagings thereafter; then both parts of the tragedy directed first by Otto Devrient in Weimar in 1875 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Goethe’s arrival there on 7 November 1775 (Mahl 1998, 52). After Devrient’s coup, productions of Faust I continued to abound, but few directors met his challenge to produce both parts at once. Stagings of Faust in both the FRG and GDR after 1949 produced a politically charged theatrical rivalry carried out over the net of the Iron Curtain much like a tennis match. Every theatre professional knew who was trying to do

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Faust and where, and was interested in what innovative contribution it made. East Germans rarely had an opportunity to see a Western Faust, and West Germans rarely sought the opportunity to do the same in the East, so the two worked in parallel, each assessing its own efforts and keeping an eye on the other’s across the border. Some productions, the most famous being Gründgens’s in Hamburg (stage 1956/57; film 1960), became legendary on both sides of the divide. A second rivalry occurred within the GDR itself because East Germany had made its classical heritage a central part of its political and social credo, and Ulbricht had made Faust its supreme example. Leading the way, but by no means setting the general tone, was Bertolt Brecht and Egon Monk’s signature 1952/53 Urfaust in Berlin and Potsdam which depicted a self-centred, impetuous protagonist, not a party-line type at all. The rebel and social critic was looming in the work from that point on, but certainly not favoured by party loyalists. A key element for depictions of Faust in the early years of the GDR became the transformation of the title figure from this individualistic egoist into a productive, optimistic representative of the people and the socialist movement. Renditions directed by Hans-Robert Bortfeldt (Faust I and II, DNT, 1948/49), Hans Michael Richter (Faust I, DNT, 1952), Wolfgang Langhoff (Faust I, Deutsches Theater Berlin, 1954), Otto Lang (Faust I, DNT, 1961), and Karl Kayser (Faust I and II, Leipzig, 1965) wrestled with this problem. Thus Faust had been produced on the stage of the Weimar Nationaltheater only once in both parts since the theatre’s reconditioning after the Second World War and the creation of the GDR, Bennewitz’s stagings of 1965/67, 1975, and 1981/82 becoming the second, third, fourth, and last (Menchén 1966/67; Ehrlich 1981/82). It was clearly a matter of national duty and honour for the DNT to take on the task regularly. Faust, it could be argued, was the litmus test of its health. The prominent GDR theatre critic Georg Menchén drew attention to Weimar’s even longer tradition of performing the classic just before the 1965 Bennewitz production by publishing details of all twelve Weimar Fausts since 1829 and before 1965,1 clipping his contribution to another citation by Walter Ulbricht on the occasion of his receiving honorary citizenship from his home town of Leipzig on 24 July 1958: ‘Ich denke, es ist ein Symbol, daß das “Kom-

1 This list includes productions of Part I alone, both parts, or extensive excerpts, but excludes Urfaust.

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munistische Manifest” von Karl Marx und der “Faust” von Goethe die Lieblingswerke der Sozialisten sind.’ Ulbricht continued: Es war das Bemühen um die Verantwortung für eine Zeit, die den dritten Teil des Werkes zu schreiben im Begriff ist, die dort anknüpft, wo Goethe Faust einreden läßt: ‘Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehen.’ Diese vierte Fassung des Dichters vom Vers 11 580 im Sterbemonolog (zunächst: Auf eigenem Grund und Boden stehn, dann: Auf wahrhaft eigenem Grund und Boden stehn; und: Auf wahrhaft freiem Grund und Boden stehn) ist für uns heute die Grundlage zu einer Auseinandersetzung mit Goethes ‘Hauptgeschäft,’ weil es uns in unserem Hauptgeschäft durch seinen Reichtum an Gedanken und philosophischen Werten so unendlich bereichern kann. (Weimar 65/67 Reviews, 17 Feb. 1968)

With his sketch of the variants to those famous lines, Ulbricht showed that he (or his speechwriter) was as well schooled in Faust as many a scholar. He had indeed done his homework, and likely with the Weimarer Ausgabe (WA) at hand, which indeed lists the variants as he states; see Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Goethes Werke (WA I, 15: 2, 157). The term Nationaltheater had been coined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when it became associated with not just one – never just one – but many major public theatres in a number of Germanspeaking cities including Berlin, Mannheim, Munich, Vienna, Weimar, Zurich, and others. It was, in fact, a misnomer in the German historical context from the start for there was at that time no single German ‘nation’ to speak of at all, as anyone even vaguely familiar with German history knows. Many ‘Nationaltheater’ existed concurrently in different political jurisictions with independent governance. They were also usually first titled ‘Hof- und Nationaltheater,’ reflecting the lingering control of the courts and their appetite for grandeur. A more accurate designation of them by the late eighteenth century would have been ‘Hof- und Bürgerliches-’ or ‘Hof- und Öffentliches Theater,’ for that is what they, in fact, by then had become. As such they played an important role in the public’s political, social, and moral education during the German Enlightenment and the transition from aristocratic to bourgeois control. Yet this tradition of nomenclature continued into the nineteenth century and even our own. Although an anachronism, the designation ‘Nationaltheater’ is still used in Mannheim and Weimar, for example, for those cities’ major theatres, but today it is merely quaint. Ironically, after 1948 and until the reunification of Germany, it

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was in Weimar alone that the designation ‘Nationaltheater’ was used accurately and therefore in this book DNT always means DNT in Weimar. The political leaders of the GDR consciously assumed the tradition and applied it to their new political entity, giving it a double meaning, historical and contemporary. Audience Preparation The audience at the DNT in 1965/67 was highly varied, covering the full range of GDR society. Many school and workers’ groups were brought to the theatre for the show, which was reinforced by Bennewitz and some of his production colleagues through extensive pre- and post-performance visits to schools, business establishments, and factories to discuss the play. Such public relations work was part of his mandate and that of the DNT, particularly when it came to a work that was just as much a tool for public discussion and indoctrination as it was an artistic event. From 7 October 1965 to the end of 1968, seventy-two school groups came to see the play or discussed it with Bennewitz and/ or Görne. Participants included young adults from the 11th and 12th grades (17–18 years old), apprentices, and workers. Görne provides a summary of the participants’ reactions, understandably generally positive, but not without critical voices, all of which, given the ever watchful eye of the authorities, must be taken with a grain of salt (Görne, Sig. 3a, 46/1: 102–4). What Bennewitz and his colleagues actually said to the many groups of schoolchildren and workers was essentially the same socialist message as is extensively recorded in Görne’s post-production documentation, published in various versions entitled ‘Faust in Weimar: Thesen zur Inszenierung.’ His lengthy newspaper article ‘Faust in Weimar: Thesen zur Inszenierung des Deutschen Nationaltheaters Weimar’ is paraphrased and analysed in ‘The Party Line’ section below. Many of the voluminous reviews of the production repeated the core concepts of this message again and again (see Weimar 65/67 Reviews). Moreover, the general cultural importance for Goethe and Faust for the GDR could not possibly have been anything but engraved on the mind of even the youngest or most naive audience member at that time. What did more sophisticated individuals expect and experience when they entered the theatre? Did they expect a reinforcement of their previous understanding of the work, a new interpretation, indoctrination into the prevailing political credo, or a subversive questioning of

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it? The air was doubtlessly filled with apprehension to see what the work would say anew and how it would compare with previous GDR and even other German productions. Those who attended, and the author has spoken informally with several, still affirm with vigour that it was an exciting event, full of expectation and tension, at which they eagerly awaited nuances that spoke to contemporary politics, and they felt that it did, even if such allusions may have been few or even imagined. Experienced attendees were cognizant of the performance history of Faust in the GDR and beyond its border to the west. While 1965 was still a time when many, and likely most of them, still maintained a solid conviction of the merits of their political system and its philosophy, tensions had been rising for some time, and incidents such as those referred to by Wolfgang Engel in his interview (chapter 2, pp. 61–5) were becoming broadly known, especially in the realm of the arts. Nevertheless, Bennewitz’s 1965 Faust did not exhibit an undercurrent of irony, criticism, or dissent, even if there are small and harmless flashes of it from time to time. But as Dieter Görne insisted in his interview, he and Bennewitz did not want to duplicate Karl Kayser’s edification of a clear-minded and problem-free socialist hero in their protagonist either. Rather, ‘Bennewitz hat gesagt: “Fausts Weg muss von Beginn an in Höhen und vor allem in Tiefen führen.” Die widersprüche der Figur, ihre Abstürze und Konflikte, weniger didaktische Gesichtspunkte waren für ihn von Interesse’ (p. 53). Indeed they were. Faust was a very stern figure in this 1965 production, one who delivered Goethe’s philosophical and emotional laments with full force, and who even approached suicide convincingly, perhaps a daring statement in a land where even the possibility of self-destruction was taboo. But subversive political criticism is not apparent in the documentation. If such existed, then it was so subtle that it could be detected only in the intimacy of the theatre at the moment, and perhaps more on some nights than on others. The surviving videotape of the performance reveals no noticeable gestures or intonations that suggest such subversive irony, and since it was created after the live run, it does not record the audience’s reactions, but in any case it would be difficult to say what reactions they might have suppressed. Bennewitz’s first Faust in Weimar ran for two and a half years, ending in March 1968, and it was seen by a huge, greatly varied audience. Part I was performed thirty-three times during this period, with an enormous audience total of 31,673; Part II was performed nineteen times with a sizeable total of 18,095 as well, figures representing about 90 per cent

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of the seating capacity of the DNT at the time. In light of both live and televised performances, the audience potentially included all members of the GDR state and beyond (Görne, Sig. 3a, 46/1: 102–4). Later, at the New York production, Bennewitz said that the telecasts of his 1965/67 and 1975 productions were broadcast in Austria and the Soviet Union as well (see Media, Faust I at La MaMa.). The Performance Bennewitz’s first Weimar Faust, like his second and third, was a drastic reduction of Goethe’s text, which is normal in almost all attempts to stage both parts. The production by Peter Stein on the occasion of the Hanover World’s Fair in 2000 and the regular Dornach productions in the Goetheanum by the International Anthroposophic Society (since 1938, most recently 2004) are the only two exceptions in stage history when Goethe’s complete work has been performed without a single cut. Numerous critics claimed that Bennewitz hardly cut the text at all, for example, Wolfgang Schmidt in the Thüringer Neueste Nachrichten (Weimar 65/67 Reviews, 16 Oct. 1965) and ‘Kre’ in Neue Zeit (9 Feb. 1967), but they were wrong. Bennewitz strove for a dramatic taughtness that did justice to the principle thematic thrusts of Goethe’s tragedy, but cut a great deal of his text. The Textbücher or director’s Strichbücher (performance texts), now resting in archives, still show them clearly, documentation which is reinforced by the videotape records housed at the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv in Babelsberg (Faust in Weimar, Strichbuch; Faust 65/67 DRA).2 The videotapes of the production together run 388 minutes. The playing time in the theatre was approximately 420 minutes, so little was cut for television, with the notable omission of the Vorspiel which was performed on stage but cut from the televised version. The seven-hour running time of this first Weimar Faust is only about half of the playing time Stein’s production

2 While the director’s Strichbuch can be identified with reasonable certainty in the case of the Weimar productions, it should be noted as well that the FBA and the Thüringisches Haupststaatsarchiv hold several other Fausts in the familiar pocketbook editions published by Reclam in Leipzig, later Stuttgart, in incomplete condition, containing many markings which could have been associated with Bennewitz’s Weimar and other productions as well. It is most likely that he worked with more than one Strichbuch for each staging.

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of the full text required, and just under a third of the eighteen hours of performance time required for the 2004 Dornach production (about five of which were taken up by parallel eurythmic scenes). My comparison of the director’s book (Goethe, Faust in Weimar, Strichbücher) with the videotaped production in the Babelsberg tapes (Faust 65 DRA) revealed some inconsistencies, but this is not alarming, for in the theatre world changes are often made from performance to performance, especially during long runs. Overall, the director’s book and the videotape are parallel. Bennewitz was open about his rationale for the extensive cuts that he made: Für die Herstellung der Strichfassung waren zwei Gesichtspunkte maßgebend: Die Striche sollten eine normale Aufführungsdauer gewährleisten und damit im Zusammenhang eine Konzentration und Straffung der Fabelerzählung ermöglichen. Dabei wurde große Sorgfalt darauf verwandt, die geistigen Bögen des Werkes möglichst unverletzt und komplett zu erhalten. Außer der Zueignung und dem Walpurgisnachtstraum des I. Teils, von dem nur die letzten vier Verse (Orchester) als Abschluß der nordischen Walpurgisnacht erhalten blieben, ist keine Szene geschlossen gestrichen worden. Größere Striche finden sich im I. Teil vor allem in den Szenen ‘Nacht,’ ‘Studierzimmer’ und in der ‘Walpurgisnacht.’ Im II. Teil wurden in erster Linie dort größere Streichungen vorgenommen, wo zum Verständnis des Textes umfangreiche Kenntnisse der Sagenwelt des klassischen Altertums, die heute beim Großteil der Besucher nicht mehr vorausgesetzt werden können, unerläßlich sind. Auch Anspielungen auf heute nicht allgemein bekannte Ereignisse und Persönlichkeiten der Goethezeit wurden [gestrichen] – sofern sie für den Gang und den Zusammenhang der Handlung entbehrlich waren – die Fabel in ihren Zusammenhängen, Drehpunkten und Höhepunkten überschaubarer und verständlicher zu machen, ohne damit den geistigen Gehalt der einzelnen Szenen wie des gesamten Stückes zu bescheiden oder zu vulgarisieren. Größere Striche finden sich demzufolge im II. Teil im I. Akt (Mummenschanz), in der Klassischen Walpurgisnacht, in allen drei Teilen des III. Aktes, in der Schlachtszene des IV. Aktes und in der Szene ‘Bergschluchten’ des V. Aktes. (Görne, Sig. 3a, 46/1: 11–12)

This summary is useful for understanding all three Weimar stagings of Faust. The cuts in 1975 varied somewhat, but the pattern remained for the most part the same. In 1981, however, we will see a substantial change. The excisions are recorded in the documentation of those pro-

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ductions as well, in Bennewitz’s director’s books and the videotapes. We can thus support Bennewitz’s claim that the text of the 1965/67 and 1975 performances of Faust preserved ‘die geistigen Bögen des Werkes möglichst unverletzt und komplett’ while keeping the production to a manageable length for the intended audience, and the author would also support this assertion for 1981/82 as well, although some might not, as we shall later see. He expected to find among the 1965/67 excisions consistent evidence of the exclusion of passages offensive or confrontational to socialism, but did not. There is no strong evidence that Bennewitz made a general effort to make Goethe’s play more socialistically acceptable, for example, by eliminating altogether passages pious or mystical, or manipulating any of the many references to world politics or economic development. Neither can one reasonably conclude from watching the videotapes of these productions that such passages were treated with disrespect. Upon entering the theatre, visitors received the customary program, a booklet of twelve pages that served for both parts of Faust. A sketch of Goethe adorned its cover, followed by three pages of quotations from his letters and conversations, pictures of a late medieval pair of lovers, of Tizian’s Venus of Urbino, and of a segment of Raffael’s Triumph of Galatea. There is an aesthetic and cultural message here, linking the work of a German icon to the history of human experience, especially two classical symbols of beauty. An eight-page summary of both parts, factual in content and neutral in tone, follows. There is no overt, not even a subtly discernible political message. Personal credits were inserted as loose leaves, several of the actors known to regular theatregoers, some among their favourites, especially Wolfgang Dehler as Faust and Fred Diesko as Mephistopheles. But Gudrun Volkmar as Margarete/Gretchen was to most unknown, so her casting evoked special interest. A small, pretty, girlish woman, she was depicted as a traditional Gretchen type, with blond pigtails and Dirndl, a symbol of Volkstümlichkeit. This figure would change by 1975, and drastically so by 1981. In terms of audiovisual presentation, the performance was enhanced by the presence of a large orchestra, the choir of the Deutsches Nationaltheater, and numerous soloists (there was full employment in the GDR, after all, but also much artistic talent), with music by JensUwe Günther (currently president of the Fritz-Bennewitz-Verein), all of which contributed to the sense of this being a grand event. Yet the costumes were period-true and generally unremarkable, the lighting functional. This general visual blandness is especially noticeable in

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Part I, less so in Part II, where the many changes in exotic venue in the text result in more colour and variety in costumes and properties, but these by no means stand out. In the later productions they will. What did stand out was Franz Havemann’s striking set, which he described in the documentation in considerable detail (Görne, Sig. 3a, 46/1: 8–9). A huge wooden disk was the visual foundation for both parts, suggesting the global earth surface and underscoring visually the tragedy’s small and large worlds. Level but multilayered, the disk of Part I bore a towering, multitiered structure depicting the Renaissance scholar’s narrow gothic study, and on its higher levels the Zwinger and Dom, all of which suggested a narrow-minded, restrictive, and hierarchical society, waiting to topple. Tilted and open, flowing into the rest of the stage, the disk of Part II invited an expansive sense of history, geography, timelessness, and thematics. Havemann’s emphasis on the space, achieved by maintaining an open front stage with visible, mechanical scene changes as the disk is turned, points to Brechtian technique, encouraging distance and critical reflection. The set structure, which enabled smooth, uninterrupted transitions from one scene to another in most cases, contributed to this being a time-efficient production as well. Many reviewers commented on the set. One of the most perceptive, Georg Menchén, stated: ‘Symbolisch für die Weimarer Konzeption ist das Bühnenbild Franz Havemanns. Es zwingt den Zuschauer vom ersten Augenblick an in seinen Bann und läßt ihn bis zum Schluß nicht mehr los. Das Bühnenbild ist die kongeniale Umsetzung der Konzeption des Regisseurs, der in Faust einen Menschen sieht, der – wie ein alter Holzschnitt aus dem Jahre 1530 zeigt –, die wohlgeordnete Enge mitelalterlicher Denkweise durchbricht und staunend das Universum betrachtet, dessen Wunde erblickt und zu ihnen strebt’ (Weimar 65/67 Reviews, 26 Oct. 1965). Menchén wrote numerous reviews and articles on this production, among them a useful and even-handed overview of many other critical responses in the press, a year after both parts of the production had gone to stage (24 Feb. 1968). Essential Features A study of the director’s performance text and the videotape reveals the following four essential features of the 1965/67 Faust: (1) the director’s introduction; (2) spiritual, mystical, and magical associations; (3) the director’s decisions; and (4) Faust’s last speech.

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Director’s Introduction One of the most striking elements of the videotaped performance is its beginning. Bennewitz comes downstage in an uncharacteristic business suit and addresses the public directly before each part begins, for four minutes before Part I, and a lengthy twelve before Part II. His message to television watchers across the land was earnest and direct: • That Weimar was not just Goethe and Schiller, but also Buchenwald, and hence a symbol of the liberation from fascism. • That ‘der Mensch’ is the ‘Schöpfer seiner Geschichte,’ a message repeated throughout the speech. • That it is the duty of the Deutsches Nationaltheater to demonstrate these principles in its repertoire, be it through Gorki, Shakespeare, Brecht, or others. • That the Lord of the Prologue is indeed a creator, but humans are self-creators, and are themselves Fausts. • That these humans collectively create their own freedom to stand as a ‘freies Volk auf freiem Boden.’ • That ‘Der Sinn des Spiels ist, die Welt als eigene Leistung des Menschen zu zeigen.’ This is for the most part a précis of much of the extensive dogmatic commentary that flooded the public media before and during the run. Yet the speech occurred only in the televised version, not before the live performances on stage. The use of the play as political propaganda was not an essential part of the live performance, but rather the pre- and post-performance reception. The first point of this introduction was a key element, positioning the German Democratic Republic as a liberator from fascism, disregarding any shared culpability for the actual creation, activity, and purpose of Buchenwald, and thereby placing all blame for war guilt on the West. Bennewitz begins the televised version of Part II with general comments on the combined efforts of the stages of their republic to depict GDR citizens as creators and shapers of their own world and destiny. This concept of creation is his link to explaining the coming action. It will show in broad terms how throughout history the creative person has formed his own world. Bennewitz outlines the stages of history from medieval to modern times, making sense of them as one grand process of socialist development. Obsolete structures and forces, the

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empire, the Church, are overcome, outdated and false ideologies too, but the Helena theme would demonstrate that beauty can remain meaningful through the actions of one person, Faust, as he progresses to create a new life for his fellow human beings. Despite the political message, here we see Bennewitz’s deep belief in the aesthetic purpose of art and its connection to life, which had been fundamental to his attraction to Marx’s philosophy since his youth. He ends with the final scene and Faust’s vision of a free man in a free land, a vision that he claims can be realized. But he emphasizes too the word ‘Vorgefühl’ in Goethe’s text, in other words, that there is still much to be done in their state to make that vision a reality. Bennewitz’s changing interpretation of this final scene of Faust’s life, and the way the Faust character delivers this final monologue, will prove to be the flashpoint for his evolving assessment of the GDR over the next two decades. Spiritual, Mystical, and Magical Associations Many scenes show an avoidance or toning down of spiritual, mystical, and magical associations. For example, the angels of the Prolog im Himmel speak slowly, dryly, instead of singing. The Erdgeist, often a spectacular feature with special effects in Faust productions, is represented by a weak flicker of light and a male voice from offstage. The poodle scenes are played without concrete evidence of the animal itself, even without barking, hence only in the imagination. Mephistopheles’s first appearance after the Prologue occurs without a trace of hocus-pocus or the customary spectacular transformation, and the verses of his choir are severely reduced. His production of the wine in Auerbachs Keller is done without magic or special effect, and the final conflagration is absent. The saint is heavily shrouded in the Zwinger scene, and she is faceless – her silence in response to Gretchen’s plea thus amplified. In the second act of Part II, the homunculus scene is played with some irony. As the little fellow is conceived, Mephistopheles acts beyond the text by symbolically cradling the child’s globe in his arms with a wicked grin, as if to cast a magic spell and effect the miracle, making the scene eerily occult rather than scientific. Yet the Easter choir, which saves Faust from his poison, sings at length a beautiful hymn accompanied by chiming bells. The Garten scene and discussion of Faust’s religion and Christianity are delicately played. In the final scene of Part I, we hear clearly from above that Gretchen ‘Ist gerettet!’ and, most strikingly, many of the heavy Christian elements of

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the final scenes of Part II, although they are much shortened, remain. Indeed, the Christian tone of the conclusion is surprising, with bells, choir, and angels’ triumphant message: Gerettet ist das edle Glied Der Geisterwelt vom Bösen: ‘Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, Den können wir erlösen.’ Und hat an ihm die Liebe gar Von oben teilgenommen, Begegnet ihm die selige Schar Mit herzlichem Willkommen.

(11934–41)

Gretchen appears as Una Poenitentium, in her costume of Part I, and, strikingly, at her words ‘Er kommt zurück’ (12075), Faust awakens, rises from the dead, hears the words of the Selige Knaben (12076–83), and of Gretchen and the Mater Gloriosa: Komm! hebe dich zu höhern Sphären! Wenn er dich ahnet, folgt er nach.

(12094–5)

He strides downstage, faces the audience, and delivers the final lines of the play. One could argue that the secular Faust thus becomes a religious figure himself, but this is a much more complicated twist than that, as we shall see shortly. Bennewitz’s handling of spiritualism and religion is thus mixed. He reduced their presence substantially, but at the same time retained many scenes that contain spiritual elements and explicitly Christian significance. Director’s Decisions At the point of Faust’s transformation in the Hexenküche, directors must decide whether or not the image of Helena is shown to the audience. Here, Faust sees an image in a mirror, but it is turned away from our view, and Mephistopheles smashes it as soon as he becomes aware of Faust’s fascination. His act is a denial of the aesthetic power of beauty, the director’s statement that such denial and destruction is the foundation of evil and Mephistopheles’s character. It is again an indication of Bennewitz’s poetic mission and adherence to Marxist aesthetics.

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The director’s decision to represent Gretchen as the stereotypical German maiden illustrates his desire to emphasize the importance of Volkstümlichkeit. In later depictions of Gretchen this changes. The sexual relationship between her and Faust is muted, in contrast to the depictions of lust in the Hexenküche and Walpurgisnacht, which are quite explicit for the time. As an actress, this Gretchen is convincing. In numerous scenes, for example, Gretchens Stube, Zwinger, and Kerker, her emotions and pain are vivid. She is the convincing victim of a dark Faust and the uncharitable, even inhumane society of her historical eighteenth-century age. The director altered Goethe’s scene of Valentin’s murder, which in the text, and traditionally on stage, is clearly affected by Mephistopheles’s intervention. Now, Faust takes charge, thrusting the weapon alone and stabbing Valentin in the back – he clearly assumes sole responsibility for his actions, even if they are dark and dastardly, and thus for creating his own world. Moreover, as Valentin dies, the women of the town gather, making the sign of the cross and muttering prayers, one of the few ironic touches in the production, critical of Christianity rather than the state. Their presence is continued visually in the Cathedral scene as they are transformed to become the ‘böse Geister’ who reject and abandon the woman whose soul they have just tried to save, rustling their rosaries like shamans while a hidden choir thunders the fearsome condemnation of the dies irae. Faust’s Last Speech The most important scene for both parts of Faust for Bennewitz and indeed any GDR production of the play is the so-called vision and Faust’s final speech before his death: Das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluß: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muß. Und so verbringt, umrungen von Gefahr, Hier Kindheit, Mann und Greis sein tüchtig Jahr. Solch ein Gewimmel möcht ich sehn, Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn, Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen: Verweile doch, du bist so schön! Es kann die Spur von meinen Erdetagen

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The central notions of ‘freier Grund’ and ‘freies Volk’ for this audience harked back to the founding principles of the German Democratic Republic, political freedom through a new type of socialism and the land reform of 1945–49. This ‘Bodenreform,’ which was brought into force in the Russian-occupied sector almost immediately after war’s end, involved the seizing of property from any landowner who possessed more than a hundred hectares, the so-called noble Junker class, as well as those designated as war criminals, that is, Nazi sympathizers, then distributing it in small tracts to farmers across the land and creating agricultural collectives. ‘Junkerland in Bauerhand’ and ‘Der Bauer sichert die Ernährung der Städter’ were two of the GDR’s prime slogans (Handbuch 1984, 183, 196, 364; Mählert 2007, 23ff., ‘Bodenreform,’ DDR-Geschichte website). The concept of ‘Boden’ was also at the very foundation of this ‘Arbeiter- und Bauernstadt,’ the epithet used to describe the social ethos of the GDR since its inception. The combination of this concept with the ideal of self-liberation, ‘Befreiung,’ doubtlessly caused GDR audiences to think as well of the famous essay ‘Der Befreier’ by the celebrated poet and later Minister of Culture Johannes R. Becher, delivered in 1949 in celebration of Goethe’s bicentennial birthday, an interpretation of the Faust figure that remained with the play in that state throughout its life (see Becher 1979). In Faust’s last speech, the main thematic strands of the drama come together, his characteristically relentless striving, his insatiable appetite for experience, the full cycle of human life, and his maturing from self-centred scholarly malcontent to environmental architect of a new social order with an envisioned legacy on earth that would last eternally. It is this notion of secular, material eternity that so attracted socialist interpreters, which is why the scene was always key, with the audience charged in expectation to see if – finally – they, in their state, could realize the vision. The subjunctive conditionality of Faust’s ‘dürft ich sagen,’ long debated by scholars and Goethe admirers, is typically pushed to the background in GDR productions in favour of the envisioned social order. The way in which this scene, particularly, was delivered in the three Bennewitz Fausts in Weimar is instructive for an

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understanding of the work as a barometer of GDR social development over its final two decades. One can still see today on the videotape how, in Bennewitz’s 1967 rendition, the dying Faust moves directly to the audience and television camera during this speech and addresses them full-face – using the immediacy of the close-up lens – with a rousing version of the speech. He does so with eyes closed, which they have been ever since the moment he was blinded by Sorge (11498).When finished, he falls back gently onto his ‘deathbed,’ with the assistance of the Lemuren, as Goethe’s stage direction requires (11586). But suddenly, for those who know Faust, shockingly, when Una Poenitentium, the Gretchen figure, says, ‘Er kommt zurück’ (12075), he rises from his deathbed, again comes full-face towards the audience and camera, and now with eyes wide open, usurps the final lines of the play from the Chorus Mysticus: Alles Vergängliche Ist nur ein Gleichnis; Das Unzulängliche, Hier wird’s Ereignis; Das Unbeschreibliche, Hier ist’s getan; Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht uns hinan.

(12104–11)

Bennewitz, in fact, wrote a new conclusion to the work. He brought Faust back from the dead, a victory over death and a resurrection as dramatic as Christ’s, with a powerful dual message. The socialist hero breaks through, triumphing over Christian spirituality and negates the work’s enigmatic, metaphysical conclusion. He makes the metaphysical concrete through a reincarnation of the protagonist, a reverse transcendence from the spiritual to the material. Religious illusion becomes reality. The time for new life is here and now. Even the most naive viewer in the farthest corner of northern Mecklenburg or southern Saxony could not have missed the point, and was almost certainly unaware that it was not Goethe’s. Bennewitz wrote in his comments on the scene about an ‘Auferstehung Fausts’ (‘Diskussionsgrundlage zur Faust-Konzeption,’ 12), the closest he ever came to admitting that there really is something religious about this play. When we examine his 1975 and 1981 productions, the way in which he presented this scene will

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prove instructive for understanding the development of Bennewitz’s conception of Faust as a parallel to the sociopolitical deterioration of his own country. Bennewitz spoke further to the scene in the ‘Werkstattgespräch’ (1965, 21): Faust gibt seine große Vision von sich, und innerhalb dieser Vision sagt er im vollen Bewußtsein, [um] die Wette überhaupt nicht zu berühren, und wenn er sie berührt, zumindest ihren Verlust nicht herbeizuführen, die Worte der Wettbedingung ‘zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen … Der Teufel hört nichts anderes als diese Worte, als diese Wettbedingung – das ist Formalismus – , dadurch, daß die Worte ausgesprochen sind, daß er die Wette gewonnen hat, und das ist das Zeichen, daß, noch ehe Faust zusammenbricht, obwohl sein Zusammenbruch zu erwarten ist, sein physischer Tod, treibt die Lemuren an, ihn aufzufangen, um ihn ins Grab zu legen. Diese herrische, triumphierende Geste ist wiederum ein großes Mißverständnis, weil er diesen Satz unabhängig von der Gesamtbewegung, aus der Faust spricht, nicht im Gesamtzusammenhang seiner Gedanken von Mephisto verstanden wird.

His explanation is opaque and an almost embarrassing attempt to obfuscate and justify what is essentially a distortion of the original. Bennewitz distracts his reader from the literary piracy at hand by engaging him in an arcane academic argument surrounding the subjunctive ‘dürfte’ and injecting the dreaded accusation of ‘Formalismus,’ the old saw of socialist theorists who used it as a weapon against those with whom they disagreed. It is almost hilarious that Bennewitz should use it against the devil himself, a demonization of all literary critics outside the socialist camp. He, Faust, and the socialist path, he claims here, are beyond that. But when he concludes by explaining how Faust’s physical death and ‘triumphierende Geste’ are a grand misunderstanding, he leaves everyone in a cloud of confusion. Nevertheless, in Faust’s action he played a trump card that at the time no doubt stunned the educated audience and announced the power of their new state. One problem remained unexplored. When Faust makes this speech in Goethe’s text he is blind, so how are we to understand this grand vision? For the time being we can take it as the metaphorical vision of a physically sightless man, but when the scene is reworked in 1975, a different conclusion must be drawn.

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Critical Reception The Bibliography records almost forty reviews of this production, the quantity itself indicating its importance and the interest that it generated (see Weimar 65/67 Reviews). Given the political climate at the time, and that all of these reviews were published in the GDR, much of the critical commentary is riddled with socialistic ideology and jingoism. Typically, reviews described and praised, adding some careful, and usually generous critical comments on the acting and sets. Much coverage also included interviews with Bennewitz and commentaries on his broader career. The bulk of the critical reception in the press was local, in Weimar and Thuringia, with some reverberation in East Berlin. The local reaction was predictably enthusiastic, but it was one thing to succeed locally and provincially, another to do so in the national capital and beyond. When the production played at the Volksbühne in the 1967 Berliner Festtage to two sold-out houses, a more demanding critical test was passed. The guest appearance of both parts during the festival established the production as a success in broader terms, a distinction that neither of Bennewitz’s later GDR Fausts enjoyed. Despite the tendency to look upon productions in other parts of the country as provincial, the East Berlin critics showed respect for a director who had taken on both parts of Faust, something that nobody had done in their city, West or East, since the Second World War, as Sybille Pawel pointed out (Weimar 65/67 Reviews). Most other Berlin reviewers were uncharacteristically positive, with few exceptions, but even among the latter there were encouraging elements, as from Norbert Peschke, who criticized the noisy set, the slow pace, and the musical score in Part II, yet praised the Walpurgisnächte as ‘prächtig’ and the actors in general. The always fair-minded Erika Stephan provided a typically intelligent critique, emphasizing the aesthetic and communicative dimensions (12 Oct. 1967) as did Rolf-Dieter Eichler, Sybille Pawel, and Hans Braunseis, who ended his review with the great compliment, ‘Weimar bot uns zwei große Theaterabende, deren Größe nicht die klassische Patina, sondern die zeitgenössische farbige Durchdringung ausmacht. Mit Begeisterung und Dank erinnern wir uns dieses echten Festtagssereignisses.’ The invitation to take the production to the Berliner Festtage, along with the resulting reviews, sealed the critical reception of this production, but even in the regional press positive reviews by major critics such as Stephan (see her review dated 1 Feb. 1967), and Rainer Kerndl (e.g., his

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review dated 29 Jan. 1967) should be taken seriously. Most reviewers and audiences were acutely aware of the delicate balance that Bennewitz had to strike in the final scenes. Many made comments similar to those in the Thüringer Tageblatt of 25 January 1967, where ‘Kre’ noted that while Bennewitz deleted most lines of the Chorus Mysticus at the end, save the final eight, understanding their meaning in socialist terms: ‘So betont Fritz Bennewitz den Entwicklungsweg des Menschen.’ The first broadcast of the production on state televison, in January 1968, was a time of year when darkness, cold, and the dormancy of the national soccer leagues guaranteed heavy viewing. It gave the production truly national scope, reaching more than ten million potential viewers, although there is no accurate record of that audience’s actual size or critical reaction. The seven reviews of this broadcast (appearing between 10 and 25 January 1968) demonstrate a certain degree of excitement and offer some worthwhile observations on the difference between experiencing the work on stage and on the small screen (see, e.g., the review by Manfred Nörel). Indeed, a shift in performance medium is significant for any work, and as we saw above in the final scene, director Peter Deutsch used the television medium to heighten certain aspects of the play while downplaying others. Clearly, the critical reception in the GDR press was positive, but it bears reminding that state censorship and the fact that the production was mounted as a special project of the National Theatre were unlikely to produce any other result in political terms. The Party Line First secretary of the SED in Erfurt Alois Bräutigam, in a letter to Otto Mann, intendant of the DNT at the time, made clear the official significance of the production: ‘Wir betrachen diese Inszenierung als einen würdigen Beitrag zur Vorbereitung des VII. Parteitages und des 50. Jahrestages der Großen Sozialistischen Oktoberrevolution [1917]’ (Bräutigam 1965–67). One reviewer, Wolfgang Schmidt, virtually cited Bräutigam in his assessment: ‘In diesem Sinne glaube ich, sagen zu dürfen, daß die jüngste Weimarer Inszenierung des “Faust” I. und II. zu den bedeutendsten Theaterereignissen in unserer Republik zählt und demzufolge, von der nationalen Bedeutung ausgehend, weit darüber hinaus. Das Deutsche Nationaltheater hat mit dieser Aufführung einen künstlerischen Höhepunkt erreicht, der gültige Maßstäbe setzt und in seiner geistigen Konzeption souverän auf dem Höhepunkt heutiger

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gesellschaftlicher Einsichten und Gegebenheiten steht. Die Leistung von Regisseur Fritz Bennewitz verdient uneingeschränkte Hochachtung’ (Weimar 65/67 Reviews, 25 Jan. 1967). Two key documents for the critical reception were not reviews, but interviews in which Bennewitz and Görne published their intentions in the production. The force of these interviews underscores vividly the difference that must be made between public statements on art and the voice of works of art themselves. In this case, the contrast between what the audience saw in the theatre and on television and what was said publicly and published in the press was stark, with the exception of Bennewitz’s introductions to the televised version and his manipulation of the final scene, which were in line with the latter. These two interviews, published in the intellectual newspaper Forum Berlin (Rother 1967), were positioned to be the definitive public summary of the production’s thematic intentions. Two parallel documents are the ‘Werkstattgespräch’ (regarding Faust in Weimar 1965; Bennewitz, 1965), between Bennewitz and Görne, edited and published by the latter as ‘Unser Werkstattgespräch mit Fritz Bennwitz’ (1967) from Bennewitz’s typescript draft; and Bennewitz’s lengthy typescript entitled ‘Diskussionsgrundlage zur Faust-Konzeption des Deutschen Theaters’ (1967). Notably, the Forum interviews overlap in part with the performance dates, in each case appearing about six months after the opening, so that audience members who saw the performance early could not have been influenced by them, while others who saw it later could have been. It is impossible to determine the extent to which the interviews influenced such reception, but what is certain is that they represent the official party line about how the production was to be understood. For the first Forum interview, Görne poses the questions and Bennewitz responds. Its division into ten clear sections, each topped by a bold Roman numeral from I to X, suggests that we can expect a clearly formulated list of ten theses that constitute the backbone of the argument and the thematic interpretation of the production. No such clear statement emerges from the first section, and the reader’s search of thesis statements in the further sections is fruitless as well. Along the way, the hope arises that the ‘Thesen’ are really meant to be the first stage in a dialectical process of argumentation, which would not be surprising in the political context, but such a continuum is also not apparent. One more structural principle is evident, however. After the first two sections, all those subsequent consist of a plot summary of one or more scenes, interspersed with commentary and pithy quotations from

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the text. There are also numerous quotations from Goethe about his Faust and his world view, but all without specific references to sources, and numerous others from philosophers and communist theorists the same. Despite this, when Bennewitz’s quotations are compared with the originals (as below when cited), with few exceptions they prove to be precise and flawed only by trivial aberration. Bennewitz’s command of Faust, Goethe, and Marxist political theory was indeed impressive even if the interview is transparently politically biased. The overall didactic message of the ten sections is as clear as it was in Bennewitz’s introduction to the television broadcast: Goethe’s Faust is the story of a man whose inherent drive to know and change the world is a lesson in history and a model for socialists to emulate. Several authoritative voices are established in the course of the interview. The frequent quotations from Faust are taken as nuggets of truth and starting points for explanations or axioms for belief. They are related then to historical events and social issues, and then invariably to the Marxist dialectical approach to history. Bennewitz demonstrates his deep knowledge of and respect for the text and an erudite command of its kaleidoscopic intertextual and interthematic historical, social, scientific, philosophical, cultural, and even Christian references. At the same time, his authoritative tone begins to assume exegetic omnipotence, and any reader with a good knowledge of Faust, and a different or no political bias, might disagree profoundly with many of his conclusions, but there is no room for that. He mentions not a single one of the many erudite Faust experts of his day and before, so despite his inherent modesty as a person, Bennewitz displays here a distasteful critical and directorial hubris. The first ‘thesis’ – hereafter I shall refer to them as sections, which is more fitting – begins by drawing attention to the première date of 7 October and describing the Nationaltheater’s commitment to Shakespeare and Brecht at the core of its repertoire and its mounting of Goethe’s Faust as a ‘Kulminationspunkt’ of a conscious plan, ‘die von jedem ein Höchstmaß an Verantwortlichkeit und gesellschaftlicher Aktivität fordert, von der grandiösen schöpferischen Kraft des Menschen künstlerisch Zeugnis zu geben.’ It points out further the mandate of the Weimarer Ensemble to introduce audiences to its ‘Konzeption des “Welt-Theaters” im Sinne der Welt als dem Tätigkeits- und Bewährungsfeld des Menschen an Gestalt und Profil: Geformt von der gesellschaftlichen Realität seiner Umwelt ist der Mensch fähig, seinerseits aktiv verändernd auf eben diese Umwelt einzuwirken … Folgerichtig erfahren in der Realität der

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jeweiligen historischen Situation auch alle Haltungen und Handlungen der Menschen ihre Wertung und Beurteilung.’ The section closes with a paraphrase from Marx’s ‘Thesen über Feuerbach’ [1845]: ‘Die materialistische Lehre, daß die Menschen Produkte der Umstände und der Erziehung, veränderte Menschen also Produkte anderer Umstände und geänderter Erziehung sind, vergißt, daß die Umstände und … das Zusammenfallen des Änderns der Umstände und der menschlichen Tätigkeit kann nur als umwälzende Praxis gefaßt und rationell verstanden werden … Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern’ (Marx and Engels 1962: vol. 3, 5–7). In his ‘Diskussionsgrundlage zur Faust-Konzeption von 1967,’ Bennewitz also cited at length from Marx’s ‘Der Kommunismus als positive Aufhebung des Privateigentums’ in the ‘Ökonomische und Politische Manuskripte, 3, 1844’: ‘dieser Kommunismus ist vollendeter Humanismus-Naturalismus, er ist die wahrhafte Auflösung des Widerstreits, die wahre Auflösung des Streits zwischen Existenz und Wesen, zwischen Vergegenständlichung und Selbstbetätigung, zwischen Freiheit und Notwendigkeit, zwischen Individuum und Gattung. Er ist das aufgelöste Rätsel der Geschichte und weiß sich als diese Neigung’ (Marx and Engels 1962: Supplementary volume, part 1 [1968]: 536). Immediately following, he draws an arc from Marx to the present: ‘Vier Jahre später erscheint das “Kommunistische Manifest” und 123 Jahre später, 1967, sagt Walter Ulbricht der Jugend der DDR: “Wenn ihr wissen wollt, auf welchem Weg es vorwärts geht, so müßt ihr Goethes ‘Faust’ und Marx’ ‘Kommunistische Manifest’ lesen”’ (‘Diskussionsgrundlage,’ 2). With these references to start, the agenda is set and its underpinnings made clear. Bennewitz points to the Shakespeare-Brecht-Goethe continuum, a triumvirate of international artistic credibility with the worldwide perspective of ‘Welt-Theater.’ This constellation remained his artistic foundation for life. Of Shakespeare he had commented earlier to Görne that ‘Shakespeare ist auch historisch der Vorläufer der deutschen Klassik. Oder, wenn wir’s noch genauer fassen wollen, die Wurzel, aus der der Baum der deutschen Klassik gewachsen ist. Und Brecht steht stellvertretend für das zeitgenössische Theater, ist der Bezugspunkt, auch der weltanschauliche, ausgedrückt in seiner theatertheoretischen und praktischen Arbeit, von der aus wir, praktisch, aus der Sicht unseres Tages den historischen Fall der deutschen Klassik sehen, beleuchten und zu bewältigen versuchen’ (Bennewitz, ‘Werkstattgespräch,’ 1965, 7). We are also reminded of Bennewitz’s fondness

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for linking Hamlet’s speech to the actors with Brecht’s to the Danish workers (see previous chapter). The second section introduces the character of Faust. His consent to allow Mephistopheles the attempt to satisfy his insatiable thirst for experience is explained as his ‘unzähmbarer, revolutionärer Wissensdurst.’ His intellectual malaise and search are located and explained historically: ‘Es sind Probleme des dazumal, an der Schwelle des beginnenden Zeitalters der Renaissance, der großen, progressiven “Umwälzung, die die Menschheit bis dahin erlebt hatte.”’ Faust ‘begreift in voller Klarheit den abermaligen Anbruch eines neuen Zeitalters. Welch eine Situation! Welche Möglichkeiten für schöpferische Gestaltung!’ Ecstatically, the wheel is set in motion to explain the entire work in dialectical-historical terms. The brief third and fourth sections describe the Vorspiel vor dem Theater and its function as an entertaining preview to the coming action. Contrary to what some might assume of a socialist director, Bennewitz took seriously the Prologue in Heaven and the nature of the Lord. This concept does not interfere with the mission of the title figure to establish his independence and confirm his self-responsibility. The concept of free will, basic to Christian teaching, in fact, supports that. Bennewitz followed the same line of thought in an interview with Menchén (Menchén, ‘Der Mensch, in Freiheit gesetzt,’ 1965), where a footnote is added, a definition of the word ‘Deismus’ from the Philosophisches Wörterbuch (Klaus 1964), which reads, ‘Gott = Schöpfer aber nachher kein Eingreifer.’ A non-Marxist dictionary of philosophy would not likely read the same. The interview records Bennewitz as having called the context ‘theistisch.’ Thus, Bennewitz adroitly accepted the omnipotence of the Lord as creator, but in the same breath, fully in contradiction, relegates Him to be a representative of a bygone age, which conveniently leaves the protagonist to fend for himself. Other examples of his deft interpretation of the spiritual dimensions of the work occur later in the same discussion. Throughout his lifetime, while a confirmed atheist, Bennewitz made frequent reference to God and the Lord in his everyday and professional conversations, so much so that one cannot take his official rejection of such an entity entirely seriously. Section five moves to the first study scene, Faust’s despair and encounter with the Erdgeist. His personality is one characterized by ‘den stillen Drang ... zu erkennen, “was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält.”’ His rejection of suicide leaves him a triumphant symbol of optimism who ‘von der ihm gegebenen Chance der Handlungsmöglichkeit

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im positiven Sinne Gebrauch macht, daß er solchermaßen zum Neuschöpfer seiner selbst und der Welt wird.’ Thus the GDR taboo of the suicide impulse is reversed to underscore Faust as an ‘Herausforderer ... der kämpft, das Leben der Gesellschaft bewusst zu gestalten.’ Section six describes his first interactions with Mephistopheles to the conclusion of the scene. Nothing is said of ‘Vor dem Tor’ or of the Easter celebration in which his new optimism was celebrated on stage. Bennewitz here is guilty of a conscious omission to support his general argument. The Easter bells, for him, are silent. That is particularly surprising since in the production itself that was not so. Further with regard to textual distortion, as part of the explanation of Mephistopheles’s character, Bennewitz turns to Goethe’s authority through a quotation from his essay ‘Zum Shakespeare-Tag’ (Goethes Werke, WA I, 37: 134, 129–34): ‘das, was wir bös nennen, ist nur die andere Seite vom Guten, die so notwendig zu seiner Existenz und in das Ganze gehört, als Zona torrida brennen und Lappland einfrieren muss, dass es einen gemäßigten Himmelsstrich gebe.’ This he claims as proof that ‘Goethes dialektische[s] Denken eine Konzeption des “absolut Guten,” dem das “absolut Böse” entgegensteht, völlig fremd ist.’ That is quite a conclusion. Yet it does suit the purpose of his interpretation, denying the presence of absolute good in Goethe and hence Faust, and thus obviating in advance the difficulty that his Marxist interpretation will encounter when discussing the final scenes of Part II. Section seven describes the events of Auerbachs Keller and the Hexenküche, the former demonstrating Mephistopheles’s misunderstanding of Faust’s desires, the latter reminding him of the fruitlessness of his years of study but providing him with the glimpse of absolute beauty that will drive him and the action for the rest of the play. Section eight moves to the Gretchen story, the point of which Görne makes clear: ‘In der Konzeption der Weimarer Aufführung bedeutet die Gretchentragödie nicht nur eine Variante des sozialen Themas vom verführten Bürgermädchen, das zur Kindesmörderin wird, sondern Shakespeares Julia,’ a revelation which is underscored by this clarification: ‘Das setzt andere Akzente in der Gretchenfigur; sie erfährt die Kraft der Liebe und kommt dadurch in einen großen Konflikt. Sie nimmt ein Naturgesetz wahr und kommt dadurch in Gegensatz zu Gesetzen, die der Mensch in einer ganz bestimmten Entwicklung seiner Geschichte formuliert hat. So nenne ich sie eine große Revolutionärin der Liebe, nicht aber ein verführtes Mädchen.’ No other statement in the essay is as arresting as this. It is a surprising and interesting in-

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terpretation indeed, and would have to be afforded praise for originality, if it held water. With it, Bennewitz attempts to strengthen the earlier notion that Faust is part of a continuum, the climax of a theatrical evolution from Shakespeare through Brecht. The claim again helps validate Faust as Weltliteratur and Bennewitz’s Marxist interpretation as applicable not just to the GDR but internationally. However, it does not stand up to disinterested criticism. The character of Shakespeare’s Juliet is set firmly within the context of family allegiance; her dilemma is the conflict between her love of Romeo and allegiance to that family, as is his. There is no convincing similarity between that romantic and social situation and Gretchen’s within her small world. Moreover, there is no heroism in Juliet, the single quality that Bennewitz wishes to draw from Goethe’s figure. Gretchen is not an heroic figure, but a tragic one in the small world. Indeed, she stands as an indictment of her society, as does Juliet through her death, but the similarities are too slim to be convincing. Bennewitz’s conception of Gretchen is closely linked to his commitment to aesthetics and beauty. The Gretchen story parallels the classical legend of Helena and Faust’s aesthetic climax. The trigger for both is the vision in the Witches’ Kitchen. They are connected by the bonds of love and beauty, but foremost by abstract beauty. It is common in the interpretation of Faust to associate Helen with beauty, much more so than Gretchen, who is usually associated with naive love and sex, but for Bennewitz, the figure of Gretchen is a symbol of Volkstümlichkeit, which in turn, points to beauty. This is for him the most important thing, just as it was that Marx’s aesthetic writings superseded his political ones. The discussion moves in section nine to an explanation of Walpurgisnacht as a depiction of the epitome of inhumanity and Gretchen’s brief appearance as a sign of the society’s inhumanity towards her. Strangely, mention of the scenes Am Brunnen, Zwinger, and Dom, which can be among the most powerful in any Faust I performance, are relegated to the bottom of the page in the second of two footnotes. There, the treatment of Gretchen as an object of disdain by representatives of the Church is taken as evidence of societal abuse. One suspects that this powerful dramatic contrast is ignored in the interview because of its inherently supernatural, anti-materialistic dimensions. Conversely, the Walpurgisnacht scene receives considerable attention, with the verdict: ‘Die der Walpurgisnacht … immanente Warnung ist unüberhörbar: Die Alternative zum rastlosen Streben Fausts ist die animalische Perver-

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sion und Enthumanisierung des Menschenbildes, ist die Aufgabe der Menschlichkeit überhaupt.’ Such so-called perversion is set in stark contrast to ‘der reinen, tiefen Liebe zwischen Faust und Gretchen.’ While the degree of the contrast as stated is absurd, it does point to the fact that Bennewitz’s notion of socialism was steeped in humanism. When he read and cited Marx, it was the humanistic aspects that he usually stressed. Although this account of the 1965/67 production is a declaration of support for the type of socialism the SED was building, for Bennewitz this was a humanistic process. We should remember as well that the reputation of the Deutsches Nationaltheater had always been based on its humanistic tradition, from Goethe’s time through the Weimar Republic, not on its politics. Other well-known German theatres were much better known for political stands. The tenth section, finally, is simply a transition to Part II, reminding readers of the overall unity of the work. The second Forum interview, published in two parts in April 1967, is a thematically structured dialogue between Hans-Jörg Rother, editorial board member of the paper, and Bennewitz (Rother, ‘Faust in Weimar’). Rother’s interview is divided into eight topics, each announced by a sub-headline: ‘Das Erlebnis der Antike,’ ‘Aufhebung oder Restauration der Antike?’ ‘Bewährung im bürgerlichen Zeitalter,’ ‘Befreiung vom falschen Bewußtsein,’ ‘Genuß der eignenen Tat,’ ‘Eine dialektische Prognose,’ ‘Über die Heiterkeit,’ and ‘Ziel der Inszenierung.’ The thematic points of emphasis Görne stressed in his interview with the author are all included here. Although still delivering a great deal of plot summary, this article is a more focused and sophisticated piece than the first, and more refined in its programmatic message. Bennewitz emerges as a more credible authority on Faust than before, responding to Rother’s prepared questions with a self-confidence that is never challenged by his interviewer. It is something of an artificially programmed dialectical game, which is ironic if we recall from Görne’s interview that Bennewitz believed that one of the key elements for the maturing of the Faust character and the dramatic progression of the play was scepticism, and that scepticism is constantly voiced by both Faust and Mephistopheles in Part II, towards the emperor, the archbishop, the economy, indeed the entire social order. But there is no scepticism apparent in this dialogue. The historical framework of Part II was for Bennewitz a deeper exploration of the same temporal span as Part I, in which we moved with Faust from medieval through Renaissance and Enlightenment times. There the emphasis was philosophical; now, in

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the case of the Emperor and Philemon and Baucis it is economic; in the classical scenes, aesthetic. In ‘Das Erlebnis der Antike’ Bennewitz emphasizes the importance of the concept of beauty for the classical experience and sets it into the context of Marxist theory: ‘Die Schönheit kann nicht ohne ihre Biographie verstanden werden. Die Biographie der Schönheit ist eine kollektive historische Leistung.’ In his writings Bennewitz frequently emphasized beauty as a ‘produktive Kraft,’ and that ‘Schönheit selbst nicht einfach nur und mit Überraschung entsteht, sondern daß an der Entstehung der Schönheit Jahrhunderte, Jahrtausende gearbeitet haben’ (Bennewitz, ‘Werkstattgespräch,’ 1965, 15). For him, examples of the human conceptualization of beauty gain meaning only within a collective historical context, which non-Marxists might simply call an achievement of a particular phase of civilization at a certain time and place. Without source, he cites Goethe to reinforce this notion: ‘Goethe hat sich besonders in den Altersjahren zum “kollektiven Wesen” des Menschlichen Wesen bekannt. [Die,] die sich brüsteten, Leistungen ohne fremde Hilfe zustande gebracht zu haben, konnte er nur als “Narren” bezeichnen.’ In fact, Goethe never made such a statement. The closest he came to it was in Dichtung und Wahrheit, where he wrote ‘In solchen Städten, wie Frankfurt, gibt es collective Stellen, Residentschaften, Agentschaften, die sich durch Thätigkeit gränzenlos erweitern lassen’ (Goethes Werke, WA I, 29: 65, 6–28). Even putting aside Bennewitz’s disregard for accuracy here, one would have to be more than generous to support his line of thought that Faust’s classical experience in Part II was Goethe’s way of breaking his bourgeois chains. Goethe a proto-socialist? Hardly. Bennewitz goes too far in inferring Goethe’s intention. In fact, most would agree that such thinking was anathema to the powerful individualist Goethe as well as his Faust. Bennewitz’s argument is diametrically opposed to both Goethe’s and Faust’s on this point. Bennewitz carries the notion into the next section, ‘Aufhebung oder Restauration der Antike?’ where he builds on the idea of historical determinism, insisting that ‘Wie den gesamten zweiten Teil des Faust müssen wir den Helena-Akt als ein Spiel auffassen. Aber das Spiel ist nie abstrakt, es ist historisch konkret.’ Classicism itself becomes for Bennewitz a symbol of collective action, romanticism one of fatal individualism. Bennewitz shared Goethe’s aversion to romanticism and adherence to classicism, but not for the same reasons. Of the product of Faust and Helena’s aesthetic union, he explains ‘Euphorions extremer

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Individualismus, jeder nur mit sich selbst bewußt, steigert sich in die romantische Verneinung des Lebens.’ This, according to Bennewitz, is a bitter personal and historical lesson for Faust, who then returns to the business of the Emperor’s court and the fulfilment of his land development plan in Act 4. Again, with surprising self-assurance but without precise reference (and there is none), Bennewitz reinforces his line of thought with Goethe’s own: ‘Goethe resignierte nicht vor dieser Gegenwart. Er bekannte sich zum fortschreitenden Zeitalter, aber er protestierte gegen die Zerstörung der Persönlichkeit. Das war kein moralisierender Apell, sondern ein Apell ans Leben, nämlich sich fortschrittlich in der Gesellschaft zu betätigen.’ Bennewitz thus sees in the Euphorion episode Goethe’s protest against romanticism and the destruction of the personality, and at the same time a mechanism to turn Faust back to the real world, lose his individuality, and realize the grand collective plan for land reclamation, a giant dialectical stride. It is questionable if Goethe saw Euphorion’s demise as a protest, rather than a respectful testimonial to Lord Byron, and one could just as well argue that Act 4 is as much Faust’s self-glorification as it is a loss of individuality. It would seem that Bennewitz has been caught in his own dialectical web. ‘Bewährung im bürgerlichen Zeitalter’ defines Faust’s new frame of mind after the classical experience. Prompted to comment on Faust’s ‘Schöpferlust,’ Bennewitz clarifies, ‘Die Schöpferlust erscheint noch als Lust des einzelnen. Diesem Faust fehlt noch das soziale Gewissen. Er ist bürgerlicher Unternehmer: “Herrschaft gewinn ich, Eigentum!”’ Interviewer Rother himself now appropriates Goethe’s undocumented authority, suggesting that ‘Goethe spürte wohl, daß die Tendenz zur reaktionären Entartung des mit Macht ausgerüsteten bürgerlichen Individuums der kapitalistischen Gesellschaft innewohnt.’ Bennewitz replies that the land reclamation scheme is not to be understood realistically, but as a ‘Metapher für die Vermehrung des gesellschaftlichen Reichtums und für die Beherrschung der Naturgewalten durch die Menschen, … ein gesellschaftlich-moralischer Vorgang.’ Rother sharpens his question: ‘Allerdings endet der Krieg mit einem Kompromiß: Die Herrschaft des Kaisers und der Kirche wird nicht angetastet. Faust muß den Zehnten an die Kirche zahlen, er ernährt die Feinde seines Werkes mit. Also deutsche Verhältnisse.’ His last sentence must have made contemporary readers gasp. Whom did he mean? Who exactly are the ‘Feinde’? Religious groups in the GDR? In the West? Internal groups not supportive of the state? The occupying Russians? A titillat-

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ing moment, no doubt. In his reply, Bennewitz goes no further, typically shying away from dangerous contemporary allusions. The ‘Befreiung vom falschen Bewußtsein’ and ‘Genuß der eignen Tat’ sections describe the final scenes and offer Bennewitz’s summary of the two central figures: ‘Mephisto steht in der Dialektik mit Faust für den Widerspruch, der die kapitalistische Gesellschaft vorantreibt.’ Unremarkably, the entire action is summarized in terms of the historical continuum with which the essay began, from classical times to the emergence of a new collectively driven socialist state struggling to assert itself. With the protagonist’s final words, the future looks bright. His famous final soliloquy, ‘Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn,’ cited so proudly by Walter Ulbricht as the culmination of the socialist effort, was combined with the last lines of the Chorus Mysticus, which Faust appropriated, as we saw above, and this, for Bennewitz, bezeichnet den Abschluß des bürgerlichen Zeitalters. Faust hat es durchlaufen, aber er greift darüber hinaus. Durch die kapitalistische Arbeit sind die ökonomischen Voraussetzungen geschaffen für eine Gesellschaft, die frei ist von den Gespenstern des Mittelalters und den Gespenstern der spätbürgerlichen Zeit, auch wenn sie von diesen noch bedroht ist. An die Stelle der alten Gesellschaft tritt eine Assoziation, worin die freie Entwicklung eines jeden die Bedingung für die freie Entwicklung aller ist (Kommunistisches Manifest). Faust steht an der Schwelle zur dritten Entwicklungsstufe des Menschen. Er genießt den Augenblick im Vorgefühl einer befreiten Gesellschaft.

Hooray for Socialism! There is no doubt that readers, and before them audiences, were riveted to and inspired by Faust’s final words. Menchén spoke for virtually all of them when he wrote: ‘Diese Szene ist der Schlüssel zur Weimarer Inszenierung von Goethes ‘Faust’ II’ (Weimar 65/67 Reviews, 28 Jan. 1967). Yet just how far Bennewitz’s notion of the progress of world history was from reality could have been assessed in his own backyard. As mentioned at the outset, as he spoke, the Berlin Wall was being reinforced, his country’s borders mined and protected, the international movement of his fellow citizens radically curtailed, and the GDR’s economy on its way to collapse. Bennewitz’s strength was in theatre, not politics, and certainly not economics. The term ‘Heiterkeit’ in the title of the penultimate section is meant to ally the production with the prescriptions of the ‘Bitterfelder Weg,’ and it is connected with Bennewitz’s earliest sense of the importance

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of ‘Vergnügen’ as part of the artistic experience. His definition of ‘Heiterkeit’ here is consistent with the prescription to engender enjoyment in the play of theatre, not just didacticism, and to spark debate over its meaning: ‘Der Begriff Heiterkeit muß im großen Sinne gefaßt werden, in dem er aufgehoben ist im Vergnügen und dem Ereignis. Das Vergnügen ist immanenter Bestandteil jeder realistischen Kunst. Zu den größten Vergnügungen gehört, wie Brecht im Galilei sagen läßt, das Denken. Das Vergnügen beinhaltet ein heiteres Erfassen und Darstellen der Wirklichkeit … Es ist eine Lebenshaltung, die den äußersten Ernst einschließt, der diese Heiterkeit überhaupt erst zuläßt.’ This meant a theoretical obligation to perform ‘realistische Kunst.’ But there is, of course, more and less ‘realistic’ art, and Faust in itself does not easily fit into that category, especially Part II, but it was its engagement with the sociopolitical reality of the time and place that allowed it the desgination ‘heiter.’ The ‘Ziel der Inszenierung’ naturally follows similar lines, ‘das Problem des Individuums innerhalb des historischen Prozesses aufzuzeigen,’ assumes the interviewer. Bennewitz sums up plainly: ‘Unsere Aufgabe ist nicht das Erfinden irgendwelcher Ideen, die vielleicht in Verbindung zu bringen sind mit dem Faust, sondern das Auffinden der tatsächlichen Vorgänge, die natürlich nicht naturalistisch gezeigt, sondern zur Sprache gebracht werden. Sichtbar machen wollen wir die Totalität der gesellschaftlichen Bewegung innerhalb bestimmter historischer Abschnitte.’ The goal was not just to show ideas, but rather ideas as generators of social progress and human happiness. The process analyses the human situation, describes stages of its historical development, exposes structures and elements that stand in the way of general happiness, empowers humans to bring about change, and proclaims human freedom. Bennewitz did not state later whether or not the production was a success in this light. His fellow citizens did that for him twenty-five years later, although he himself was not actively among them. Conclusion Fritz Bennewitz’s first production of Faust was a milestone for the GDR stage. It was a strong production in terms of theatre, and it wore a public mask that satisfied the powers to be. Although used as a vehicle to confirm the mission, success, and promising future of the state and governing party, this did not undermine its artistic integrity nor its aesthetic and dramatic power for live audiences or those watching on

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television later on. It must be assessed from two points of view, the performance itself and the propaganda outside it. It was not a ‘party’ Faust like Kayser’s, for it explored as well the element of doubt in the protagonist and, and with few exceptions, remained true to the aesthetic standards of its director. It can be argued that it signalled a break with the past and was a model for the future, a future that pointed to the next landmark in GDR Faust production, Adolf Dresen and Wolfgang Heinz’s debunking of GDR optimism at the Deutsches Theater in 1968. At this early stage in his career, Bennewitz seemed to be enjoying his success, both as an artist and as a public figure at the ready to deliver with conviction an interpretation that satisfied the prevailing political climate. His pride in the public mission would wane as he grew older, and his natural instinct to humility would show through more and more. Despite the enormous efforts made through the press and public meetings to steer the audience’s understanding of the production, most of the performance itself does not lead a disinterested viewer to draw the same political conclusions, and it is impossible now to know what sophisticated members of the audience really thought. The social criticism in the play is not associated with the German Democratic Republic, but rather with historical structures and capitalistic processes. The only contemporary association is the figure of Faust himself. Bruegel’s looming vision of human misery is worked through to its end in Part I, while the glory of the representative of the new GDR is the climax of Part II in the form of Faust’s reincarnation and vision of their state’s splendid future. Yet this optimism is voiced by a man who is blind. At best it is a vision, a dream. The audience knew in their daily lives how close they were to achieving it, or how far away. They did not know at the time that they would never come any closer.

4 Hooray for Socialism? Weimar 1975

Background A year after Bennewitz’s first Faust had opened in both parts, Warsaw Pact troops overran Czechoslovakia, crushing Alexander Dubñek’s attempt to liberalize and democratize his country in the Prague Spring, and clamping down on its socialist neighbours. The year 1968 was pivotal for pan-European and Western world politics in general, for Eastern Europe and the GDR because of this invasion, Western Europe because of the revolt of young people in the academy and society, Southeast Asia because of the Vietnam War, and North America because of the rising protest against the United States and militarism in general. In that fabled year, Adolf Dresen and Wolfgang Heinz planned to put both parts of Goethe’s Faust on stage at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, featuring Faust as a self-doubting intellectual devoid of heroic qualities and with little understanding of society. They were challenging the type of self-confident optimism that Bennewitz had touted in Weimar. Their pessimism was so deep that even the suicide attempt that Goethe had written into the second study scene became a viable option. Direct criticism and even ridicule of the Ministry of Culture and state claims of progress were voiced, so clearly indeed that the minister himself,

This production was captured on videotape with copies now in the FBA and the DRA (Faust 75 DRA). There is also extensive unpublished and published documentation surrounding it (Görne, Sig. 166a/b). These, along with newspaper articles and reviews, and some of Bennewitz’s unpublished writings, are the major sources for this chapter.

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Klaus Gysi, Irene’s husband, ordered major cuts and alterations on the very night of the première and thereafter a gradual emasculation of the performance text (Mahl 1998, 206). As intellectuals throughout the country were aware, none other than the long-celebrated anti-Nazi fighter, socialist, journalist, publicist, prominent GDR politician, and writer Alexander Abusch (1902–1982) condemned the production as a desecration of the classical legacy. He was far from alone among distinguished and credible personalities who did so. But Dresen disagreed, defending Faust as a great work precisely because it depicts such conflicts in its protagonist. After the fifth performance the production was halted for three weeks ‘for corrections,’ and then again during the following months to the extent that the planned second part never took place. Party-directed public review and criticism in the press rejected this Faust and instead praised Bennewitz’s 1965/67 rendition which was still running in Weimar (Mahl 1998, 205). Although his attempt was blocked by the authorities, Dresen encouraged Bennewitz and Görne to try something similar at the Deutsches Nationaltheater, aware that they, too, wanted to disassociate themselves from the fawning reverence for German classicism and mindless political loyalty, for which Karl Kayser, years earlier, was known; and that was indeed their plan, even if they would stop short of Dresen’s radical stand. By the early 1970s, broad disappointment, nearing disillusionment, was growing in the GDR populace because of the ongoing effects of the Iron Curtain, barricade mentality, increasing surveillance, and invasion of the private sphere. A pitiful economy was failing in particular to provide them with the improved living conditions that had been promised for so long. Dissent with Walter Ulbricht’s leadership was simmering within the party and without, and in 1971 he was abruptly removed. At the eighth party convention in 1971, a new secretary-general and potentate, Erich Honecker, emerged, and with him hope for change, a promise to inject energy into the economy, and resulting broad optimism (Mählert 2007, 115–23). Young people were called to rally around his objectives and vision, organized across the land through the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ), which he had headed in his earlier career. The international Leipzig trade fairs were boosted with products. In 1974 the FRG opened its first official diplomatic office (ständige Vertretung) in the GDR, a sign that the country was expanding its horizons, looking to greener pastures, and was on the verge of a building boom. Yet at the same time the black market of Western products flourished throughout the country as shortages of desired building materials and personal items grew, and the fundamental question of the ‘Bodenreform’ again

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raised its head: tens of thousands of small landowners suddenly found their lots forcibly transformed into new collectives, stripping them of their property and putting an end to their traditional ways of life. Many of these people left for the West by whatever means they could. The year 1975 itself carried singular significance for German history. It was the millennium of the city of Weimar, the birthplace of Germany’s first republic, and the shrine of its great classical writers. The DNT had been closed for almost two years for extensive renovations and was now reopening, with major improvements to the technical capacity of its stage and a completely refurbished house. The first part of Bennewitz’s second Weimar Faust opened there on 5 October, coinciding closely with the East German national day, with Part II following on 11 November, the West German Volkstrauertag, perhaps an ironic swipe at their neighbour, since that holiday was not celebrated in the East. But Bennewitz, again in conjunction with dramaturge Dieter Görne and artistic director Franz Havemann, were not prepared to present the same confident hero and sound the same optimistic tone as they had almost a decade before. The partners had been satisfied with their first Faust until they saw Dresen and Heinz’s which, in effect, had attacked the ‘Heroenkult’ of Goethe and Schiller in the GDR, and to some extent the FRG, too, as well as the uncritical adulation of the ‘klassisches Erbe’ which by the mid-1970s had become a focus of national pride, a political tool, and a rallying point for GDR loyalty. They also wanted to recall the early production of Brecht and Monk (Urfaust 1952/53) and the dark Faust represented there (Görne interview, p. 54). Times had changed in the GDR. In 1965, their optimism, as that of many GDR citizens, was high. Now they were beginning to have doubts, and a new Faust figure was needed to depict that. Bennewitz was prepared to go against the grain of what was politically acceptable. Again in 1975 the production of Faust enjoyed a long run with packed houses and a variety of attendees similar to that in Bennewitz’s first production. In addition, this time the videotape for television was taken before a live audience and shown concurrently with the continuing stage run, giving it an entirely different dimension through its simultaneous dissemination to a broad national audience. Audience Preparation While efforts to prepare the audience for the production did not match the enormous 1965 campaign in schools, workplaces, and the press,

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there was nevertheless a strong effort to educate, better said, indoctrinate, younger members of the public particularly as to how they should understand this Faust before they saw it. Pre-performance educational meetings were held by Bennewitz and Görne in adult community groups and workplaces, and material for teachers to prepare their students in school was disseminated broadly. Again, many groups of students and workers were organized to attend performances. Numerous documents represent the kind of indoctrination that went on, for example, the teacher preparation material written by Bennewitz and Görne titled ‘Faust-Erbe und Gegenwart’ (1975). It is essentially a diatribe pounding at historical and current conflict worldwide and the ‘imperialistic’ capitalists’ role within them. Here is an illustrative passage: Im 30. Jahr des Sieges und der Befreiung [i.e., 1945–75] ist uns die Geschichtsträchtigkeit der Jahre 1917 und 1945 … neu ins Bewusstsein gekommen. Die geschichtsoffensive Kraft der sozialistischen Staatengemeinschaft hat die Möglichkeit des Weltfriedens greifbarer und begreifbarer wirklich gemacht. Der Sieg des Volkes von Vietnam und die Erfolge nationaler Befreiungsbewegungen, das weltweite Erlebnis proletarischer Solidarität haben das Kraftbewusstsein der Front des Fortschritts gestärkt. Die brutale Macht imperialistischer Ohnmacht ist durch die Ereignisse in Chile und Portugal nicht mehr aus dem Bewusstsein zu verdrängen und macht den Frieden gefährdeter als er je gefährdet war. In dieser Spannung wird Geschichte durch das Erlebnis von Geleistetem und Leistbarem als zu Leistendes begriffen. Das Recht zum Stolz auf Erfolge wird als individuelle Verantwortung in der Geschichte für die Geschichte erlebt.1 (Görne, Sig. 166a, 1)

This is a much more specifically emphatic statement than anything preceding the previous staging. It also contains a noticeable change of fo-

1 The references to Chile and Portugal here are to the removal from office in Chile of democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973, with American and CIA interference, and the seizure of power by Commander of the Army General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled the country by military dictatorship until 1989; and the leftist armed forces takeover of power in Portugal on 25 April 1974. One cannot help but wonder about Bennewitz’s enthusiastic support of revolution against oppressive governments in other countries while apparently endorsing the GDR government throughout his life. We will return to this in the conclusion to this chapter.

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cus. A decade before, the emphasis was internal, on the development of the GDR as a new state since 1949. Now it is international. Generally, it heralds the theme of freedom with an international scope, positioning Faust’s themes of striving, accomplishment, self-reliance, self-responsibility, and self-determination as part of a grand international, intercultural team effort. It targets examples of countries that serve as models in the fight for liberty, as well as those that must be overcome to achieve it. Vietnam above all, and by association the United States, had become the prime examples of positive and negative forces in the struggle. Coinciding with this new thematic focus was Bennewitz’s increasingly international and intercultural activity. In 1968 he directed Brecht’s Galileo in Jasi, Rumania; in 1970 Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper, in Hindi, his first play in India (Delhi); in 1972 Kleist’s Der zerbrochene Krug at the All-Arabian Theatre Festival in Damascus; in 1973 an Indian adaptation of Brecht’s Kreidekreis in Bombay, co-directed by Vijaya Mehta, which marked the start of a long, close professional relationship and friendship, and which was repeated in the same year at the Berliner Festtage; in 1973 scenes from the Kreidekreis, Puntila, Die Mutter, Die Dreigroschenoper, again in Damascus, in 1974; a Brecht collage at the international theatre festival in Parma, Italy; and in 1977 and 1978 adaptations of Brecht’s Kreidekreis and Faust Part I in English in New York (see Appendix 3). By this time Bennewitz had also become an active member of the International Theatre Institute (iTi), with growing contacts around the globe. Clearly, his own interests and activities parallelled the international and intercultural agenda trumpeted in the didactical material disseminated to teachers and students who saw the 1975 Weimar Faust. They indicate a shift in his own political interest from the GDR to international affairs. Whether or not this was in part because of disappointment with developments in the GDR and waning optimism in his vision of its future is difficult to prove, and anyway unimportant, for his internationalization and interculturation were without question here to stay and the most important thrusts for the remainder of his career. Bennewitz included further in the information to teachers three ‘für ihn persönlich wichtige Ermutigungen’: 1 Erlebnis und Erfahrung des Volkstheaters bei der indischen Adaptation des Kreidekreises von Brecht in Cooperation mit Vijaya Mehta, was mir den Anschluss an selbst geschaffene Traditionen sozialistischen Volkstheaters in der hiesigen Kreidekreis-Inszenierung [Berlin, Festtage] entdeckte.

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2 Das neue Erlebnis Pieter Bruegels vorm Sturz der gefallenen Engel und anderer Bilder in der Brüsseler Galerie, wodurch ich einen Schlüssel zum Faust im beinahe intuitiven Überfall erfuhr und die Kraft des Volkes als dynamische Geschichtskonstante im Bild begreifbar wurde. 3 Gespräch mit einer Weimarer Wohnbezirksgruppe über das Stück, ihre Begeisterung, usw. (Görne, Sig. 166a, 2) The first of these was in many ways a beacon for his development as a director and artist, and a key to his intercultural understanding and future activity. The term ‘Volkstheater’ within the context of Indian theatre history and practice is the very opposite of all that Bennewitz had been doing until then in his career. He had been creating institutional theatre, in permanent locations, in a rigidly state-controlled system, and while the German notion of ‘Volkstheater’ had also long existed, it was nothing like that in India. There, ‘folk theatre’ is rooted and performed in villages and rural settlements, far removed from the permanent, text-based theatre of the European style, and it is typically a mix of performance forms, eternal themes with local adaptation, and religious association (Chatturvedi 1998, 130–3). The second point demonstrates Bennewitz’s remarkable freedom to travel in the West, here Brussels, which his iTi activity and exemplary political behaviour at home made possible (see Appendix 2); also how enormously fruitful these experiences were for his artistic development, for this very painting – Bruegel’s Der Sturz der gefallenen Engel – became the visual focus of his 1975 Faust. The third point underscores Bennewitz’s genuine inclination to learn from others, his actors, his audiences, his fellow citizens, to be responsive to their interests and needs, to be inspired in his art by their involvement. Such influence became ever more apparent as his career continued. The Performance The program given to audience members as they entered the Deutsches Nationaltheater bore a drawing of Faust deep in study on its cover, and inside, beyond the loose-leaf cast and credit list for each part, a history of the genesis of Goethe’s Faust, articles on Goethe’s ‘Welt- und Menschenbild’ and Faust’s dialectical relationship with Mephistopheles, and the historical setting of Part II. There were also two further articles, by set director Franz Haveman and music director Jens-Uwe

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Günther, which deserve futher comment now, as does one of the four scene sketches included. Presumably, the audience was expected to take this program home and read the articles after the performance, being encouraged to engage with it intellectually and perhaps with some critical distance after they had seen it and left the theatre, just as was the Faust on the cover. This seems to be something of a shift in approach since 1965/67. Havemann’s article is a commentary on stage sets, backdrops, and costumes, as he puts it, the ‘Gesamtkonzeption.’ The striking backdrop of Der Sturz der gefallenen Engel (1562) by the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–1569), which depicts the descent of the rebel angels into a hellish chaos of grotesque creatures and twisted human forms, was prominent in several scenes in the early parts of the production and as an arresting backdrop later on. Thus, although the picture was first associated with the Renaissance, it remained through the historical sweep of the entire 1975 performance as a comment on mankind’s lot, a tone decidedly contrary to that which dominated in 1965. With regard to the set’s structure, Havemann explains that this concept ‘formuliert grundsätzlich das Risiko der Konfrontation Fausts mit der eindeutig – wenn auch unterschiedlich – historisch konkreten Welt des ersten und zweiten Teils.’ In Part II, he writes, a disk-shaped platform, ‘ein Ausschnitt einer Kugel,’ superimposed on the stage represents die Vorstellung von der Unendlichkeit (in räumlicher und zeitlicher Hinsicht) des Entwicklungsprozesses. Sie ist nach allen Seiten hin räumlich zu umgreifen. Dadurch suggeriert sie Harmonie. Das ist beabsichtigt und ganz im Sinne des Werkes, besonders auch im Verhältnis zum ersten Teil. Diese Harmonie ist zwar prinzipiell unzerstörbar, sie kann jedoch durch die Epochen der historischen Entwicklung empfindlich gestört werden … Faust steht [im 5. Akt] in einer die Kugel umklammernden Konstruktion von Drähten und stählernen Gerüsten: Er hat eine Welt geschaffen, deren technische Möglichkeiten dem Menschen – produktiv gebraucht – Hoffnungen erfüllen können, deren Mißbrauch jedoch zur existenzbedrohenden Gefahr werden kann. Goethes optimistische Haltung ist unanzweifelbar: Der Mensch ist in der Lage, die ihm eigenen Fähigkeiten produktiv zu gebrauchen. Dennoch sind am Stückschluß – auch bühnenbildnerisch – nicht Fragen ‘gelöst,’ sondern Aufgaben formuliert. (Görne, Sig. 166a, folder 1)

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This carefully worded explanation attempts to reconcile the negative, foreboding elements of the set’s visual message with the conventional requirement in the GDR to depict Faust positively. Havemann covers the latter by calling Goethe’s ‘optimistische Haltung … unanzweifelbar,’ but that is not to say that it is Faust’s as well, nor his own, the director’s, nor that of many in the audience. What is more, he makes no reference to the set of Part I. In place of the wooden gothic tower of the previous production there is a gigantic platform dominated by a striking backdrop of Bruegel’s painting. As Erika Stephan put it in our interview, ‘Faust war eine sehr irdische Figur geworden, keinesfalls mehr die ideale Vorbildfigur’ (p. 50). The medieval world from which he and his understanding of life emerged was now shown to be rooted in confusion and hopelessness. Faust and his fate now would leave in the minds of the audience and actors not answers but challenges, signs that the current situation required reassessment and change. In his essay, music director Günther contrasts his approach now to that in the 1965/67 production. While he then employed ‘das große romantische Orchester,’ and a unifying thematic line from beginning to end, now, ‘jede Leitmotivtechnik und Symbolik ist vermieden worden, da sie die innere Entwicklung des Stückes und seiner Personen stören würde.’ The orchestra was reduced to fifteen instruments, in many scenes fewer than that, or just soloists, with shorter pieces emphasizing and enhancing individual scenes rather than the thematic whole. The large chorus of 1965 was gone, too, replaced by smaller groupings or individual voices. The overwhelming unifying and emotionally stimulating effect of the music of 1965 changed to become a medium not to create unity, but to probe into the meaning of individual scenes and characters. There was more intellectual challenge here, less automatic response. Further, Günther points out that for the first time electronic music was blended into the score, often mixed with electronic sound effects, but anticipating purists’ complaints, he gingerly explains that there is no noise or cause for confusion. Say what he may, Günther was moving the work into another era, that of psychedelic and rock, music associated with the West, and one with which the GDR had political difficulties. With it we see a shift in Faust from the tight grip of classicism to the slippery grasp of modernity. Bennewitz this time chose Manfred Heine as Faust, portrayed now as a much younger man, and he also selected new actors for the roles of Mephistopheles and Margarete, Klaus-Martin Boestel and Helga Ziaja respectively. Görne’s materials to the play contain interviews with them

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all, and Ziaja’s is particularly revealing. She was a completely different female type from her counterpart in 1965: more mature, beautiful, with dark hair and complexion, not clad in the traditional Dirndl, pushing the audience away from that interpretation and the Volkstümlichkeit of that production. In the interview, Ziaja describes her early schooling and path to becoming an actor, a process similar to another Gretchen three years later in Bennewitz’s New York Faust. In that chapter we will witness Christine Campbell’s remarkable identification with the same role. Bennewitz’s talent as a developer of young actors is behind both cases. Under his direction, Ziaja experienced this: Je länger ich mich mit der Rolle Gretchens beschäftige, umso mehr bewegt mich ihre Geschichte. Ihre klare und entschiedene Haltung zum Leben und zu ihren Partnern, ihre Aktivität und ihre Konsequenz haben mich tief beeindruckt, und ich bin ganz sicher, daß das anderen, die die schöne, vielschichtige Persönlichkeit Gretchens entdecken, ebenso geht. Natürlich sind viele Probleme, die auf Gretchen einstürmen, im einzelnen nicht mehr direkt unsere Probleme, aber wie sie um ihr Glück, um ihren Lebensanspruch kämpft – das ist, glaube ich, auch für uns ganz wichtig und aufregend. (Görne, ed., Johann 1975, Sig. 166a: Ziaja, 1 of 2)

Remarkably, Bennewitz’s Gretchen in the 1978 New York production, Christine Campbell, will express similar thoughts from Harlem’s black ghetto. She also first acted in musical theatre, as Ziaja did too in the Drehmaschinenwerk in Leipzig. Ziaja’s description of her approach to acting and learning a character would also resonate in the New York Gretchen’s experience: ‘Ich habe lernen müssen, daß ich mich künstlerisch nur dann äußern kann, wenn ich zu meiner Rolle und zu dem Werk insgesamt eine ganz klare persönliche Meinung gewonnen habe. Ich muß mich engagieren, ich muß über meine Rolle so viel in Erfahrung bringen, daß sie – zunächst für mich – anfängt zu leben’ (ibid., 2). Without using the term, Ziaja is speaking of character transformation, and her capacity to bring this about is one of the reasons why Bennewitz gave her the role. The same would apply to Campbell. The Gretchen figure for Bennewitz had become an heroic one. She was now a ‘Revolutionärin der Liebe’ (Stephan interview, p. 50), much more so than Faust. This is how Ziaja understood that motif in the play: ‘Sie liebt Faust und weiß sich von Faust wiedergeliebt. Sie lebt jedoch in einer Welt, in der eine dauerhafte menschliche Partnerschaft nicht aufgebaut werden kann. Ihr Liebesanspruch läßt sich noch nicht verwirkli-

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chen. Herrschende Dogmen, ihre bisherige Erziehung, verständnislose Menschen, auf deren Hilfe sie nicht rechnen kann – das alles trägt dazu bei, ihre Liebe zu zerstören … Sie muß an den Widersprüchen ihrer Welt und Gesellschaft noch scheitern, aber ihren Anspruch auf Glück, ihre Persönlichkeit behauptet sie bis zum Schluß’ (ibid., 2). Ziaja’s analysis of the character contains a fundamental criticism of the society in which the Gretchen figure lives – an eighteenth-century society – but one which sophisticated listeners and readers might well have compared with their own. Faust’s character extended this criticism. In her interview, Stephan explained that she saw his intellectual predicament as nearing existential tragedy and interpreted Faust’s crisis as ‘der empfindliche Nerv dieser Inszenierung’ (p. 49). This new emphasis demonstrates as well the influence that Dresen hoped he would have on Bennewitz and Görne. There is little remaining connection with the pathos-steeped heroic figure of 1965/67. The program’s four drawings include two depicting Faust and Mephistopheles, one of Faust and Gretchen, suggesting both the ectasy and agony of their relationship, and one in which a figure suggesting Gretchen is splayed on her back with arms spread widely, unmistakably reminiscent of the crucifixion scene, with a two-dimensional Faust, one with an expression of horror, the other bent in shame, looking on. These demonstrate changed interpretations of both characters and point to a further evolution by 1981, particularly the crucifixion analogy which in Bennewitz’s third Faust is represented strikingly on stage. From the director’s book and the videotape of the performance (Faust in Weimar, Strichbücher; Faust 75 DRA) it is evident that this version, at more than eight hours was much longer than the first (six and a half). A good portion of this was the result of Bennewitz’s insertion of many more ballet numbers to complement musical interludes between scenes. A striking structural difference was the occasional mixing and reordering of scenes or parts of scenes, giving the effect of simultaneity and temporal overlap, which will be relevant for our conclusions about the production as a whole. Essential Features The following four aspects of Bennewitz’s 1975 production of Faust stand out: (1) the absence of a director’s introduction; (2) the Vorspiel; (3) the visual and audial effects; (4) Faust’s last speech.

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The Absence of a Director’s Introduction Unlike the televised version of 1965, the 1975 Faust was beamed to the nation concurrently with live performances in the Deutsches Nationaltheater, and it did not give the impression of being produced – ’staged’ – for television. The concurrence of live and audiovisual delivery evoked an attractive atmosphere of immediacy and modernity. Bennewitz did not appear on screen to introduce the performance and drive home its political point in advance. The live filming in the theatre with audience present enabled television viewers, and us today, to hear, and occasionally see the audience and their reactions, so that they were part of the television experience – reality TV! – and, indeed, a national one. There was a sense of immediacy and community that was not present in 1965, and for the television viewers less a sense of being the object of a pedagogical exercise. To begin, the camera scanned the audience for a good twenty seconds, a long time in terms of cinematic technique, so in effect the didactical director was replaced by the audience, which suggested their empowerment. There was no longer the sense of a single dominant authority but rather a collective one made up of many who varied in their reactions and who judged what they saw individually – not exactly the kind of collectivization that the state had in mind. The Vorspiel The Vorspiel begins with the entrance of a clown and his apparently extemporaneous mime comedy using a violin and a ladder, reminiscent not of the traditional ‘lustige Person’ named in Goethe’s text, the popular favourite of Renaissance and Enlightenment German comedy. Instead of being depicted as harlequin or the like, here he appears as a modern circus clown. Bald, with oversized shoes, red nose, waistcoat, cutaway jacket, and gigantic buttons, he is a multivalent signal setting the tone and approach for the entire production. Contrary to the text, where the director leads off, followed by the poet, this clown now is the first character on stage, instead of the last. He is thus thrust into the role of tone setter, external commentator, assuming from the start an ironic stance towards what is to come. Clowns through the history of theatre have taken this role, but since this incarnation was a modern figure, he also suggested a casting off of the past and taking a fresh look at Faust

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and its significance. Such clown figures further create a distance from the action and an intimate partnership with the audience, for what he has to say is heard only by them. Those in the audience immediately share his position as observers and commentators, and they are encouraged to assume a critical distance by his side. The first action the clown takes upon entry is to deliberately choose a path under the ladder standing on stage as part of the incomplete set. He carries a large cello case, from which he first removes a small vase with flowers and places it carefully on the floor centre-stage. He removes from the cavernous case a tiny violin and an undersized music stand, sets it up and begins to play. His actions are coordinated with a sweet violin melody from offstage. As he plays, the stand elongates itself magically so that he is forced to climb the ladder to continue. By choosing the dangerous path underneath the ladder upon entry, the clown announces a challenge to social conventions, even the law itself; by delivering the flowers and playing sweet music, he confirms the central roles of beauty and art; and in the absurdity of his appearance and actions he points to the reality of the society around him. This mime to begin the action lasts almost seven minutes before the director and poet appear and the dialogue begins. None of it comes from the text, it is a completely new addition to Goethe’s work. The director was laying a foundation here for understanding all that would transpire in the next eight hours. He was, in fact, initiating an atmosphere of irony, that one element that the state and its censors could not tolerate. The audience was silent, the camera panned their faces slowly: they soaked in the scene and understood its subversive message. At its end, the clown removes his disguise, packs up, and exits, but in departing hands the poet his little vase of flowers and gives him an encouraging pat. The task of continuing his function is passed to the work itself. Visual and Audial Effects The casting of the production made a much more youthful and attractive impression than in 1965, particularly in the major characters, a younger Faust, the darkly alluring Gretchen, a slim and wiry Mephistopheles, and a handsome young emperor in Part II. Beyond that, the audience could not help but be dazzled by the elaborate visual impact of the staging, which the colour videotape still reveals. Havemann and costume designer Ingrid Rahaus created outstanding visual effects which began with Bruegel’s ominous painting of the fallen angels,

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parts of which recurred in visual associations throughout Part I (they are referred to in the following discussion as ‘Bruegelesque’). These also appeared on screen to introduce each new scene in the television transmission. There follow in the Prologue a host of gigantic putti dangling from the heavens and the Lord’s spectacular entry in a flowing red robe amid choral laudations, trumpet fanfares, and kettle drum rolls. A Bruegelesque medieval scholar is shown amid screams of human suffering, foreboding sounds of electronic music, towers of books, and of other scientific equipment. A huge projection of a Dürer selfportrait is the Erdgeist. Faust hurls a skull at the tower of science causing a flash of flame and a shower of sparks. Haunting electronic music accompanies the study and other dark scenes. A picturesque Reubenslike image of dance in bright Netherlandic costumes on surrealistic streets with jolly music introduces Vor dem Tor. Further effects are an explosion of smoke and fire from the poison potion and a crucifix in Faust’s study, Mephistopheles with a trendy ring in his left ear, black shiny suit, high leather boots and dashing wide-brimmed hat, a clever puppet-like rendition of Auerbach’s Keller with many incendiary tricks, an innovative morphing of that group into the witches and animals of the Hexenküche, an image of Helena as classic reclining nude before the astounded Faust (shown twice in the television broadcast!), long applause from the audience, frequent camera refocus on the powerful Bruegel backdrop; Gretchen in her room, configured as a peepshow stage which combined bizarrely with Bruegelesque trees beside, the theme of absurdity just around the corner, and a contrast that continued throughout the Gretchen and Martha scenes like an ongoing visual narrative of disjuncture and foreboding. The Netherlandic motif continued in the costumes of the Gretchen/Martha scenes, followed by menacing music in Wald und Höhle, a visually rich Brunnen scene with realistic flowing water between the glowering Bruegelesque trees, which after Valentin’s death appear against a multicoloured backdrop of rose, purple, and black, between them a huge burning cross, creating an association that would be fully realized in Bennewitz’s New York Faust three years later, as would be the dozen huge robed figures in black hats and white headdresses who moved across the Cathedral scene to follow, chanting elaborately in Latin, crowned by the dies irae which was raised to a crescendo by the chorus from offstage. All this is punctuated with a full stop by Gretchen’s anguished cries and final collapse. An incongruous interlude of light jazz follows as the twelve foreboding figures from the cathedral metamorphosize into ghostly

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white spectres who with others merge to soft bucolic music, creating a gracious, balletic interlude with bodies drifting and entwining, in contrast to the usual coarse sexuality of the Walpurgisnacht. Covering the huge revolving disk and and enhanced by multicoloured light effects, this is a refreshingly innovative representation of the witches’ festival. Faust is drawn in as the power of the music and dance increases, until a new figure, spectacular in red with fearsome gargoyle head, appears, and all fall silent at the feet of the devil. Faust, with Gretchen’s rosary in his hands, speaks the lines from Trüber Tag, as the two scenes are blended. The set turns blue and the figures of a man and woman appear, she chained to a post between the Bruegelesque trees, a foreshadowing of the final scene in Part I. There is long, enthusiastic applause. Part II is no less sensually stimulating. Act 1 opens with a spectacular view of the solar system and huge coloured planets drifting in space. A massive blinding sun rises to flood the stage with light to a dramatic drum roll. Above the Kaiserliche Pfalz hangs a gigantic oval metallic disk, associating by its shape with the platform disk of Part I. Members of the court wear exaggeratedly stylized costumes – the emperor’s robe is some twenty metres long – turning their owners into caricatures which last throughout. The Mummenschanz is a spectacle of costumes, masks, grandiose props, and mechanics, and the same can be said of many scenes in this part, outstanding examples being a spectacular Galatea appearance surrounded by enticing bare-breasted and apparently naked nymphs and nixies, crowned by a glorious chorus from offstage, massive gryphons, and a gigantic mobile sphinx. The visual motifs of planets, circular and elliptical shapes initiated in Act 1 recur in the sets and backdrops of many later scenes, such as the Klassische Walpurgisnacht, the Hochgebirg, Grablegung, and Bergschluchten, where the disk and planets are combined to produce the motif’s visual closure. It is an extravagance of sensual stimulation and association. Gasps of surprise, sighs of wonder, and murmurs of appreciation are heard from the audience intermittently throughout. Yet not all is spectacle. The betrothal scene beteen Faust and Helena is played with an extraordinary delicacy of language and gesture, ending with the two folding together in curved union, a pose they hold, it would seem, for eternity, imprinting an image of harmony on our minds, a sensitive, visually satisfying consummation. Even more powerful in its associative imagery is the final scene of Act 5.

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Faust’s Last Speech The youthful vigour of Faust carries through Part I, where he begins as an angry young man. Although in many ways overshadowed by the associative impact of visual components, the alluring personality of Gretchen, and the tragedy of her predicament, Faust nevertheless maintains his traditional role as an independent crusader for knowledge and experience. At times this is even heightened beyond the first Weimar version, for example, in the scene of Valentin’s death in which in 1965 he clearly commited the murder unaided by Mephistopheles. In 1975 he not only acts independently from Mephistopheles, he does away with even the semblance of a duel and charges across the stage to stab his defenceless victim with a dagger. This Faust takes control, the themes of self-assertion and determination of one’s own fate carrying through to the end of Part II, but with a meaningful twist. Faust’s last speech (11559–86) is again delivered completely, earnestly, and with resolve, but this time with a quiet reserve absent from the previous version, and with a very different conclusion. He stands centre-stage, vigorous, handsome, even youthful still – he has not aged noticeably throughout the production and in no sense resembles the centegenarian of the text. He faces the audience and television camera, with eyes closed, consistent with his blinding by Sorge and with the way he spoke the scene in 1965. He speaks confidently, contentedly, his face at the final lines smiling with satisfaction – as if he is having an inner vision – but for the final lines. Faust’s last words, ‘Genieß ich jetzt den höchsten Augenblick,’ are delivered with eyes open and he stares forward in amazement before closing them again and falling back dead. This radical interpretation of what for the GDR audience was the thematic climax of the play was a stunning innovation by the director, and a challenging one for the audience. Did Faust first see – imagine – the vision in his mind, and now does he open his eyes to see that it has been realized? Or does he see now, with all of the audience, that it has not, and that reality is far from that goal? This is a clever, even brave ironization of the state of socialism in the German Democratic Republic in 1975. Faust then falls back and dies, as in the text, and Mephistopheles and his lackeys advance to battle the angels for his soul. But the play does not end in the usual fashion with the Chorus Mysticus and all of its trappings. Instead, Gretchen returns, and to the sounds of the chorus offstage, kneels and speaks the lines of Una Poenitentium (12069–75, 12084–93).

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The Mater Gloriosa replies (12094–5), and a single pure voice sings the final lines ‘Alles Vergängliche … Zieht uns hinan’ (12104–11) with Gretchen still kneeling, alone, head raised, a countenance of peace, as a pure white planet fills the dark blue sky above. The climax is shared now by Faust and Gretchen both. His triumphant, solitary victory in 1967 is now dampened and left uncertain, while Gretchen’s endures in the universe. Just as the comic figure began the play alone on stage, Gretchen concludes it as if the director were drawing new parentheses to encompass the work. The unusual conclusion to Part II was a daringly ironic handling of the play’s climax. In a post-production discussion including Görne and members of the press, the seasoned Faust chronicler Helmut Pollow asked in bewilderment, ‘Ich frage mich, warum am Schlusse dieses Zurückweichen, diese Verklärung und Erfüllungsfunktion?’ (Pollow 1976, 11). According to the documentation, Bennewitz chose not to explain. Indeed, the question by resolute party-liner Pollow signalled suspicions among the SED bosses that Bennewitz was becoming critical of the state, and reverberations of their discontent began to reach him soon after. This no doubt led to an intensification of his nascent activity abroad which never abated. Critical Reception The twenty-five published reviews of this production is a considerably lower number than the bumper crop for Bennewitz’s first Faust (forty-five), but a goodly amount, nevertheless, again an indication of the production’s importance and the interest it generated (see Weimar 75 Reviews). Once more, West Germany was not represented. All of the reviews bore the caveat that they should be understood within the restrictions of state censorship. Still, this reception was not entirely parochial; a cluster of reviews from outside the Weimar region, Berlin, Dresden, and Halle, pointed to the national significance of the production. In the reception of Bennewitz’s 1975 Faust, several themes stand out: the historical symbolism of the performance, the strength of its visual components, and the production’s overall conceptual integrity. As was the case with the 1965/67 production, the understanding of the political message was derived to a great extent from Bennewitz’s direction of Faust’s final speech. The essence of the reviews by major critics has been extracted below. Minor critics add little to these, proliferating, rather, the same views to more readers. The reviews and commentaries

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of the major critics often appeared truncated or in digest form in separate reviews a few days later, so they were obviously copies and are hence omitted from this summary as well. Many reviewers emphasized the historical symbolism of the production, linking it to the Deutsches Nationaltheater’s stagings of Faust that had preceded it and setting it as a dramatic celebration of the theatre’s reopening. Matthias Freda’s hyperbole outdid all others: ‘Die feierliche Wiedereröffnung des nach zweijähriger Bauzeit gänzlich rekonstruierten und nun in neuem Glanz erstrahlenden, historischen Deutschen Nationaltheaters mit dem großen Stück Menschheitsgeschichte war ohne Zweifel ein über die jetzt 1000-jährige Stätte des klassischen Humanismus weit hinauswirkendes kulturelles Ereignis von internationaler Geltung.’ Freda further describes the event as part of the Faust continuum which began in 1948, moved through Bennewitz’s 1965 staging, and further to the productions of Faust in Berlin (1968) and Halle (1970), recalling as well Bennewitz’s own assessment of the production in this continuum: ‘auch als Entwurf von Zukunft … die Lust zur Verantwortung, den Mut zum Risiko, die Kraft in der Niederlage, die Herausforderung im Erfolg zu entdecken und als Haltung nachvollziehbar zu machen; den Kampf ohne die Garantie des Sieges aufzuhnehmen – in der Geschichte entdeckte, von ihr gestellte Aufgaben anzunehmen, ohne bereits Ihre Lösung zu wissen’ (Weimar 75 Reviews). Many reviewers praised the power of the visual components. Again and again they drew attention to Bruegel’s backdrop as its focal point and linked it with other visual and audial aspects and techniques, including film. Bennewitz had brought an entirely new concept to this Faust; in 1965 it was a drama, a ‘Sprechstück,’ now it was something of a multimedia event. Yet numerous reviewers criticized this concept as well, leading among them the fair-minded and sage Georg Menchén, who described it generally as ‘diese so widersprüchliche Weimarer Neuinszenierung,’ and specifically, Um es deutlich zu sagen: Hinter diesem vorantreibenden, von überraschend fruchtbaren geistigen und ästhetisch-sinnlichen Bezugspunkten getragenen Anspruch bleibt die theatralische Umsetzung … vorläufig zurück. Das hat seine Ursachen wesentlich in der auswuchernden, den Spielrythmus des Stücks beeinträchtigenden und seinen Textgehalt oft nur einseitig ausdeutenden Phantasie des Regisseurs, der zu vieles will und nur manches bis zur Endkonsequenz wirklich durchgestaltet. Es mangelt dieser Inszenierung an konzeptioneller Disziplin, was nicht

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Zurücknahme vieler schöner Einzellösungen, sondern ihre bessere Zuordnung zum Grenzen bedeutet. (Weimar 75 Reviews)

Menchén’s review of Part II and the whole remained generally negative, if generously so, reminding his readers of the enormous task of staging both parts and the numerous failures that had been part of the performance history of Faust. He was, indeed, willing to grant Bennewitz ‘dabei wesentlich sinnlich-ästhetische Einsichten in das Werk errungen zu haben ... von weitreichender und langfristiger Bedeutung.’ He also praises the sets and costumes as ‘im einzelnen frappierend schön und wirkungsvoll,’ yet adds, ‘auf eine geradezu lähmende Weise nicht zusammen, zerfällt der Abend in lauter Einzeleindrücke.’ Menchén concludes that any earlier hope of the first part’s blending with the second to create a unified whole evaporated along with the energy and credibility of Faust actor Manfred Heine. ‘Eine arbeitsreiche Inszenierung’ was his final, limp, compliment. The respected Christoph Funke in Berlin wrote of Part I, Fritz Bennewitz und sein Bühnenbildner Franz Havemann ringen um eine zwingende optische Kraft des Geschehens … Und da nun ist entschiedener Widerspruch anzumelden. Was haben die ‘lustigen Gesellen’ (und so steht es bei Goethe!) mit den Meerkatzen zu tun? Was das bigotte religiöse Strafgericht im ‘Dom’ mit dem heidnischen Fest der Walpurgisnacht? Welchen Gewinn bringen die Ballettzusätze, die Kompositionen, die ungeheueren Anstrengungen der Bühnentechnik mit ihren lähmenden Zeitverlusten (die Aufführung dauert bei atemverschlagend unbedenklichen Strichen viereinhalb Stunden) für die von den Schauspielern vorgeführte Geschichte? Wo bleibt Faust in diesem mit ungeheurer Anstrengung bewegten, gewaltigen Apparat? (Weimar 75 Reviews)

Funke answered his own question in his review of Part II, at the same time, as a Berliner, reminding Bennewitz and the DNT of their duty to the politics and development of their country: Es geht den Weimarianern darum, die Widersprüchlichkeit des Menschen zu erfassen, die Möglichkeiten zum Guten und zum Bösen auszuloten, die er in sich trägt: sein Suchen, Forschen, Vorwärtsstürmen auch in den Gefährdungen zu zeigen, die durch Aktivität, Schöpferdrang allein nicht aufzuheben sind, sondern durch beide oft erst hervorgerufen werden. Leider gelingt es nicht, diese waghalsige Sicht auf die Dichtung schlüs-

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sig und mit sinnlicher Kraft auf der Bühne zu verwirklichen. Ein entworfenes, ‘höllisches,’ von Bildern Brueghels angeregtes Mittelalter im ersten Teil drängt zwar die gewohnte spitzgieblige deutsche Idylle zurück, macht aber auch das Geschehen um Faust, Mephisto und Gretchen zur Nebensache in einer lastenden, von Pest, Krieg, Verbrechen gezeichneten Umwelt. (Ibid.)

Funke’s salvo unintentionally confirms the argument that by 1975 Bennewitz’s personal focus had moved from local and national to international events, and from today’s perspective that might well have been because he saw much more promise there for changing the world than he did in his own country. But Funke fails to see or acknowledge this. He continues with comments on the visual aspects of the production: Gespielt wird nun auf einem Kugelsegment, eingegrenzt von einem Horizont, der die Weite des Alls bezeichnen will, der Schauspieler erhält mehr Raum, rückt oft in den Mittelpunkt des Geschehens, bleibt nicht auf die käfigartigen engen Wagen des ersten Teils beschränkt. Aber auf Zuviel an optischer Unruhe folgt ein Übermaß an Ruhe – das Kugelsegment aus Polyester, von unten beleuchtet, nach dem Willen des Bühnenbildners Franz Havemann Harmonie suggerierend, hat einen Zwang zum Statischen, Zuständlichen in sich, der Fausts Weltfahrt ins Rhetorisch-Deklamierende abdrängt, fertige Zustände vorführt, nicht Entwicklung unter ungeheuren inneren Widersprüchen.

Writing in the Märkische Union, an anonymous Potsdam critic agreed: ‘In Weimar wirkt vieles zu sehr neutralisiert. Es hat den Anschein, als spiele alles im Unendlichen und Zeitlosen. Die Übergänge zu den einzelnen Szenen stehen, wohl bewußt, nebeneinander, eine kontrastierende Dynamik wird schwer erreicht.’ Numerous others took the same tack, with remarks like these by the writer who signed himself or herself ‘Kre’: ‘nicht eine so künstlerisch geschlossene Leistung zeigte wie 1965 … Eigenwilligkeit der Regie,’ ‘Schau-Spiel, das sich aus einem verschwenderischen Einsatz von Malerei, Tanz ..., Musik ... und Licht … zusammensetzt.’ In his review, Wolfgang Gersch pointed out that ‘Bildhaftigkeit, Bildsymbolik führt nicht zur tiefen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Stoff.’ This group of critics were all arguing from the point of view of the primacy of the text, that the ideological message for their state was supreme, and that the first objective of theatre was to instruct, a conservative view that failed to do justice to Bennewitz and

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Havemann’s attempts to move the production into the new multimedial era with an international scope. When Funke asked ‘Welchen Gewinn bringen die Ballettzusätze, die Kompositionen, die ungeheueren Anstrengungen der Bühnentechnik mit ihren lähmenden Zeitverlusten,’ one hastens to ask in return, what about the element of pleasure, enjoyment, pure theatricality, the ‘Vergnügen’ that was also part of classical, Brechtian, and Bennewitzian aesthetics? Finally, all but ‘Kre’ failed to mention the celebratory necessity that the newly renovated theatre, a jewel of the German Democratic Republic before this, but even more so now, needed to be showcased, which was surely behind Bennewitz and Havemann’s visual extravagance as well. Another group of critics was more in tune with the director’s and designer’s approach. Manfred Meier, whose piece appeared in Berlin’s Neue Zeit, enjoyed the impression that everthing was ‘frisch und neu,’ and even if he remained sceptical about the use of technology, his overall impression was positive: ‘vieles an der Inszenierung … erweckte den Eindruck, es habe in der Absicht des Regisseurs gelegen, vor allem eine Mauer niederzureißen: jene Barriere des allzu ehrfürchtigen Respekts nämlich die den Zugang des Publikums zu den Geistesschätzen der Klassiker auch heute bisweilen noch erschwert.’ Peter-Jürgen Fischer of Erfurt had nothing but compliments for the unity of the concept and coordination of both parts. In his review in the Thüringische Neueste Nachrichten, Fischer had this to say: ‘Die Inszenierung beider Teile des Goethischen “Faust”1975 am Deutschen Nationaltheater ist programmatisch geworden. Diese Absicht, wie sie Fritz Bennewitz formulierte, ist an den beiden Theaterabenden erkennbar geworden dank der Ensembleleistung der Schauspieler. Der Weimarer “Faust 75” wurde zu einem bedeutenden Theaterereignis unseres Landes.’ Always one of the most insightful critics, in her review of Part I, in Erfurt’s newspaper Das Volk, Erika Stephan wrote: ‘Über die konzeptionell-methodische Neuerschließung hinaus ist der entscheidende Neugewinn – und ohne ihn bliebe konzeptionelle Erkenntnis bloße Rhetorik – in der ästhetisch-sinnlichen Totale. In weiten Teilen findet die geistig-gedankliche Neuentdeckung ihre Entsprechung im Szenisch-Theatergemäßen, im sinnlichen Reichtum, in der Synthese vielfältiger künstlerischer Elemente.’ She remained as positive after the second part. Many GDR critics changed their rhetorical register to meet the reception horizon of readers both well educated and not. During her career, Stephan wrote frequently for the best theatre journal in the

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GDR, Theater der Zeit, which has even survived the reunification and is widely respected in both eastern and western Germany, but also for newspapers with a much more modest readership, as here. Generally, Berliners were loathe to acknowledge excellence in what they considered the ‘Provinz,’ so it is significant that the most positive review of all came from the Berlin critic Wilfried Nonnewitz, with the title ‘“Phantastischer” Faust in Weimar’ (in the Berliner Zeitung): Die ‘Faust’-Inszenierung von Fritz Bennewitz zur Wiedereröffnung des rekonstruierten und modernisierten Deutschen Nationaltheaters in Weimar ist keine feierlich-huldvolle, aufgeblasene Würdigung. Sie zeigt sich vielmehr äußerst lebendig, theatralisch, volksstückhaft und beweist, wie produktiv und anregend für die Gegenwart klassische Werke heute gespielt werden können, ohne sie gewaltsam zu aktualisieren oder sie für eine bestimmte Auffassung zurechtzubiegen … Als Berliner in Weimar sah man die phantasievolle und interessante Inszenierung mit einem lachenden und einem weinenden Auge. Es drängt sich einem die Frage auf, ob es nicht doch möglich wäre, den Faust I am Deutschen Theater wieder aufzunehmen und in nicht allzu ferner Zukunft den 2. Teil, wie schon einmal geplant, auch in der Hauptsstadt zu inszenieren.

To connect Bennewitz now with that renowned, revolutionary Faust of 1968 in Berlin’s Deutsches Theater was a high compliment, indeed, and a further sign that the director had moved to a new, critical level of interpretation. Rolf-Dieter Eichler, also in Berlin, was just as enthusiastic (in the National-Zeitung). Bennewitz and Havemann could hardly have received a greater compliment from their big city countrymen, even if Nonnewitz’s enthusiasm dissipated somewhat after he had seen Part II, moving into line with Funke and his group by commenting that ‘eine geschlossene Einheit von Bühnenbild, ... Musik, ... Choreographie und der Schauspielerregie wird nicht erreicht, da steht hier zu vieles für sich’ (Weimar 75 Reviews). Obviously, critical opinion varied widely, and that is a very positive thing. For a director to receive condemnation and praise simultaneously from such a range of critics is an indication that he has forged a new direction. Manfred Meier’s praise summed up Bennewitz’s achievement in 1975 when he wrote, ‘es habe in der Absicht des Regisseurs gelegen, vor allem eine Mauer niederzureißen: jene Barriere des allzu ehrfürchtigen Respekts nämlich, die den Zugang des Publikums zu den Geistesschätzen der Klassiker auch heute bisweilen noch erschwert.’

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Despite its many blemishes, despite the fact that both Bennewitz and Görne insisted – even in the latter’s interview long after the reunification (see chapter 2) – that their first Faust was superior, in retrospect, thirty-five years later and from the perspective of an outsider to that society, the 1975 production seems to have been a greater success in artistic and political terms. It had actually challenged the myth of Goethe and at the same time posed some awkward questions about the infallibility of Faust as a GDR hero, and it had shifted the thematic emphasis from a restricted focus on the GDR to the problems of world politics, announcing the new direction for Bennewitz’s career. The Party Line The party line for understanding the 1965 production of Faust was largely contained in Görne’s ten ‘Thesen’ in Forum (Görne, ‘Faust in Weimar,’ 1966) and his 1965 ‘Werkstattgespräch’ with Bennewitz (published in 1967) . Once again in 1975, Görne led the way with his ‘Thesen zu “Faust” (erster und zweiter Teil)’ (1975b). He begins them with a brief overview of Goethe’s historical circumstances and then draws a parallel to those of 1975, calling this the ‘Dialektik von Historizität und Aktualität’ which is the ‘Kernproblem jeder zeitgenössischen “Faust”Rezeption,’ by which, of course, he meant ‘DDR-Faust-Rezeption.’ He argues that this dialectic must be explored ‘mit Distanz, wobei der Begriff “Distanz” wohl eine produktiv-kritische, aktive, keinesfalls aber eine besserwisserisch-abwertende Haltung dem Werk gegenüber einschließt.’ With this, Görne delicately and deftly sets the stage to present this Faust as one that will not authoritatively present answers and instructions, as did their first, but will ask questions, raise doubts, and provide no definitive solutions. This is an enormous shift in approach. He continues: ‘Gleichzeitig ermöglicht die “Distanz” die Verdeutlichung der Kontinuität des Geschichtsprozesses. Das heißt auch, daß jeder Versuch, Probleme des Aufbaus der sozialistischen Gesellschaft direkt auf die Problematik des “Faust” zu übertragen und mit Hilfe der Aufführung (gewißermaßen “agitatorisch”) zur Wirkung zu bringen, notwendigerweise zum Scheitern verurteilt ist’ (1975b, 1). Now coming to specifics, Görne asks his reader to agree that, in fact, the work Faust is not capable of doing this, and goes on to debunk the earlier notion of Faust as a model for the socialist citizen: ‘Dabei ist der Begriff des “Exemplarischen” keinesfalls stets mit dem des Nachnahmenswerten oder Positiven identisch: Exemplarisch im gesellschaftlichen Sinne ist Faust

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auch in seinen Niederlagen, [die] dialektischer Bestandteil seines unablässigen Strebens nach Welterkenntnis und menschlicher Selbstverwirklichung sind.’ He goes on to address the differences between this and the previous production directly: ‘Im Zentrum der Inszenierung beider Teile des “Faust” am DNT Weimar 1965/67 stand vorrangig die Absicht, die Fähigkeit des Menschen zur Gestaltung seines Lebens und seiner gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse im dichterischen Bild zu belegen. Diese Fähigkeit wurde auch für Situationen behauptet, in denen der Mensch noch zum Opfer der herrschenden historischen Umstände wurde’ (2, emphasis added). The phrase ‘im dichterischen Bild’ is key here. The fictionality was, in fact, not stressed in the 1965/67 production, but rather, the actuality and relevance of the Faust story for the GDR citizens and state. With the phrase ‘im dichterischen Bild,’ Görne shifts that actuality to the realm of poetry and thereby defuses its message without needing to say that it is no longer valid. Now, he writes, it makes sense, ‘in den objektiven nun auch die mit jeglicher schöpferischen Tätigkeit unabdingbar verbundenen subjektiven Faktoren genauer zu untersuchen und in ihrer ganzen problematischen Spannweite zu gestalten’ (1975b, 3). Simply put, this means ‘We have new problems; we’d better take a closer look and reassess what we should do!’ Görne’s second essay, ‘Thesen zu Faust/Erster und zweiter Teil: Überlegungen zur Konzeption,’ (1975c) introduces the concept of the ‘klassisches Erbe,’ the great windmill of the quixotic German Democratic Republic. He roots the concept in Hegel, advising that it ‘bildet weder in qualitativer noch in quantitativer Hinsicht eine konstante Größe. Folgerichtig müssen … die Positionen der Erberezeption in der Gegenwart immer wieder neu bestimmt werden’ (1975c, 1). This is a refined rejection of the calcified hero worship that Kayser and others practised and an argument for the sceptical position that he and Bennewitz, as well as their noble predecessors from Brecht to Dresen had taken. To keep reasonably close to the accepted path, however, he again discusses the dialectical process and the concept of history, and again stresses the importance of ‘Naivität und Volkstümlichkeit,’ thus reminding readers of their ongoing commitment to the principles of socialist art (1975c, 5). Not wishing to sound radical, Görne also seems to buy insurance against any who would accuse them of questioning too much, namely, the integrity of accepting the Russian occupying force as brothers and friends, so he cites Leonid Brezhnev as a new source of wisdom and advice comparable to Ulbricht in the 1960s:

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In mehreren seiner bedeutenden Reden der letzten Zeit wies Leonid Breshnew mit Nachdruck darauf hin, daß es dem unermüdlichen Einsatz der im sozialistischen Weltlager vereinigten Völker gelungen sei, die internationale Atmosphäre zu entspannen und im Kampf um die Sicherung des Friedens entscheidende Erfolge zu erringen ... Es ist unsere gemeinsame Pflicht, unermüdlich auf dem gewählten Wege voranzuschreiten, unaufhaltsam, beharrlich und auf breiter Front, entschieden den Widerstand der Entspannungsgegner und der Verfechter des ‘kalten Krieges’ brechend. (1975c, 6ff.)

This snuggling up to the Russian party boss is strikingly reminiscent of Erich Honecker’s famous and all too eager embrace with Leonid Brezhnev in conjunction with the eighth SED convention in 1971, and his undying faithfulness to that regime until his demise. The necking session is well recorded (Mählert 2007, 118; Damals 2005, disk 1/4; Vrubel [1971]). A chastising of capitalist evil is carried out as well, through this assessment of the dying Faust: ‘Es ist die sich am Schluß des “Faust” abzeichnende Welt, deren bereits im Ansatz kapitalistische Züge Goethe zwar auf Grund ihrer inhumanen Auswirkungen spüren, die er jedoch nicht (noch nicht) in ihrer Gesetzmäßigkeit erkennen kann. Deshalb erscheint ihm diese Welt “absurd und konfus,” deshalb kann die eigentliche Auflösung des Problems nur in Fausts Vision und in die poetisch-realistische Welt des Epilogs verlegt werden. Diese auf die Zukunft vertrauende Entscheidung “trotz alledem” wird für die Interpretation des “Faust” am DNT Weimar 1974/75 zur produktiven Aufgabenstellung’ (1975c, 11). That Görne feels it necessary to interpret the final scene is an indication that he is aware of its ambivalence, and also for his present purpose that ambivalence, irony, is not a good thing. In this public essay there must be no doubt that this scene, and this production, did anything but support the state’s political stand, but we know, and he knew, that it did not. Görne stressed in his interview (chapter 2, p. 58) that he was never a party member, and he must be admired for that record, for in many ways joining the party was the easier path for artists, and the way Bennewitz himself chose. Regardless of what Görne wrote for these theses, he was aware that their 1975 Faust was full of ambivalence, and Faust’s final scene doubly so because of his physical blindness and both closed and open eyes. Görne was, and is, a clever man, and he knew that the party line had to be mouthed to maintain the liberty to continue his craft. In the production itself he and

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Bennewitz introduced doubt, yet in this commentary, they replaced it, even if only formally and artificially, with certainty, and a different message. By simply seeing the play, one could never guess that it was communicating the same thoughts as Görne presented above, nor the official message communicated to schoolchildren and other members of the public before the production began. There was an extraordinary disjuncture between these published interpretations and the performance itself. Conclusion What Bennewitz delivered in 1965/67 was Faust as a thesis: Faust as a moral and political tool. It was his confidently socialist Faust, but that is a didactical, political measure, not an aesthetic one. By that yardstick, the 1965 production of Faust was indeed superior to the one of 1975. Critics who reacted negatively to the 1975 Faust, complaining that the ideological mission was not carried out and that the text and actors were backgrounded by the visual and auditory elements and general performance concept, were not prepared for the psychedelic age that the world had already entered, nor were they ready to abandon the notion of Faust as a didactical tool. Let us recall Bennewitz’s earlier interpretation of Marx. The directly political message was always secondary for him, the aesthetic experience primary. In this 1975 production, a different set of aesthetic guidelines was in place, rooted not primarily in the text but in the context of its delivery, in the accompanying images, sounds, gestures, costumes and sets, more precisely, in their overall associative effect on the audience. Associations are always imprecise, mixed, and ambivalent, stirring the subconscious, not rationality and logic. The director’s overlapping and reordering of scenes and his insertion of scraps of scenes at untraditional and unexpected places defied temporal logic as well. All of these things were part of a synesthetic associative technique. It was theatre to enjoy first, reflect on second, proselytise about third. Given the recent extensive renovation of the Deutsches Nationaltheater at the time and its importance for the GDR, it was also the time to show off. That was doubtless one of Bennewitz’s primary objectives: to make the people proud of their theatre and justify the decisions of those who had invested in it on their behalf. The production also pointed to the future of the German Democratic Republic and its director. Irony had become part of Bennewitz’s concept of Faust, and not just towards institutions like the Christian

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Church, or spirituality in general, but towards the GDR state. Faust’s final scene, its double ambiguity, was a clear signal of that, a clear signal that the confidence of the 1965 Faust was fading. This is also evidence to suggest that Bennewitz himself was less convinced of the socialism that was then being practised and, indeed, forced upon the people by an increasingly threatening government. His consistent public silence about injustices in his country, in contrast to the irony in this Faust, lead one to suspect more and more that his public stance was a self-serving façade and his own public character somewhat ingenuous. Yet the gradual ironization of Faust on stage suggests that the theatre was his mouthpiece for civic observation and commentary, which for thinking audiences included criticism of the state, even if it was not explicit. The production pointed, too, to Bennewitz’s change in perspective from national to international concerns, and coincided with the beginning of his remarkably frequent travels and directing activities throughout the world. Indeed, his most productive activities in the future would occur no longer in his homeland, but internationally and interculturally. In this 1975 Faust, particularly in his use of the associative technique and in Helga Ziaja’s personal identification with the character of Gretchen, we even have signs pointing to aspects of his future productions abroad, his multiracial New York Kreidekreis and his Faust there as well. Tens of thousands of GDR citizens had already voiced their opposition to the government by leaving or escaping the country under great duress. Bennewitz found another way.

5 Socialism? Weimar 1981/82

Background As Bennewitz’s 1975 Faust ran through its first year, the SED’s ninth party convention in 1976 trumpeted optimism under Erich Honecker’s leadership, but at the same time the economy of the German Democratic Republic was fragile and freedom of speech and movement continued to be restricted. The Berlin Wall remained, the Stasi continued to go about its work, the political tutelage in schools and the place of the Freie Deutsche Jugend became even more pronounced. More and more artists left the country, for example, the immensely popular protest singer and confirmed socialist Bettina Wegner in 1981. The classic example of this remains a famous picture of a gagged Wolf Biermann, internationally acclaimed Liedermacher and convinced socialist, who

Part I of this production is captured on a videotape now in the FBA (Faust 81 FBA), and there is also extensive published documentation surrounding it (Faust in Weimar 1981/82). These are the major sources for this chapter. To the author’s knowledge Part II was not video-recorded. The Theaterdokumentationsstelle of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin has a binder of materials on Part II as well, but not Part I (Rautenberg 1982). Given the absence of a videotape of Part II, my comments on it are based on information from FiW 81/82 (scene photos, director’s notes, comments by critics in the reviews), Bennewitz’s director’s book (Faust in Weimar, Strichbücher), his Notes to Faust 1981/82, and parts of the videotape entitled Faust II – auf DDR-Bühnen in the DRA. The last contains clips of scenes from productions in Karl-Marx-Stadt, Schwerin, and Bennewitz’s 1982 Faust II, interspersed with commentary on Goethe by the three directors, Piet Dressler, Christoph Schroth, and Fritz Bennewitz. All of the clips are too brief to say anything definitive about the entire productions, however.

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in 1976 was expatriated, banned from re-entering the GDR, after playing a concert in Cologne, a convenient way to silence internally a popular dissident voice. This was part of a pattern of ridding the state of artists whose voices were politically uncomfortable, and it caused great resentment, especially among the youth who reacted by clustering in edgy punk groups listening to Western music. The large number of artists remaining constantly felt the hand of censorship and surveillance, even betrayal by their colleagues as the number of unofficial party informants grew. Wolfgang Engel’s bitter disappointment on learning after the reunification of Germany that he had been the constant object of such treatment by many, including a close colleague, is but one testimony to that (interview in chapter 2, p. 63). A much-touted 1981 meeting between Honecker and West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the East German town of Güstrow gave some cause for optimism for the possibility of increased interaction with the West, but that soon fizzled. The economy slumped again, and a genuine blight, the exploitation and poisoning of natural resources and thereby citizens through rampant industrial pollution became a central social issue. The GDR was well into the process of destroying the very foundation of its own social revolution – the earth of the country itself – hallowed as a shared treasure since the ‘Bodenreform’ of the late 1940s and enshrined in the notion of the ‘Arbeiter- und Bauernstadt.’ Official statements continued to evade these issues and gloss over the severity of social problems. Rosy accounts of the GDR’s standard of living, housing conditions, and environmental protection were, from today’s perspective, almost hilarious in their inaccuracy, yet at the same time deeply saddening in their deceit (Handbuch 1984, 402–8, 458–9). Pious statements such as the following were still the norm: ‘Das Kernstück des sozialpolitischen Programms zur weiteren Entwicklung des materiellen und kulturellen Lebensniveaus der Bevölkerung in der DDR ist das Wohnungsbauprogramm … Das [Landeskultur]gesetz verwirklicht den Auftrag der Verfassung der DDR, in der in Artikel 15 der Schutz der Natur, die rationelle Nutzung und der Schutz des Bodens, die Reinhaltung der Gewässer und der Luft sowie die Erhaltung der Pflanzenund Tierarten und der landschaftlichen Schönheiten der Heimat zur Pflicht des Staates und der Gesellschaft erklärt wurden’ (ibid., 458). By the early 1980s, when this was published, most citizens recognized such statements as empty rhetoric, experiencing cramped housing, daily shortages of building materials, most consumer products, and foodstuffs, as well as gross environmental mismanagement all around.

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The end of the 1970s saw another celebrated Faust in two parts, Christoph Schroth’s rebellious Faust at the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin in 1979 (Mahl 1998, 213–18). Ironically, it was timed to open in conjunction with the thirtieth anniversary of the founding in 1949 of the Germany Democratic Republic. In the program notes, Schroth linked his production directly to Brecht’s Urfaust of 1952/53 which had been unacceptable to the party. Like Brecht, Schroth urged his countrymen to wipe the dust of time from their Goethe tomes and approach his work with fresh interpretations. This Schroth did in genial fashion, playing both parts of the tragedy in one long evening, with savage cuts, costuming his actors in everyday modern dress, minimalizing the sets and scenery, and flavouring the entire theatrical banquet with carnival spice. Many previous productions had cast the role of Faust with two actors, young and old, but Schroth’s use of four, each showing a different dimension, was a striking innovation. His reading and cutting of the text was also original, resulting in the disappearance of standard favourite scenes and the retention of others infrequently played. Schroth’s Faust provided no simple answers to the questions and problems posed by the text. It was a breath of fresh dramatic air and opened a new era in dramaturgical freedom on the GDR stage. It was also an enormous public success in all quarters, including the political, for his strikingly revolutionary treatment lay principally in the theatrical dimension rather than the political, and hence was allowed free rein. Academics raved and made it a focus of their discussions at the 1983 International Goethe Society conference in Weimar. Transmitted repeatedly in its entirety on GDR television, it reached an unusually wide audience, and even travelled west to Saarbrücken for a guest performance. All together Schroth’s landmark rendition was performed a record 111 times. As Heinz and Dresen’s 1968 Faust affected Bennewitz’s interpretation in 1975, so did Schroth’s that in 1981. In a public statement Bennewitz made this clear: Ich habe bei mir selber abgeschrieben, was ich vor sechs Jahren aufgeschrieben habe, weil ich es im Grundsätzlichen nicht anders hinschreiben würde heute – und aufregend erstaunlich, wie aus nicht anderer Haltung so ganz anderes Ergebnis wächst. Sicher gibt es da Zuwachs an Erfahrung, kommt neue Unmittelbarkeit ins Spiel durch junge Schauspieler, ist aus der Interpretationsgeschichte der 68er Faust im Deutschen Theater folgenreicher begriffen worden, hat uns der Schweriner Faust so produktiv in

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die Krise mit uns selber geschickt, daß die eigene Arbeit nachher nicht mehr so sein kann wie davor, ohne daß damit schon vorgewußt wäre, wie und zu welchem Bilde sich’s formt. (Goethe, Faust: Der Tragödie erster Teil, Programmheft 1981a and 1981b, FBA)

Bennewitz recognized both previous productions as instructive contributions to the theatre’s dialogue about life in their state, and yet at the same time insisted that his own fundamental position towards it had not changed. We have seen, however, by comparing his productions of 1965 and 1975 that this was not true. His position had indeed changed, but he would not draw public attention to that fact. There is no doubt that Bennewitz’s second Faust introduced a substantial tone of irony that had not been present in 1965, and his third would go even further in that direction. In her interview, Erika Stephan made the point emphatically: ‘Die zunehmende Ironie, der aggressive oppositionelle Geist charakterisierte den dritten Faust. Ironie war eigentlich die staatsfeindlichste Haltung, zu der man sich versteigern konnte. Solche Tonfälle und Intonationen waren nicht beweisbar, aber man machte sich unbeliebt damit und das konnte für die Karriere dann schon ein paar Schatten auf irgendwelche Vorstellungen werfen’ (chapter 2, p. 50). In his interview, Wolfgang Engel provided this incisive description of the actors’ subtle use of irony in the GDR and the audience’s reception of it in that climate of double meaning: ‘Und so schwierig wurde das, also was Spielweisen im Theater betrifft. Wie man mit verbundenem Maul trotzdem zu reden lernt. Das ist das gute DDR-Theater gewesen, zweisprachig sozusagen! …Und ab dem Moment, wo der Zuschauer gemerkt hat, dass eine Botschaft vermittelt wird, trotz verbundenem Maul, waren die Theater voll. Das hat kein anderes Medium erreicht, geschweige denn überhaupt versucht’ (chapter 2, p. 67). Despite the decline of the country since 1975, the years 1981/82 nevertheless offered a unique opportunity to sing the praises of the heart of German classicism, at least, and thereby the cultural legacy of the GDR. This was the 150th anniversary of Goethe’s final work on the drama and his death in 1832. The length of the run enjoyed by the 1981/82 Faust distinguished it from both of its predecessors. By far the longest, with ninety-seven performances over twenty-three years, it was, in terms of longevity at least, Bennewitz’s greatest Faust triumph. It closed finally on 12 June 1994. Frank Quilitzsch (1994b) reported generously on this milestone and the long, impressive career of its director. Indeed, the fact that the production continued for five years after the reunification of

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Germany says much about its nature and importance – it transcended the GDR and remained relevant for the new united Germany. It was, in a sense, Bennewitz’s first ‘German’ Faust. But many of his friends saw the ninety-seventh and last performance with bitterness, for the DNT’s new intendant from the West stopped the run at that point, just short of what would have been a glorious century to cap Bennewitz’s career. Audience and Cast Preparation Audience statistics for the fifteen-year run are difficult to acquire, but the early years showed much the same pattern as for the previous two productions. Again there was the full range of citizens from all walks of life, and beyond the usual dignitaries, party functionaries, theatre and Goethe lovers, there were hosts of attendees who came in organized groups of schoolchildren, schoolteachers, university students and professors, business concerns, and factory and agricultural workers. A selection of their reactions was published as part of the documentation (FiW 81/82, 4: 36–66), and will be discussed in the section ‘Critical Reception’ below. Bennewitz and his artistic crew also discussed and documented their intentions. It is instructive that those for Part II were published as part of the official documentation of one of his Faust productions for the first time. It would seem that Bennewitz and the Deutsches Nationaltheater were becoming more open and daring in their engagement with the public and political system, and it is clear as well that from the beginning it was not his plan to deliver an innocuous, attractive, enjoyable interpretation, but rather one that reflected the predicament of his country and, as he perceived it, the Western world. His notes to Part I are not recorded. The rehearsal notes (Probennotate) to Part II are, however, and contain revealing comments about many scenes and their intended effect on the audience, their thematics, practical staging requirements, and connections to historical and contemporary events (FiW 81/82, 4: 8–15). The following are some examples: • In Act 1, to the line ‘Die Aufforderung: “Eilet, wo sie helfen kann” [4618],’ ‘kann nicht einem Richard III oder Eichmann gewährt werden.’ This darkly ironic comment immediately shows three typical features of the production. The reference to Shakespeare’s Richard III indicates Bennewitz’s increasing contextualization of Faust within the framework of world literature and culture, which is further

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reflected by the inclusion of figures such as Homer and Thomas More in the program materials. The reference to Adolf Eichmann, architect of Auschwitz and convicted Nazi criminal in his trial of 1961/62, still ignited sparks in GDR citizens who had long been indoctrinated with a self-righteous belief that West Germany was the safe harbour of Nazi fascists, the East somehow remaining miraculously guiltless. The note ‘Gretchen spricht Ariel-Text’ appears in the director’s book (Strichbuch) margin beside Ariel’s opening song. This surprising innovation, replacing Ariel with Gretchen, signals that the ethereal thematics of Part II will give way to realistic interpretation. That was, indeed, maintained by constant intertextual and scenic references to current social problems and events, which contemporary audiences could not have failed to recognize. Further to the same scene, the note: ‘Faust: “... So daß wir wieder nach der Erde blicken” [4713]; … Faust spricht hier als Menschheitsrepräsentant.’ The emphasis on this line, achieved through gestures in the actor’s delivery, points to the ecological situation of the GDR and was reinforced throughout both parts in many scenes by costumes and sets that reminded viewers of these problems. To the ‘Thronsaal’ scene of ‘Kaiserliche Pfalz’: ‘Der Kanzler ist Politiker, trägt im Brevier auch die schriftlich fixierten Beweise für Mißstände. Des Kanzlers Konsequenz war “Kirchenputsch”; übersetzt: Militärputsch ... Der Staat wäre entblößt ohne Militär.’ The director relies on his audience to relate this figure to political leaders locally and internationally. ‘Neu überdenken: Goethescher Mummenschanz erfordert viel Zeit, schöne Allegorien! Oder kürzen aus Zeit- und Personagegründen und nachvollziehbare Erzählung für Zuschauer erreichen!’ While the note in part reflects a reduced budget for the DNT, it also shows Bennewitz’s inclination now to cut scenes whose main thrust was theatrical and aesthetic, hence less socially engaged. In Act 3, ‘[Helenas] Auftrittsmonolog als Dialog mit Publikum / Selbstironie; Brüche in die Ernsthaftigkeit und Härte der Situation. [Phorkyas’] Chor nicht weise, sondern schnatternde Weiber, die nichts gelernt haben. Requisiten finden, die vollkommen absurd sind: leere Vogelbauer, kleine Köfferchen etc.’ Bennewitz intended to de-emphasize the classical myth and bring its central symbol and her situation to the level of the common people. The chorus loses

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credibility as an overriding force. The sublimity of classicsim is placed into question. • In Act 4, ‘Wissenschaftlicher Fortschritt, aber in wessen Diensten, wem zum Nutzen? Friedliche Nutzung von Atomkraft!’ The director poses questions basic to the functioning of the GDR and other world powers. • In Act 5, the final notation: ‘Schluß [Bergschluchen]: Nach dem großen Wiener Zauberpossentheater die Bergschluchten nur lesen; Schauspieler auf Szene privat, vielleicht Tücher um, mit würdevoller Bescheidenheit lesen; dann Mozart-Musik, denn weder parodiert möglich noch ernsthaft theatralisch gestaltet möglich.’ The key word here is ‘lesen,’ and indeed the scene was literally read prosaically by the chorus. Faust’s final scene was the grand opportunity to show a GDR hero marching past death to represent a new and glorious socialist future, but that does not occur. This was, in effect, a parody of that possibility, as we shall see below. The Performance Again the production was timed to coincide with the GDR’s national day, Part I opening on 7 October 1981, Part II on 14 March 1982. Again Bennewitz was joined by Franz Havemann and Ingrid Rahaus as stage and costume designers, but for the most part there were new members of the artistic team, Sigrid Busch replacing Dieter Görne as dramaturge, Konrad Aust directing the music and sound arrangements, and new actors in all of the main roles including: Faust, Detlev Heintze; Mephistopheles, Thomas Schneider; and Margarete/Gretchen, Elke Wieditz. All of this signalled a fundamental change of approach. It was a much younger ensemble than Bennewitz had used even in his second Faust, a point that met with the favour of both audiences and reviewers and which suggested a breaking of stereotypes. A comparison of the excisions and markings between the 1975 and 1981/82 director’s books reveals many changes, drastic cuts, and a substantial shortening of the performance text. These are recorded in the documentation of the productions, Bennewitz’s director’s books (Faust in Weimar, Strichbücher) and the recording of Part I (Faust 81, FBA). Part I took just three hours to perform, Part II about the same. The frequent marginal notation ‘Anschluß,’ especially in Part II, indicated jumps to connect with later speeches, hence a reordering of parts

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of the action. The tangle of minor changes is so extensive and its comparison with those of the previous staging so complicated that no clear general conclusion about how they affected the play’s message can be made, except through the critical reception, with the exception of one significant cut at the end of Part I, one change at the beginning of Part II, and the final scene of the play, all of which will be discussed in the following sections. Attendees again received a substantial program booklet upon entering the theatre, and for both parts the first image they encountered was monstrous, on the front cover for Part I a tower of skeletal faces rising from a mass of strewn human bodies; for Part II an apocalyptic drawing of animals and struggling people. Their creator, artist Rolf Kuhrt, provided several more drawings for each program that were suggestive of scenes or figures in the play. Approximately halfway through the run the cover picture on the Part I program was changed to one depicting a tangle of standing and fallen bodies, suggesting a drowning sea of humanity. The program booklet for Part I contained excerpted texts by Goethe, Heine, Brecht, Bennewitz, and Max Steenbeck about the meaning of the Faust tragedy (all except Goethe’s undated), and one by Havemann explaining his sets. There was also a précis of the history of the person Faust and literary and theatrical renditions of the legend. The program for Part II contains extensive quotations from, Homer’s Iliad (ca. 600 BC), and Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Jean-Paul Marat’s ‘L’ami du people’ (1792), Fichte’s ‘Bestimmung des Menschen’ (1799), Marx and Engels’s ‘Die deutsche Ideologie’ (1845/46), Friedrich Engels’s ‘Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen’ (1876– 78) and ‘Über den Verfall des Feudalismus und das Aufkommen der Bourgeoisie’ (1884), Marx’s ‘Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte’ (1844), and Karl Reinhardt’s ‘Die klassische Walpurgisnacht’ (1943), all dated, but not printed in the same order as here, on the topics of money, currency, social classes, class reform, human value and happiness, the Homunculus-Faust-Helena story line, classical Walpurgisnacht, and finally socioeconomic theory (the order in which they were printed). Parallel to these were quotations from Goethe in conversation with his son Walther and with Eckermann between 1827 and 1832 which refer to parts of Faust II. Even more broadly and intensively than for the 1975 production, then, this performance was supplemented by a large range of materials to spark immediate associations in the minds of the audience and serve for later study and critical reflection. But the process of reflection, of grasping meaning and perhaps applying it to their current

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social circumstances was obviously becoming much more complicated in the director’s mind. The range of these readings is mind-stretching, anything but normative or programmatic, and distinctly international, all signs of Bennewitz’s increasingly trans-temporal, intercultural, and global perspective. The costumes were highly eclectic, unlike both previous stagings of Faust. Most of the grandeur of past productions was gone, budgetary restrictions certainly being one factor, as was no doubt the case with the reduction of the size of the cast. But any suggestion of opulence was also missing because the overall concept of this last Faust was not a glorification but much more a darkly critical view of the protagonist and his contemporary world. The depressing images on the programs for both parts conveyed the intended tone throughout, even if bright spots inteverned on occasion, with flashes of wild entertainment along the way. For much of the time, the stage was shrouded in shade and darkness, sparse decoration, particularly in Part I. There, even the sets were depressing, a claptrap tower on a dilapidated construction site for the study scenes, the set of the Osterspaziergang littered with debris; Gretchen’s room with a dingy, broken, iron double bed and discoloured sheets. The gloom of Part I continued in many scenes of Part II, although there were there at times optically satisfying effects as well, for example, in the Rittersaal and palace scenes of Menelaus and later Faust. Many costumes were modernized to reflect the eccentricities of pop culture, and often these were juxtaposed incongruously and anachronistically with historical, classical, and beautiful figures, suggesting temporal and aesthetic disjuncture and disorientation. The sphinxes were depicted as Jimi Hendrix look-alikes with Afro hair and sunglasses, Nereus dragged a net full of empty fish tins to greet the glorious Galatea. A sense of contemporary actuality was intermittently present through Konrad Aust’s innovative musical score, which included modern Western pieces by groups such as Pink Floyd, no doubt drawing youthful approval and the opposite from the party. The three hours of Part I provide a sprightly performance. It begins with the Vorspiel in front of the stage curtain, the lustige Person again a red-nosed circus clown, as in 1975, the director and poet in contemporary clothing. The curtain then opens, the director drapes himself in a white sheet and climbs a construction scaffold to become the Lord in a wheelchair, as three angels straggle to his side, one in a modern business suit, one a military jacket, one a makeshift celestial costume,

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and looming above in the gloom is a huge, round face, giving an eerie impression of surveillance – but with no explicit role in the scene. The archangels read, chant, and sing their roles dissonantly, a parody of the original. An old-fashioned gramophone on the platform plays a classical fanfare when wound by one of the angels, but grinds to a halt in mid-melody. The audience is invited to think of an invalid leader, outdated equipment, indoctrination by megaphone, and industrial breakdown, all prevalent in the society around them. Mephistopheles enters in modern attire from a ragged black hole in the stage floor, setting a spatial dichotomy that would dominate Part I. While in the text there is no indication how he enters here, the perspective of this scene traditionally is decidedly upward to the Lord, but that is now reversed. Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of jets and grinding industrial noises. Again the audience is directed to relate the action to contemporary society. After a clipped rendition of their interchange, the Lord unceremoniously discards his gown, climbs down from the platform, and exits. The Vorspiel has again set the tone for the entire production: disregard for the sanctity of the text, disjuncture from the past, social and industrial breakdown, and ugliness. Faust rants his opening monologue while scrambling on the floor in the disarray of his dark study, the black hole central, his ramshackle tower almost swallowed by the gloom. His link is with the world below, not with enlightenment or knowledge above. His red woolen cap and black robe are mismatched jarringly with the bright soles of modern sport shoes. He pulls the book of Nostradamus from somewhere below stage and invokes the Erdgeist, who appears from the hole as a woman in a beige robe. They converse face to face as equals. The traditional illusions of the spirit and Faust’s awe are gone. She is gobbled back by the black hole, and Faust crawls in after her to end the scene. Wagner knocks and enters, in striped dressing gown and pajamas, and converses with Faust whose upper body projects from the hole, popping in and out like an animal. He takes the stage to deliver his second major monologue, climbs the ladder in the gloom to retrieve the vial, and is interrupted suddenly by the chiming of Easter bells, accompanied by a striking image of a bell-toller suspended from a lurching rope. A small boy and girl, he in black, she in vivid white, each with a candle, deliver the message of the Resurrection, ‘Christ ist erstanden! Aus der Verwesung Schoß. Reißet von Banden / Freudig euch los! (797–800). Faust descends with poison in hand and delivers the final lines: ‘Die Träne quilt, die Erde hat mich wieder!’ (784).

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The gloom continues in Vor dem Tor with a backdrop of eerily illuminated dead tree trunks. Groups of young men and women cross the stage, conversing coarsely, the women in mini-dresses, then townsfolk in Renaissance gowns. Boisterous soldiers swarm and ravage the girls, who seem to offer no resistance, then run about whimpering, collecting their shoes and handbags. The audience laughs. Birds sing, yet the scene remains desolate, a twisted tree trunk centre-stage and a man with head in arms crouching at its base. Faust’s famous praise of spring’s awakening (903–48, reduced) stands in stark contrast. Townsfolk approach amid a jarring clatter of pots and pans instead of folk song and dance, trudging forward in dark clothing, led by the Alter Bauer who addresses Faust briefly. Their praise and thanks to him are chanted mechanically – the text is quoted by rote, not delivered by actors. There is no joy in any part of the scene. Wagner enters, a dog is noticed, but there is no attempt to show one on stage. The gloom prevails, some silly woofing is heard, blackout, giggling from the audience. Faust enters his study carrying a ludicrous toy animal and puts it into the black hole. Only the small light on his desk breaks the gloom to illuminate the scene. The ladder disappears above into darkness. He retrieves the testament from the hole and translates. Mephistopheles half emerges as a farcical mechanical monster with flashing eyes like an automated street sign and a clacking metal mouth. The audience laughs. Faust grabs a voodoo staff and rattle, and runs around the hole, chanting as in a primitive ritual, causing the monster to collapse in a heap on the floor to the laughter and applause of the audience. The monster revives, Faust hastily nails together a cross and drives him back into the hole, and a man with beige cap, red t-shirt, black dungarees, a red shoe, and a black boot emerges. He makes an extratextual reference to Goethe and the audience laughs. Faust sleeps. The audience applauds. To begin the second study scene, Mephistopheles enters in the costume of a Renaissance nobleman. Leading into the Pact scene, he pulls up a trapdoor and points to ‘das drüber,’ his world, a second hole which becomes a parallel to the first. There, this time with Mephistopheles halfsubmerged, they discuss the terms of the pact and conclude it. Faust disappears now into the first hole. Each has his own. The baccalaureus enters for the scene with Mephistopheles, whereupon Faust re-emerges in top hat and stylish overcoat with fur lapels. Blackout and enthusiastic applause follow. Jolly folk music rings in Auerbach’s Keller and an eerie, grinning, yellow and green round face with open red mouth hangs in mid-air

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behind the entire scene. Four men sit intoxicated at table and chairs, dilapidated sink and stove in the background. All is dark and grey, only the group lit. Their costumes are a mix of Bavarian, Studentenburschenschaft, and sailor. There is rough talk and action, drunken singing in chorus at the pissoirs, and political jokes, at which the audience comes alive with bursts of laughter, no doubt with contemporary associations in their minds. Faust and Mephistopheles arrive in a roar on what sounds like a motorcycle, and Faust retreats immediately to side-stage. The merrymaking continues with Mephistopheles and the group, ending with a song and the line ‘Es lebe die Freiheit’ (2244), at which the audience is strangely silent and the lights go out. Applause follows. The gloom remains in the Hexenküche where four figures in bland masks and medical garb ascend from trapdoors, exit stage-rear, and after blackout reappear in a row with their backs to the audience, chanting in imitation of a cyclical machine with coordinated hand and arm movements, as if working on a factory belt. They replace the text’s apes as creators of a new world. The audience is quiet, sensing satire on science, medicine, industry, and progress. After a cheery musical interlude Faust enters and sees Helena’s image stage-rear, although the audience has no view of it. The ape-scientists again appear from below via trapdoors, chanting to music. Faust remains upstage as their chant reaches a climax. The chief scientist appears in a white coat, a reincarnation of the Hexe, and the ape-scientists return, this time as a classical string quartet. Art, too, is a ‘product’ of this state. The HexeScientist undergoes a gender and role transformation into a purple robe and blonde wig to deliver her Hexeneinmaleins, as the classical music continues. Is there a connection between the production of art and the abuse of science here? Faust retreats into his hole, then re-emerges, rejuvenated after the Hexe-Scientist speaks the magic words directly over the opening (2567–72). He is bare-chested and wears white trousers. Mephistopheles delivers the final lines ‘Du siehst, mit diesem Trank im Leibe, / Bald Helenen in jedem Weibe’ (2603–4), whereupon the apescientist orchestra explodes into a can-can dance to close the scene, with whoops of delight, cheers of approval, and rhythmic applause from the audience. The Gretchentragödie offers an antidote to the preceding excess. The initial street encounter occurs in a frantic tempo of language and kinetics. The entire performance seems to have changed gears into fast forward as the text is spurted out. Faust wears a Biedermeyer Spitzweg

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jacket from now to the end of the act, Gretchen a simple, almost luminescent white dress. Her frenetic energy, short strong stature, and bob of brown hair are far from the traditional image. Faust is young, energetic, convincing in his eagerness. Mephistopheles appears from and disappears into his hole, now wearing a black bowler and dark red sports coat. Abend in Gretchen’s room is like a visit to a derelict boardinghouse, clapboard walls, dilapidated furnishings, iron double bed with stained sheets askew, a tattered picture of a Christian saint on the wall. There is no sign of the ‘Reinheit’ in the original. Yet the room is strikingly lit and Gretchen animated. Rapid dialogue and scattering movements again give the impession of regurgitating the text, not playing it. Gretchen’s König in Thule, delivered while undressing, is begun at a jolly lilt that turns into whimsy. She springs into bed comically, finds the jewel box under her pillow, and overreacts dramatically while delivering the rest of the monologue as a playful rhyme. Traditions and conventions of performing the scene are broken. On the street, Faust meets Mephistopheles, who enters and exits from his trapdoor. Frau Marthe’s house is as dilapidated as Gretchen’s, and apparently on the same neglected construction site. Yet Gretchen’s white dress is again luminescent, the impression this time enhanced by Marthe’s white sheets on the clothesline. This backdrop remains for the following scenes, in striking contrast to the gloom before the Gretchen sequence. The clutch of scenes is played straight to the text, even if shortened substantially. The motif of whiteness through the sheets and Gretchen’s attire remains throughout the Garden scenes, in contrast to the only props, a dilapidated steel drum and two wooden benches. Almost the full text is played to line 3163, at which point there is a major cut (3164–94). Instead of this dialogue, Gretchen and Faust engage in one frantic embrace – a desperate clutch – held tightly for several seconds, and then separation with a ‘Leb wohl!’ from Faust. The lights suddenly die, the wind rises to a howl, the sheets flap wildly, and there is a blackout. The most tender scene between Faust and Gretchen – ’Du kanntest mich, o kleiner Engel, wieder … Er liebt mich! … kein Ende! Kein Ende!’ – has been reduced to a single welding of their bodies, and then gives way to the storm that follows. The action jumps to Wald und Höhle, which Faust rants, set in a tower of timber and scaffolding. Gretchens Stube interrupts as she delivers with passion ‘Mein Ruh ist hin’ (3374–3413) in shortened form, lying on her dilapidated iron bed before rolling onto the floor. Wald

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und Höhle ends and the silent clutch is repeated like an imprint on our minds. Their dialogue resumes with ‘Glaubst du an Gott?’ (3426), after which Gretchen runs and cowers by her bed while Faust replies in Goethe’s words and both share his desperation, sprawled on the floor. They agree to give her mother the potion and Mephistopheles closes with his cynical: ‘Was geht’s dich an? Hab ich doch meine Freude dran!’ (3542–3). Am Brunnen is played in Gretchen’s bedroom, the two women sitting for the most part on Gretchen’s bed. The gloom returns and the scene merges into Gretchen’s Zwinger plea, still on her bed, intensifying as she clasps her hands and prays into the empty blackness, then goes to the wall and tears down the holy image. Through the darkness, Valentin arrives, drunk and singing in his soldier’s uniform, falls to the ground, and delivers his first speech with Gretchen’s bed in the shadows. Mephistopheles rises from his hole, Faust emerges from the wings, and both sing Mephistopheles’s song. Mephistopheles and Valentin confront each other, and as Valentin tries to attack, Faust moves behind and stabs him in the back, recoiling from the horror of his own act. Bennewitz’s manipulation of this scene has reached a dastardly climax. Valentin’s final speech is delivered in staccato fashion from Gretchen’s bed, like a hurried quotation, as she washes his wound and tends him. There is a long silence, she backs away, he falls to the floor. In the transition to the Dom scene two men in black coats enter and pull Gretchen away. Women in similar garb surround her as the men hold her arms in crucifixion pose, she kneeling. Flickering lights dot the ink-black background, reminiscent of ecclesiastical candles and black magic rituals, the scene’s only apparent illumination. Heavy organ chords suggest the dies irae, women and men chant the text, Gretchen calls for ‘Luft’ and is dragged to a trapdoor and lowered down amid the laughter of her tormenters. With gleaming white dress, arms stretched out and bowed head she is forced down face first into the black hole and the visual parallel to Christ’s crucifixion is unmistakeable. Then the flickering lights become part of the Walpurgishnacht scene. Half-naked figures, a tower of timbers dotted with torches of flame emerge, and several portions of the Walpurgisnacht scenes are played, some on the timbers, others below. Faust and Mephistopheles observe under spotlight. A cacophony of electronic music pulses throughout, punctuated by grating sounds and harsh chords. A figure in an army helmet is shot

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down. A circus of small scenes of licentiousness is played. Faust speaks with passion when the Gretchen figure appears, but we do not see her (4183–98), his words ending the scene. Blackout. The Trüber Tag is played with passion, close to Goethe’s text, including Faust’s. ‘Sie soll frei sein.’ Gretchen emerges from the trapdoor singing the traditional ‘Meine Mutter die Hur’ (4412–20). Faust arrives to free her but she pulls him into the hole. Both re-emerge, Gretchen in brown prison clothes, Faust as before. The text is condensed, delivered frantically with much rapid, aimless movement. At the end, Gretchen stands alone, strong, dignified, like a classical heroine for her final speech (4580–95). Faust’s final words are ‘Du sollst leben,’ Gretchen’s ‘Gericht Gottes! Dir habe ich mich übergeben!’ She then falls to the ground. Faust and Mephistopheles struggle, Faust is led off. Gretchen rises, runs to a wall of bars, and cries ‘Heinrich! Heinrich!’ Absent are her words ‘Dein bin ich, Vater! Rette mich! Ihr Engel! Ihr heiligen Scharen … mir graut’s vor dir,’ and Mephisto’s ‘Sie ist gerichtet,’ as are the Stimme von oben ‘Ist gerettet’ and Mephistopheles’s ‘her zu mir.’ Blackout. Long applause. The actors take many curtain calls to enthusiastic ovations and shouts of ‘Bravo!’ Essential Features The following four aspects of the production stand out as essential features of Bennewitz’s 1981/82 Faust: (1) the sets; (2) the fragmentation of the text; (3) Gretchen illuminated; and (4) irony. The Sets Without doubt, the pervading darkness and gloom in almost every scene, the images of abused and dying nature, industrial decay, and general physical dilapidation in all walks of society dominate Part I. Also striking in Part I is the change of perspective on the entire action caused by Havemann’s layering of it downward, primarily through the ever-present, ominous black holes from which the characters appear and into which they frequently exit, like animals from their lairs. The hole gained connotations well beyond the realm of the devil, for it also produced the Erdgeist and Faust himself. Analogous to this primeval orifice, the various trapdoors, which opened and closed to eject and reclaim numerous other characters, from Gretchen to Faust, the ape-sci-

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entists, and Hexen-Scientist all grew to symbolize the individual hells of those who inhabited them. It was as if all of the characters in Part I had their purgatory, but none a redemption. In his essay in the program, reprinted in the documentation (FiW 1981/82, 4), stage designer Havemann said that he wanted his sets to reflect the realities of history. In the 1965 production, he wrote that the rotating set structure suggested medieval Germany, and that Faust as the creator of his own history was a role model for the early development of the GDR. In 1975 he wanted his set to suggest many historical periods, with Faust as responsible for his development within each context. For this set in 1981, he claimed that he wanted to show the work ‘als optimistische Tragödie! Faust ist Individuum und Gattungswesen, identifizierbar in seiner Haltung zu der permanenten Überwindung der Niederlagen’ (original emphasis and punctuation).This is an interesting statement, indeed. It is impossible to apply it to Part I of this production, and even when applied to Part II, one must ask, how is the Faust figure both ‘Individuum’ and ‘Gattungswesen,’ and why is the work an ‘optimistische Tragödie’? It seems that the figure of Faust in Part II was to surrender his personal identity and become a social concept. But Part II does not deliver that clearly, and the final scenes indicate that neither Havemann nor Bennewitz was prepared to offer one, the way they had in their previous two Fausts. Through their deeply ironic tone, the final scenes will, in fact, demonstrate a backing away from any clear position by resorting to a mindless quotation of the text, such as we have just seen in numerous Gretchen and Faust speeches. This suggested Bennewitz’s growing pessimism about the current state of affairs in his own country and beyond, a pessimism that neither he nor Havemann was willing to voice explicitly. The Fragmentation of the Text The director’s book and the play itself revealed a performance text that was far more fragmented than either of the previous productions. Bennewitz took liberties with Goethe that he had never done before. Omissions, rearrangements, and incongruous jumps associating scenes and images that defied the logic of the viewer were common, creating a feeling of disjuncture throughout. Yet while disturbing to critics and no doubt many audience members, this fragmentation represents a conscious part of Bennewitz’s thematic approach. He wished to show a

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hero and society no longer certain in their identity and direction, no longer the unfailing source of future progress. In the outline of Part I above, many scenes showed either a mindless rapid citing of the text amid a flurry of frantic scattering about the stage or an absence of text in favour of drilling mime, the best example being Faust and Gretchen’s extended clutches to replace some of the most important dialogue in the Gretchen tragedy. The shrinking and slashing of the text also show that it had lost its supremacy. The most profound example of this pattern was in the final scenes of Part II, to which Bennewitz referred in his director’s notes: ‘Nach dem großen Wiener Zauberpossentheater die Bergschluchten nur lesen; Schauspieler auf Szene privat, vielleicht Tücher um, mit würdevoller Bescheidenheit lesen; dann Mozart-Musik, denn weder parodiert möglich noch ernsthaft theatralisch gestaltet möglich’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 15). This is how Christoph Funke, who placed it at the centre of his review with the subtitle ‘Ausstieg aus dem Theater,’ described what the audience saw: ‘Der Schluß bringt dann, als merkwürdigste vieler Merkwürdigkeiten, den Ausstieg aus dem Theater. Nachdem Mephisto das Ringen um Fausts Seele verloren hat, versammelt sich das Spielensemble (18 Schauspieler im zweiten Teil) an der Rampe, trägt die christlich-mythische, märchenhafte Allegorie der Seligsprechung Fausts aus dem Reclam-Textbuch vor. Von oben gleitet eine Leinwand herab mit Goethes Schriftzügen der letzten Faust-Verse – diese Verse erklingen über Tonband’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 22). Bennewitz lifted the comprehensive conclusion out of the dramatic action and in essence decapitated the work. He left only talking heads, Goethe’s text divorced from the dramatic action, ridiculously and grotesquely amputated. This bold aberration certainly did not elude the attention and in some cases astonishment of reviewers and audience members, even if they were not quite sure what to say about it. The amputation was prepared by much of the rhetorical style of Part I, where the main characters often raced through their lines as if simply charged with the task of disgorging them, even if the meaning was lost or so overwhelmed by the tempo that it became incomprehensible. Goethe’s verses were not being delivered, but were being projected into an atmosphere of crisis. The text itself had lost its subtlety and multivalency in the desperation of the situation. Goethe’s text, as he wrote it, was no longer an appropriate vehicle to deal with the failures of the society in which it was being performed.

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Gretchen Illuminated The presentation of Gretchen became the highlight of this final GDR Weimar Faust. In 1975 we saw a Gretchen divorced from the traditional prototype in the 1965/67 production and an increase in her heroic qualities, as Faust’s declined. Now Faust had sunk to the level of a coward who stabs his victim in the back and is horrified by his own action. By contrast, Gretchen not only stood out metaphorically, she was literally illuminated. The constant gloom throughout was repeatedly, strikingly, punctured by the brilliant whiteness of her scenes, her dress, and the sheets that formed the backdrop to most of them. That motif even gained metaphysical dimensions, as in the Easter scene when the children, particularly the girl in striking white, delivered the message of redemption while her partner was marked with black, as well as in the Dom and Street scenes when the gleaming white Gretchen is seized by the townsfolk, held with arms stretched in the shape of a cross, and lowered like a Christ figure into the black hole as her head falls forward on her chest. The image is reminiscent of Rolf Kuhrt’s ‘crucifixion’ drawing in the 1975 program to Part II. The Gretchen of Part I becomes the dominant symbol of GDR society, replacing Faust. She is at the same time a tragic symbol that evokes pessimism in that society, for it had no place for metaphysical redemption. Bennewitz, for the first time, also deleted the line ‘ist gerettet’ from the end of Part I. At that point already he left no doubt that her fate, at least, would remain tragic. That excision also points to her changed role in Part II. As we saw in Bennewitz’s rehearsal notes, Gretchen replaced the archangel Ariel in the first scene, and the director’s book shows that while the final scene, ‘Bergschluchten,’ is cut drastically, she and her key speeches (12068–75 ‘Neige ... Er kommt zurück,’ and 12092–93 ‘Vergönne mir ... der neueTag’) remain central while Faust is relegated to little more than a stage prop. Gretchen had become the parenthetical framework of the tragedy, while Faust is absorbed by the hugely ironic ‘große Wiener Zauberposse,’ as Bennewitz called it, at the end. The last in the volume of pictures connected to the 1981/82 production contains a highly unusual drawing, a passionate representation of Gretchen kneeling before a statue of a female saint whose hands are clasped in prayer and her breast pierced by a sword (FiW 81/82, 6).The saint’s face, seen from the side, seems calm, impassive, while Gretchen’s is fraught with pain. Drawn from a perspective above and beside, the holy image is seen to look down on the pleading penitent, so

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that the saint’s place suggests eminence and power, Gretchen’s lowliness and vulnerability. This and Bruegel’s picture stand out in the program materials as depictions of human agony and despair. It is as if the Gretchen image has crystallized the chaos of suffering bodies in Bruegel’s work into the despair of one. Now the primary theme is the suffering of women, as it had been in the New York Faust three years earlier, which contains a remarkably parallel treatment of this scene. Irony In her interview, some twenty years after she had seen the production, Erika Stephan vividly recalled examples of double meaning apparent to many audience members at the time: ‘Diesbezüglich beschreibe ich das Bild, das ich am lebhaftesten in Erinnerung habe: Studierstube, Wagner, ganz deutlich eine Spitzelfigur, einer der schnüffelt, der so mal hinter dem Rücken von Faust überall nachguckt, ob da nicht irgend etwas ist, was man melden kann. So war’s von Fritz später auch bezeichnet. Man wusste über die staatlichen Geschichten Bescheid und sie waren bei dieser Figur ganz eindeutig. Die Leute haben es verstanden und fanden es sehr lustig. Man hatte keine Angst davor und hat sich verständigt’ (chapter 2, p. 51). That the audience could now find this amusing, according to Stephan, perhaps can be seen as a positive sign that by arousing mirth instead of invoking fear, it pointed to a state security system that most of them had long learned to manage, either by conforming unerringly to party policy and the commands of authority, or by knowing the sysem so well that they could circumvent it. Many of these audience members, if not most, it should be said, were still loyal citizens, convinced of the principles of their new socialism, even if they had grave doubts about their implementation. Yet they were at the same time aware of the ludicrous disjuncture between what the state officially claimed to have achieved and to represent, and what was in truth the case. Such disjunctures are the stuff of irony. The two gigantic observing heads in the background of the Vorspiel and Auerbach’s Keller could be seen as a parody of the relentless state observation of which they were all aware. Irony is the middle ground between parody and realism. Stephan continued: ‘Dann in dem Osterspaziergang eine sehr grobe Szene, ein sehr primitives zynisches Volk, Soldaten, die die Mädchen vergewaltigen, ein Müllhaufen und dann der große Monolog: “Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich’s sein,” aber mit drei Fragezeichen gesprochen

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und nicht mehr als eine Aussage von Faust. Wir hatten auch in den Farben der geputzten Kleider einen direkten Verweis auf die Natur und was jetzt drin stattfindet: Er hebt weggeworfene Blechbüchsen auf und hat sie in der Hand, als er den Monolog zu Ende spricht’ (ibid.). In this instance, it is not the text that is changed or ironized, but rather the physical circumstances and rhetorical style in which it is delivered. Such contradictions between the content of well-known and traditionally noble, edifying speeches and the physical, gestural, and rhetorical way they were delivered gave the production a constant edge of irony throughout. Outstanding in this regard was the Hexenküche scene in which the apes and witch had become parodies of the scientists and party-line artists of the state, busily and unthinkingly continuing the deconstruction of what was such an obvious disaster. If we ask ourselves whether or not the audience understood the meaning of such satires, we need only listen to their reactions on the videotape of Part I, their pregnant silences at some critical times, their murmurs of approval at others, their frequent outbursts of laughter and applause, as noted in the performance summary above. It was a subtle collaboration among actors, director, stage and costume designers, and audience to share an extratextual line of commentary on contemporary GDR society. We saw in the director’s rehearsal notes to Part II that a dark irony characterized Bennewitz and his artistic team’s approach to the production then as well, from the initial references to Richard III and Adolf Eichmann to the characterization of the final scene as a ‘große Wiener Zauberposse’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 15). The climax of this ironic stance must be seen as this conclusion to Act 5. As we saw, Bennewitz wrote in his notes, ‘Schauspieler auf Szene privat, vielleicht Tücher um, mit würdevoller Bescheidenheit lesen; dann Mozart-Musik, denn weder parodiert möglich noch ernsthaft theatralisch gestaltet’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 15). So he resorted, in effect, to removing the final action from the rest of the play and having it literally read prosaically by the chorus. Faust’s final scene was the grand opportunity to show a GDR hero marching past death to represent a new and glorious socialist future, but that does not occur. The director’s notes show that in Mitternacht Faust does indeed deliver his final grand monologue in full, ‘Ein Sumpf ... Augenblick’ (11559–86), but thereafter, the stage direction, ‘Faust sinkt zurück, die Lemuren fassen ihn auf und legen ihn auf den Boden,’ is deleted. Faust remains standing, frozen in time, as if he had become part of the set (FiW 81/82, 4: 165), the lemurs never appear, and Mephistopheles and the chorus take over – the ‘große Wiener

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Posse’ begins. An eyewitness, the well-known theatre critic Christoph Funke, described to the author how at the end of this speech Faust moved back to become a member of the chorus that as a unit moved to the front of the stage and actually read the final scenes from ReclamHefte in their hands (interview, 2009). In effect, they were saying ‘the play has expired; it has met a dead end.’ The idea of a new era in their country was an illusion. Their faith in the optimistic message of Faust for the GDR had evaporated. This was a remarkable moment in the history of the Weimar Nationaltheater and an enormously courageous artistic statement by its director in chief. There was a postscript. After the final lines of the tragedy, ‘Das ewig Weibliche / Zieht uns hinan,’ the director of the Vorspiel reappears and speaks the lines: Den besten Köpfen sei das Stück empfohlen! Der Deutsche sitzt verständig zu Gericht. Wir möchten’s gerne wiederholen. Allein der Beifall gibt allein Gewicht. Vielleicht, daß sich was Beßres freilich fände. – Des Menschen Leben ist ein ähnliches Gedicht: Es hat wohl Anfang, hat ein Ende, Allein ein Ganzes ist es nicht.

(FiW 81/82, 4: 171)

The source of the speech is added in a parenthetical note, ‘Paralipomena; Schlußgedichte Abkündigung’ (see Goethes Werke, WA I, 15: 1, 344, 1–9). These lines from Goethe’s posthumous papers were the author’s final word on his Faust tragedy, and this director’s on his Faust trilogy in Weimar. The unusual touch by Bennewitz distances the audience from the concluding action and creates a space for thought. While Bennewitz in his 1975 Faust had already moved away noticeably from the largely unreflecting Faust of 1965/67, now he separates his viewers from the play with literary surgery, distances them from the theatrical experience, and signals to them a new era of social discord. Critical Reception The Audience In 1994, in a long article reflecting on Bennewitz’s career at the Deutsches Nationaltheater, Frank Quilitzsch (1994b) reported that the

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première of the 1981 production of Faust was met with a mixture of applause and derision. The audience applauded the actors but booed the director and his concept – Bennewitz claimed it was the only time in his career. His actors, however, supported him. In the days that followed, some representatives of the Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten (NFG), powerful controller of Weimar’s classical legacy, proudly joined the detractors. They and others who disliked the production saw it as an attack on Goethe and his work, or at least the conventional notion of him as an incontestable symbol of their classical heritage. It was to Bennewitz’s credit that he received with grace such reviews alongside those that were favourable. At least the production had been stimulating, his and almost every director’s principal objective. Bennewitz had matured considerably as an artist since his first major atempt at Faust in 1965/67, now fundamentally questioning the central figure and the message of the work itself in the context of a new age. It is reasonable to assume that the chorus of detractors at the 1981 première was well stocked by party functionaries, the elite of the Ministry of Culture, and the NFG in Weimar, not to mention well-connected, mostly older Goethe fans and worshippers. It is doubtful that the uninfluential of society were represented at all on that first night, and if so, then not in significant numbers. The videotape of the production’s first part was taken at a later time, so the audience’s repeated positive reactions recorded on it represented a view much different from that of the politically stacked audience at the première. The documentation contains reactions of a wide variety of less influential and less biased audience members as well (FiW 81/82, 2: 19–22; 4: 36–66), and even though all contributions published had been screened, they nevertheless add a fresh, more candid voice for an overall assessment of the staging. Here is a digest of the range of their reactions after seeing Part I. Helga Pätzold, who attended during the Theatertage der Pädagogen, found the performance positive and stimulating for critical reflection (FiW 81/82, 4: 36). An older person said that he had seen a Faust in Nazi times as well as several productions that typecast Gretchen with blonde pigtails, so he welcomed in this production the breaking of stereotypes (37). Ellen Zschiesche and Wolfgang Schubert remembered Faust from schooldays, and they found this version a ‘Konfrontation mit etwas Unerwartetem, zum Teil Befremdlichem und Fraglichem’ (37). This was the first live theatre performance that schoolteacher Dagmar Seidel had seen; she found it a positive experience which brought the text she had read in school to life (38ff.). Another older audience

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member, Gertrud Reinert, found it more impressive and interesting than the versions of 1965 and 1975, both of which she had seen (39ff.). Horst Schmidt, also a teacher, who attended Part I during the Theatertage der Pädagogen found it a worthwhile ‘Diskussionsangebot zur Erbe-Rezeption’ (42). Christina Beck found that she could identify with the problems posed in the play and added details in descriptions of numerous scenes (42). Post-performance discussions were also held by Bennewitz after Parts I and II with groups of workers. Their sophistication gives the impression that the workers’ comments were substantially edited, which reduces their credibility, but they nevertheless add something to the picture. The workers of Volkseigenerbetrieb (VEB) Kali Kombinat Sondershausen had a long list of questions and observations for the director after seeing Part I, and Bennewitz’s main response was: ‘Der 65er Faust war bewußt als Identifikationsfigur angelegt – ein Tatmensch, dem man schon im ersten Akt ohne Zweifel zugesteht, daß er seinen Weg siegreich bewältigen wird. Diese Interpretation war zu dem damaligen historischen Zeitpunkt notwendig und deshalb richtig. In dieser Zeit bedurften wir vor allem der Selbstbestätigung der eigenen Kraft. Unsere Welt ist seitdem wesentlich komplizierter geworden, die Gefährdung des Einzelnen und der gesamten Menschheit hat beängstigende Dimensionen angenommen – damit hat sich zugleich die Verantwortung des Individuums vor der Geschichte potenziert’ (44). Further discussions were held with schoolchildren, students, and staff in the Institute for Microbiology, University of Jena (47–9), the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena (4/49–51), with schoolteachers on their professional development days (53ff.), students and staff of the Fachschule für Staatswissenschaft Weimar (54ff.), a group of apprentices and workers of the Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft (LPG) Vorwärts in Berlstedt (55ff.), the tenth grade of the Clara Zetkin School in Arnstadt (56ff.), the Kulturbund Saalfeld (62), worker representatives of the Hochschule für Architektur und Bauwesen Weimar (64–5), and the social outreach team of the Deutsches Nationaltheater itself (65–6). The variety of groups and people indicated that the DNT, publishers of this documentation, wanted to send a signal that they wished to be relevant to a broad spectrum of the population with this production and valued their views. These were, in sum, that the play brought their school knowledge of Faust alive and made it relevant, that they were pleased to see a modern Faust with a young acting ensemble, and that in 1982 it was important and necessary in the GDR to stage and un-

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derstand Faust differently than before. Of course, one could comment cynically that this was simply the official voice of the DNT, the state, and the director, cloaked in the words of others who were more or less guided in that direction, but even then, the recognition of the need for change, and thus indirectly change in the GDR, remains important for our understanding of the genesis of Bennewitz’s stagings of Faust. It should also be kept in mind that the audience reactions surveyed above were from 1981/82, and that they surely changed in the following thirteen years of the production’s run through the reunification and East Germany’s sociopolitical merging with West Germany. The Press The reception in the press was generally sceptical.1 Georg Menchén began his review ‘Faust in der Diskussion’ with the words of the director in the Vorspiel: ‘Wie machen wir’s, daß alles frisch und neu / Und mit Bedeutung auch gefällig sei?’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 67) and provided a generally positive but very imprecise answer. Peter-Jürgen Fischer was also positive, but without convincing enthusiasm (30–1). Herbert Weißhuhn complimented Bennewitz on his ‘viele gute Einfälle,’ but had serious reservations. He complained that these often went too far and had nothing to do with the original. He complained also about the deletions from the text, particularly the striking of the key words ‘ist gerettet’ at the end of Part I, thus, in his view, breaking the connection with Part II (FiW 81/82, 3: 21–2). Erika Stephan was positive about the many innovations and fresh ideas, but also doubted the wisdom of many small excisions which led to unusual associations. ‘Ist es eine Folge unserer wortreichen Zeit,’ she asks, ‘daß Verbalisierung eher die Wahrnehmung hemmt – oder verbirgt sich hier ein Problem schauspielerischer Rezeption des Erbes überhaupt: die Schwierigkeit der Kongruenz von überkommener Sprache und gegenwärtigem Spiel?’ (24). The point she makes is consistent with what we have seen generally in the genesis of Bennewitz’s Faust productions as a group, a tendency to release

1 Some page references in this section are to the volume Faust in Weimar 81/82 if the review was reprinted there (though without acknowledgment of the source, and sometimes modified) and are hence easily accessible. All original reviews of the production are listed in the bibliography under ‘Weimar 81/82 Reviews’ and are taken into account in my discussion.

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the play from the confines of Goethe’s text and emphasize congruence through associations and images. Horst Heitzenröther’s review is a good representative of the blend of positive and negative comments and the range of aspects they address. ‘Wiederum, wie schon im 1. Teil,’ he began, ‘bringt uns die Regie von Fritz Bennewitz in den Zwiespalt zwischen Neigung und Abwehr … Die Aufführung insgesamt hat das beim gewaltigen Umfang wünschenswerte rasche Ineinanderfasssen, hat Rhythmus.’ That said, he criticized the diction of the actors and the difficulty of hearing them because of the sound effects, and reminded Bennewitz that one of Goethe’s first admonitions was to make every word understood. Still, he wrote that ‘die Musik ist groß gelungen. Konrad Aust hat sie ausgewählt, wechselreich arrangiert, immer situationserhellend, dramatisches Wesen fördernd.’ Havemannn and Rahaus also earned praise: Auch einige der Szenenbilder Havemanns nenne ich nachhaltig: die riesige Wintergartenhalle des reichen Faust, die blutverschmierte Mauer des ödgrauen Sparta, vor allem die – auch in den Kostümen von Ingrid Rahaus beeindruckende – klassische Walpurgisnacht. Darin freilich herrscht Wirkung an sich – optischer und spielerischer Effekt. Appetitlich in bunten Ballettröckchen vogelzwitschernd die Sirenen auf einem Dreifachtrapez; kabarettistisch ulkig die Greifengreise, schwarz in Cut und Zylinder; Schaubudenfiguren die dickbusigen Sphinxe. Zerbrochene Kriegsmaterialien im Vordergrund weisen ebenfalls bis in unsere Gegenwart, aufs Altertum weist nur ein breites, wuchtiges Relief mit antiken Motiven, an dessen Zerstörung einer mit Preßluftbohrer arbeitet. (FiW 81/82, 4: 20)

But such visual experimentation in his mind sometimes went too far: ‘Der Inszenator mag so gedacht haben, hat sich aber verloren in der oberflächlich lustigen Wirkung von Anachronismus. Chiron, der Kentaur, kommt auf einem Tandem, strampelt sich dann gemeinsam mit Faust ab; Helena erscheint in Aufmachung einer reisenden Diva; Peneios rudert auf einem Heimtrainer’ (ibid.). He concludes with a mixed verdict: ‘So ist dieses kosmische Werk, dessen Volkommenheit auf der Bühne ohnehin nicht vorstellbar ist, auch in Weimars neuem Angebot mit Bedenken und mit Hochachtung aufnehmbar’ (19–20). Similarly Rainer Kerndl had mixed emotions, asking ‘Ob das Spielerische zu viel in den Vordergrund gerückt ist, ohne Bedeutung zu haben? Unterhaltsamkeit drängt mir die Weimarer Aufführung freilich die Frage auf, ob da nicht – aus lauter Abneigung gegen abgestandenes

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Wasser – das Kind mit dem Bade ausgeschüttet zu werden droht’ (FiW 81/82, 3: 12).’ Klaus Hammer voiced admiration for Bennewitz and the production in general in his review in Das Volk, but added that ‘Die Menschheitstragödie “Faust” wird nur als gebrochenes Zitat gespielt. Auf der Suche nach zeitgenössischen Aussagemöglichkeiten wird Geschichte zu sehr reduziert und an die Gegenwart herangeführt, so daß die weltanschauliche Bereicherung im Sinne historischen Bewußtseins zu kurz greift’ (Weimar 81 Reviews). In his review of Part II, he became even more insistent that the work be associated directly with the history and future of the GDR: ‘Die Wahrheiten der Faust-Dichtung sind auch unsere Wahrheiten. So geht es in der Weimarer-Inszenierung um Weltaneignung und Menschheitsfortschritt schlechthin, um die Verantwortung des Menschen heute, die Gesetze der Natur zum Leben der Menschheit dienstbar zu machen oder zu ihrer Vernichtung zu mißbrauchen; es geht um Krieg und Frieden, um die Entwicklungsgesetze in Natur und Gesellschaft, Mensch und Umwelt, Wissenschaft und Genetik, Ökonomie, Produktivkräfte und Ressourcen, aber auch um Emanzipation, um Ethik, Moral und Lebensweise.’ For Hammer, this central mandate had not been carried out. He also criticized the many disconnected visual effects: ‘“[Es] trachtet die Szene nach bildhaften Zeichen und Metaphern, die mitteilungsträchtig sein sollen, sich aber auch dekorativ verselbständigen, sich illustrativ-bedeutungsträchtig über den Vorgang stellen.” Diese Bemerkung aus meinem Bericht über die dritte “Faust” I-Inszenierung von Fritz Bennewitz am Deutschen Nationaltheater Weimar, Franz Havemanns Ausstattung betreffend, könnte leicht auch untergebracht werden in meinen Notizen zur Weimarer Aufführung des Teils II der Tragödie.’ From this overall fragmentation in the text and visual associations of the production, Christoph Funke, writing in Berlin’s Der Morgen, draws precisely the same conclusion as did Dieter Görne, Bennewitz’s dramaturge for his first two Weimar Fausts: ‘Zwischen 1966 und 1982 hat Fritz Bennewitz beide Teile der Faust-Dichtung dreimal in Weimar inszeniert. Das ist eine einmalige theatergeschichtliche Leistung, der unsere Achtung gebührt – mit ihr stellte sich der Regisseur einer Forderung, die bis an die Grenzen menschlicher Gestaltungskraft vorstößt, ja sie überschreitet. Fritz Bennewitz hat von sich verlangt, was in so kurzer Zeit nicht zu leisten war – die Bewunderung gegenüber einer einzigartigen Arbeitsleistung mischt sich mit Trauer über das nicht Gelungene.’ In his interview some twenty years later (see chapter 2), Görne re-

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marked that this third Bennewitz Faust in Weimar was ‘ein Fehlschlag’ and voiced doubts about any director’s capability to deliver a full Faust with a fresh and meaningful interpretation more than twice. Görne felt that Bennewitz had fallen into the trap of seeking originality in ‘Äußerlichkeiten und Spielereien … Natürlich war auch diese Aufführung professionell, aber sie blieb bunt, sie war nicht farbig, sondern bunt’ (chapter 2, p. 55–6). But that view, shared by Funke above, is suspect in Bennewitz’s case, not only with regard to his third Faust in Weimar, for it remained until 1994 his most popular among theatregoers, but even more in light of the intercultural Faust he had delivered in New York three years earlier, between this and the 1975 Weimar Faust. It is worth asking whether the problem here was really the critics’ capacity to appreciate meaningful modern, innovative interpretations of a classic. While Bennewitz elicited doubt in the eyes of some, the same was not generally the case for his audiences, if we are to judge by the fact that it was his longest-running production of Faust – or for that matter any of his plays – and by that measure his most successful rendition. Perhaps he was more in tune with his audiences than were the professionals who doubted him. Bennewitz had certainly gone far beyond most of them in his notion of what Faust had to say. Unlike Görne, Hammer, and Funke, a small number of critics argued that Bennewitz had broken new ground in 1981, in the spirit of his 1975 Faust, and perhaps even of Schroth’s Schwerin Faust of 1979. Erika Stephan showed an understandable distance from the overall assessment when she noted that ‘Bennewitz’ Verhältnis zur Geschichte auch immer die Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte von Architektur und Bildender Kunst mit einschließt. Theater als synthetische Kunstgattung strebt hier immer eine – durchaus nicht landläufige – Totalität an und baut sich gerade dadurch Widerstände auf, die für Schauspieler bedrohlich werden können’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 35). Herbert Weißhuhn called the 1981 Faust ‘Ein effektvolles Schauspiel … für Experimentieren, herausforderndes Theater,’ adding that ‘Weimar soll kein Theatermuseum werden’ (32). In a review that appeared in the Thüringer Landeszeitung, Georg Menchén added, more positively this time, ‘Mehr Fragen als Antworten, mehr Suchen nach neuen theatralischen Lösungen als bereits gesicherter geistiger Positionsbezug. Der große Schock der Schweriner “Faust”-Inszenierung hat auch in Weimar im Umgang mit klassischem Ideengut tektonische Erschütterungen am Denkmalssockel des Althergebrachten ausgelöst, ohne doch schon ein neues Bild zu schaffen. Worauf es möglicherweise in dieser Umdenkphase unseres Theaters auch noch nicht ankommt’

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(Weimar 81 Reviews). Exactly the same image is employed by PeterJürgen Fischer: ‘Fritz Bennewitz hat den Faust vom Sockel gehoben. Er hat ihn uns näher gebracht, ohne ihn oberflächlich plump zu “aktualisieren”’ (FiW 81/82, 4: 31). Bennewitz’s last Weimar Faust was an indication of his creativity and daring as a director and exemplified a new approach to presenting and evaluating the classical legacy. One might suggest that the negative reviewers remained locked in the tradition of the 1970s and before, while those who saw the production positively were already projecting its value through the last decade of the GDR and beyond. The Intellectuals In March 1982 a public discussion on Faust and the production was held in the hallowed surroundings of the Kunstsammlungssaal of the Goethe Museum in Weimar. Led by Rolf Rohmer, at the time Rector of the Theaterhochschule in Leipzig, it included Bennewitz, professors, and researchers of literature, dramaturges, and professional theatre critics. Its results are also part of the documention (FiW 81/82, 4: 67–75). Among those involved were theatre critic Georg Menchén, scholar Lothar Ehrlich, dramaturge Sigrid Busch, and Bennewitz himself. The event was repeated the following month at the Deutsches Nationaltheater upon the invitation of the GDR Verband der Theaterschaffenden. Discussion was carried out at an informed intellectual level and those assembled asserted their wish for an open interpretation of Faust, agreeing that a single, programmatic reading was unrealistic for their contemporary society. This in itself shows enormous progress in their thinking – and their feeling of freedom to express it – since 1965. Menchén stressed, in conclusion, the concept of ‘Theater als Laboratorium der sozialen Phantasie (69),’ and with reference to Bennewitz’s recent Faust, concluded, ‘Aus der Verlegenheit vor der Übergröße Goethe[s] (in traditionellem wie tradierten Erbe-Verständnis) suchten und fanden die Weimarer einen neuen, mehr spielerischen als konzeptionellen Ansatz, das Mammutwerk für heutiges Weltbewußtsein produktiv zu machen’ (69). Ehrlich surveyed Faust productions of past decades, distinguishing Schroth’s in Schwerin and Bennewitz’s of 1981. He stressed their open questioning, beyond the play itself, the place of the Faust saga and principal figure, and the ‘klassisches Erbe’ in the GDR. He saw the socialist position as no longer so clearly delineated in contrast to

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the capitalist approach and argued that attacking the latter while uncritically praising the former was unproductive for both the drama and the development of their society. Although he formulated his position carefully, Ehrlich was clearly questioning the traditional, hallowed Marxist dialectical approach to interpreting Faust (71). Dramaturge Sigrid Busch also focused on the ‘Erbe’ problem, stressing the necessity for theatre practitioners to formulate and communicate their message clearly through the medium of the stage (73ff.). Bennewitz expanded on this in his conclusion: ‘Das Aktuelle öffnet das Historische, das Nahe bewegt das Entfernte, Geschichtsinnenräume werden aufgebrochen – nicht “kalt staunender Besuch” in Vergangenheit findet statt, sondern Haut brennt an Haut, Persönliches wird historisch’ (74). He continued, ‘Es dreht sich immer um den einen Punkt: Klassenbewußtsein in unserem Sinne tiefdringen lassen, der Identität von Menschlichkeit und Parteilichkeit entgegenwachsen. Methodisch muß das nicht neu formuliert werden. Der Dreischritt bleibt: Wissen/Kennen – Erkennen – Bekennen. Im Grunde werden die komplizierten Prozesse einfacher – also schwieriger’ (75). With this, Bennewitz changed the direction of the liberal remarks that preceded and reverted to his tendency to speak in riddles, with the starch of Marxist dogma, in which he certainly continued to believe. He was insisting on the actualization and relevance of history on the stage for modern audiences, but the dialectical structure of the process, ‘einfacher – also schwieriger’ and ‘Wissen/Kennen – Erkennen – Bekennen’ remained statements of his loyalty to the socialist cause. The Party Line The third volume of the DNT published documentation of Bennewitz’s Faust 1981/82 contained the unofficial party interpretation of the production (FiW 81/82, 3), but in much reduced form from the way in which Dieter Görne had formulated his official interpretive statements as dramaturge in the ‘Thesen’ of 1965/67 and 1975. This function was carried out in 1982 by his replacement Sigrid Busch in her ‘Notate zur Konzeption, Gespräch am 28.4.80 (3: 3–4).’ She marked the production as another milestone in the growth of the GDR, then tacked on a diatribe against the United States: Was müssen wir deutlich machen? Die Menschheit braucht den Teufel nicht. Sie hat ihn überteufelt. Amerika heute, das ist das Erlebnis der per-

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fekten Manipulation des Menschen. Die Aggressivität des Imperialismus heute, der Widerspruch zwischen Schein und Sein, ist die Versuchung des Menschen in Permanenz. So lange es einen imperialistischen Staat gibt, der Bomben entzündet, ist die Walpurgisnacht nicht beseitigt. Der Teufel ist in der vielfältigstgen Gestalt verborgen, aber er ist auch erkennbar. Die permanente Gefährdung ist die der Unwissenheit, der ideologischen und ökonomischen Manipulation, der Bequemlichkeit, der Erschlaffung. Geld zu besitzen, als Basis der Machtausübung zu benutzen, ist wichtiger geworden als die Erkenntnis dessen, was in der Welt geschieht. Der Wagemut Fausts ist höher anzusetzen. (4)

An article by Volker Müller summarizing Bennewitz’s own pre-performance comments on the historical significance and political intent of the production suggests that the director’s public statements ran along similar lines (FiW 81/82, 4: 1–3). Yet Busch’s grandiose palaver is no more than rhetorical posturing. The disjuncture between what she says and what the production presented is glaring, for it offered no consistent or meaningful discourse with either America or the international community. Conclusion The entire conception of Bennewitz’s third Faust was new. Its primary accomplishments were to use the most glorified artistic representative of the ‘klassisches Erbe’ almost disrespectfully, as a means to provide lively entertainment for his audience, to strip Goethe’s text of its hallowed shroud, and to cast doubt thematically on the nature and future of the German Democratic Republic. The many disjunctive pop elements, Western music, wild costumes, and farcical actions such as the scientists’ can-can in the Hexenküche testify to the director’s emphasis on pure performance pleasure for the audience – the ‘Vergnügen’ to which he had been committed since his early career. The length of the run itself and the audience’s frequent delighted reactions to so many scenes and incidents, as can still be heard on the videotape of Part I, are evidence that Bennewitz succeeded in this respect. The many examples of his reduction of Goethe’s text to rapidly blurted citations and rhetorical chants, as in the angels’ opening to the Prologue, several key Gretchen-Faust scenes, and the mechanical chorus’s chanting of the finale, remain a satire on the slavish mouthing of Goethe’s text as a mindless catechism rather than poetry with contemporary relevance.

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With regard to Bennewitz’s serious thematic intentions, gone was the unquestioning conviction that the protagonist was the herald of the new GDR citizen and his compatriots’ bright future together. Gone was the subtle ambivalence of the 1975 Faust who was still able to assert that message. Now the protagonist conceded his primacy to Gretchen and instead of asserting his vision for the future disappeared behind a chorus of talking heads to replace the tragedy’s conclusion. The director and Goethe’s work were no longer able to provide answers to the social and political problems facing its audience. They could only give them some entertainment and release. The far-ranging and intellectually stimulating essay excerpts in the programs to both parts aroused expectations that the production would have an expanse much greater than the current state of the GDR, but it failed to meet them. Those writings by Goethe, Heine, Brecht, Homer, More, Engels, and Marx offered insight not primarily into the state of contemporary society, but into the concept of society in general, its past, and its potential future. They are intellectual and visionary pieces, but the production which followed offered only flashes of fun and excitement, no lofty flights of human inspiration or positive vision for the future. The perspective from the omnipresent black hole that began in the Prologue and dominated Part I signalled an underlying pessimism that was to last. Bennewitz’s third Weimar Faust could be called prophetic in a doomsday sense, already in 1981 pointing to the collapse of the GDR. That it remained on that stage through the reunification of Germany and, indeed, until 1994 is evidence of its continuing relevance and far-sightedness in that respect, for in effect, it predicted an end that would still not be fully enacted eighteen years after it premièred. The final wave of optimism that swept the GDR populace in the late 1980s was for Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, which began in 1985, but to which Erich Honecker and his government, even at that desperate point, did not subscribe. By 1981, Bennewitz’s own life had changed. He was intensifying his activities abroad and had found there his own outlet to escape the depressing confines of his homeland. That was where his hopes had a chance to survive.

6 ‘Alles für die Katz’: Meiningen 1995

Background In the years during and immediately following the reunification of Germany, Bennewitz wrote passionately about the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, as is evident in his correspondence, and he became increasingly estranged from his homeland. During the years 1989–94 he directed in India (all in the local language) Die Dreigroschenoper in Bhopal, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Heggodu, Twelfth Night and Der große Frieden in New Delhi, Faust I in Bombay, Faust I and II in Manila, and Mann ist Mann in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the same period he directed the opera Don Carlo in Weimar, the plays Der Richter von Zalamea and Shakespeare’s Sommernachtstraum in Thale, and Wallenstein in two parts in Meiningen. The imbalance in favour of activity abroad is striking. For new productions of Faust and other works he looked primarily to lands afar and was absent for long periods preparing and rehearsing. His hands were, in fact, overfilled, he had too many productions to manage in close proximity to one another. By 1994, he also knew that he was suffering from inoperable prostate cancer. An invitation from Meiningen intendant Ulrich Burkhardt to direct a new Faust in the theatre there, where he

This production was captured on videotape with a copy now in the FBA (Meiningen Faust). There is also extensive documentation surrounding it, including published reviews and programs, as well as unpublished papers in the FBA and a recorded interview with Bennewitz’s co-director Albert R. Pasch (in the author’s possession). These are the major sources for this chapter. Translation of title: ‘All for Naught.’

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had begun his career, was thus, on the one hand, a welcome call that fired up his desire to return to a place that held fond memories, on the other, a further strain on his overfilled calendar and waning energy. Yet with typical optimism and vigour he wrote to his theatre friend and directing assistant Elke Fiedler on 5 April 1995, ‘die Strahlentherapie hat die Schmerzen weggenommen; ... Wichtigstes Erlebnis: die angedeutete Faust-Zündung hat enorme Widerstandsenergien gegen das Biest mobilisiert’ (Letters, Fiedler, 2).’ Nevertheless, during the conceptualization and early rehearsals it became obvious that Bennewitz could not perform with the energy and drive that were his trademarks. He was able to rehearse with the cast for fewer than three weeks and completely prepare only some of Part I, the study scenes, Vor dem Tor, and the Gretchen scenes up to the Kerker. Aware that his days were numbered, he worked hard to develop and document his concept for the entire production and impart it to the company. To save time and energy, and in typical modesty, he lived in a small room in the theatre and was attended to by theatre staff and friends. When forced to move to a hospital bed, he asked his trusted colleague, the experienced director Albert R. Pasch, to carry his concept through in his absence. The two had known each other since the mid-1950s, when they both came to Meiningen, and Pasch had stayed. Originally from Frankfurt am Main, Pasch was one of the numerous West German intellectuals who had emigrated to the GDR, eager to contribute to building it, in the hope that the new socialist state would be a success. Although a highly experienced director with scores of plays behind him over the previous four decades, Pasch was unprepared for the task, for he had never before directed Faust. Still, Bennewitz insisted that he was the right person, and soon both the magnanimous Pasch and the entire ensemble were committed to that end. Bennewitz began to explain to Pasch his concept and to discuss details, but three days later he died. A day before his death, he gave Pasch a typed page of notes with which to work, and also placed his own written concept at Pasch’s disposal. With characteristic black humour and reference to his injury from the car accident of 1976, he called Fiedler, his assistant director and right-hand person, ‘mein zweites Auge.’ When he could no longer conduct rehearsals, he sat with her for hours, dictating his concept, which she communicated to Pasch and the cast. Both Fiedler and Pasch, as well as Meiningen theatre archivist Christa Zagermann, provided the author with a wealth of commentary and access to personal materials on the production, many of which underpin the following commen-

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tary. This is restricted to the overall concept and details of Part I, for Pasch made it clear that he exclusively was primarily responsible for the second part of the production. Thirty-nine of the forty-seven pages of Fiedler’s 1995 notes capturing Bennewitz’s concept pertain to Part I, sixteen are scene-by-scene notes to the Probenprozeß from the Vorspiel auf dem Theater to Gretchens Stube. Bennewitz chose the actors himself and gave Pasch a complete casting list, which the latter accepted with only one adjustment. For the role of Margarete Pasch chose Christiane Zart, a quite large, strong woman, relatively inexperienced as an actress, and with an excellent sense for comedy – the fact that this was one of the characteristics Pasch sought tells us something about the tone of the production as it shifted under his direction. He recalled with amusement Bennewitz’s initial rejection of this choice, feeling that, given his illness, he had neither the time nor the energy to give her sufficient guidance. His commitment to his actors was always paramount in his mind. Yet within a week he accepted Pasch’s decision and was, indeed, delighted with the result, a pleasure the critics later shared. Bennewitz’s last notes to Pasch made it obvious that he was anxious to link the production visually and thematically to the superficiality, discord, ugliness, and violence of modern society. Here are some sample epithets that Bennewitz used in his notes: ‘Dürer-stiche – Apokalypse, Ritter / Tod /Teufel, Melancholie, Stacheldraht, Dom, Rosenkranz, Strangulierung (Luft), Auftritt Satan mit ParsifalGlocken, Molotow-Cocktail. Während die Burschen Gretchens Bett zerschlagen und das Zimmer demolieren, kommen die bigotten Weiber zum Rosenkranzbeten, Atompilz Hiroshima, Minitechnotranzkunststoffrock … zerrissene Jeans, Gruftis mit Handies, klicken auf Fernbedienung, Müll, der für G’tragödie liegen bleibt.’ There are no tranquil or beautiful images here. What Bennewitz wanted to say through Faust was shockingly different from his intentions in his first Weimar Faust of 1965/67 and even a considerable intensification of those evident in the 1981 production. Bennewitz’s concept, as summarized in Fiedler’s notes, describes Faust as a man ‘der uns beschämt.’ The notes summarize the stages through which his interpretation of the character had moved during the course of his German productions: ‘65: Faust als Schöpfer seiner selbst und der Welt; 75: Schöpfer und Verantwortung dafür, soziale Determinierung über lange Zeit/Brecht; heute: als Schöpfer ist der Mensch gleichzeitig sein potentieller Zerstörer. Verlorener Glaube an die Aufklärung und [an] Menschen’ (Fiedler 1995, 4). Bennewitz’s 1981 produc-

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tion of Faust was the introduction of this third stage, and the Meiningen production could be seen as an extension of that. The individualistic creator with responsibility for his actions and the consequences in society had earlier stood for a motivator within an historically and socially determined system, but now had become a potential destroyer. The enormous optimism of the 1965/67 Faust had been replaced by a loss of faith in philosophical, social, or political enlightenment, and indeed in mankind itself. Faust had become a cynic. In her interview, Erika Stephan recalled the intention in Meiningen to show this, and she claimed that it was linked to the 1968 Deutsches Theater production in Berlin (chapter 2, p. 51). Just as Heinz and Dresen addressed what they considered to be a critical stage in the development of the GDR, so did Bennewitz with respect to the new Germany in 1995. The Gretchen figure in the production, insisted Pasch, was to represent the only hope Faust had left, and hence she was to be shown in gleaming brightness in contrast to the gloom of all other scenes – as in 1981. This optimism was not to be linked to social regeneration, but rather to the ideal of love and individual happiness, yet even that fails. The director’s book, a marked-up 1994 Reclam edition of Faust I, now in the FBA (Goethe, Faust, Strichbuch, 1994), shows cuts largely comparable to Bennewitz’s previous productions in Weimar, with some notable differences: the insertion of the ‘Satans-Messe’ from Goethe’s Paralipomena to Faust (see WA I, 14: 305–11) to replace the Walpurgisnacht scene (3974–85), and satirical allusions to Ulbricht, Honecker, and the prominent modern literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (at 4080–91). With some exceptions, which will be discussed below, most scenes of Part I were played generally according to Goethe’s text, with many minor cuts and the conventional omission of the Walpurgisnachtstraum. Pasch was anxious to point out that Bennewitz’s concept was central to all scenes in Part I, except the wild Walpurgisnacht, where he added his own spice to the goulash, noting that it was likely beyond Bennewitz’s modest sense of decency. Pasch was also candid in saying that he sometimes failed to understand what Bennewitz wanted or intended by the cues he gave, but tried to execute them nonetheless. He could only guess, for example, why a bulldozer was essential as a background to many scenes, but Bennewitz insisted on it adamantly. For him it symbolized the start of the reconstruction of Germany and the current building boom, but at the same time an aggressive new capitalism, exploitation of the East, and the unnecessary annihilation of the socialist economic and civic fabric. Construction fever raged at

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the time, land speculation was rampant, greed and apprehension bubbled up on both sides. Many East Germans lost everything they had and amassed enormous debts, while others made fortunes on the backs of their compatriots. For West German speculators and corporations alike it was a singular opportunity to pounce, moreover, with Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s blessing and support. The Performance The audience at the première on 27 October 1995 knew that Fritz Bennewitz had died just weeks before. His very presence could be felt in the programs they held. They found there twelve of his characteristically detailed scene sketches along with handwritten notes describing their content, associations, and intention. Such sketches had played an increasingly important part in the director’s coaching of his actors from the Weimar years through the intercultural productions in New York, Bombay, and Manila, so much so that by the 1990s they resembled the storyboard of a film. At the will of the ensemble, the late director’s portrait was hung above the proscenium. Bennewitz was virtually directing from the grave. Most in the audience were also aware that this was a special event because of its place in Meiningen theatre history and were reminded of that in the program notes. The Meiningen Hoftheater had played Faust I in its inaugural season in 1832, just months before Goethe’s death. Since then it had produced it twenty more times, including at the celebration of the theatre’s centenary in 1931/32 and its reopening after the war in 1945/46. Taking their seats at the première, the audience became part of Meiningen’s rich theatre history. Almost all knew as well that this Faust had been planned as a grand return for Bennewitz, a celebration of his career there from 1955 to 1961, and the national attention he drew in 1958 with his spectacular Dreigroschenoper which thrust the venerable stage again into the national limelight where it had been in the nineteenth century as the heart of European theatre’s naturalistic movement under the direction of George II (1826–1914), Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (Erck, Erck, and Schaefer 1982, 33–5). As the audience waited for the curtain to rise, the program’s first page prepared them in stark letters with these words of poet Reinhold Schneider (1903–1958): ‘Hat der “Faust” nicht Geschichte gemacht in den letzten hundert Jahren und vielleicht gerade die Schrecken beschworen, die uns erschüttern?’ The tone was aggressive, the intention to show Faust

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as a lesson in history. Gretchen’s defiant voice from Goethe’s early poem ‘Vor Gericht’ (1777) followed (without documentation): Von wem ich’s habe, das sag’ ich euch nicht, Das Kind in meinem Leib. Pfui, speit ihr aus, die Hure da! Bin doch ein ehrlich Weib. ... Herr Pfarrer und Herr Amtmann ihr, Ich bitt’ laßt mich in Ruh! Es ist mein Kind und bleibt mein Kind, Ihr gebt mir ja nichts dazu. (Goethes Werke, WA I, 1: 186)1

As in 1981, the legendary hero Faust is to be usurped by a heroine of the common people and her tragedy held up as a mirror to society. Slobodan Šnajder’s Faust-Margarethe-Mephisto figure from Der kroatische Faust (Hrvatski Faust) continues in the program: Alles durchlebte ich, und zweimal starb ich. Die Geschichte hat sich sattgegessen an mir. Ich studierte viele Wissenschaften. Sie schlugen mich, und ich schlug auch. Sie töteten. Ich tötete. Sie zerschnitten mir den Uterus. Nahmen mir Atem und das Geborene. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich derselbe Tor bin wie am Anfang. (Šnajder 1981; source of German translation undocumented)

This harsh introduction is reinforced in the program by brief essays on topics like ‘Dieser Schurke Faust,’ ‘Wozu das Böse?’ ‘Gott ist tot,’ and ‘Das Ende der Harmlosigkeit,’ which readied the audience for a Faust I that would question the nature and direction of their world. For most of the audience that night, this world was still new and finding its form. They were citizens of a new united Germany, but almost all of them were still East Germans, and that was the perspective on the world they

1 Slight variations from the original, middle two strophes omitted.

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would see. They were experiencing a social deconstruction unparalleled in German history and were beginning to assess its consequences for the rest of their lives. Bennewitz was to offer them little reassurance. The sets in general were striking for their banality and depressive effect. Projected backgrounds of ghostly scaffolding and construction sites, burned tree stumps, a bent railway line rising to the sky, and a looming bulldozer presented a pervading sense of the foreboding intrusion of modern society and its violation of nature. Numerous scenes included dead or burned trees and stumps with barbed wire hanging from their limbs. The most prominent props were refuse bins and buckets, their contents often strewn about the stage. In his frustration, Faust loads them with armfuls of books, Wagner digs through them for scraps of knowledge, the apes in the Witches’ Kitchen draw from them their cynical perspective on the world. Even the minimal sets that accompany the Gretchen scenes, a few bits of wall and furniture, are grey and dilapidated. The single contrast to this depressing vision is the stark brightness of the Gretchen figure herself in her early scenes, but she, too, recedes into the shadows as her fate is sealed, emerging at the end from a black hole reminiscent of the 1981 production to play out the dungeon scene in dingy emptiness. Daniel Franke, writing in the Meininger Tageblatt, caught it in a phrase: ‘ein Beckettsches Bühnenbild’ (Meiningen Reviews). Amid this prevailing visual impression, dozens of details underscored the general negativity, absurdity, and absence of meaning, or reinforced the sense of dissoluteness and disjuncture in modern life. These feelings were evoked by a huge range of incoherently mixed costumes, props, and sets, the effect of which was to dispel notions of stability and harmony and suggest natural and social destruction, decay, and chaos. Although the text and main characters were locked in the verse of Goethe’s time, the costumes and ancillary characters thrust forth images of modern society that constantly punctured and injured its philosophical abstraction. Many scenes remind us of the 1981 production, but now in the extreme. In the Vorspiel a mirror reflects a carnival circus scene in which the lustige Person, equipped with his make-up box, paints his face for performance as a circus clown while the poet sits in Brechtian/Heiner Müller garb with leather jacket, cap and glasses, a pile of books, pen, whisky, and a cigar. The director appears in a lurid green punker’s wig, with cash box and boulevard magazine. In the Prolog im Himmel the archangels are three farcical females, somewhere between nuns and

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nurses, who deliver their choral pieces with disinterested bluntness such as to render them meaningless. The Lord is their senile patient in dressing gown and slippers, bald, and peering over his glasses from a wheelchair. Mephistopheles appears with cigarette and lighter, a BildZeitung under his arm, red beard and wig, small horns, and a cane. Newspapers fly across the stage from the wings and are gathered up by one of the archangels, her short skirt riding up sexily. Mephistopheles flirts with her while conducting his discourse with the Lord. At the end of the scene, the lustige Person, who had been played by the Faust actor, is transformed to become Mephistopheles, and he, formerly Brecht/Müller, becomes Faust. The role reversal immediately places a question mark behind the literal validity of the action and the nature of its central characters. Bennewitz the deeply ironic joker was at work, turning the seriousness of Faust on its head and showing it in a world gone mad. The Nacht scene begins in gloom, the bent and broken railway track pointing eerily to heaven, replacing the traditional gothic imagery of Faust I. A pitchfork stands as the scientist’s tool and a director’s note reads ‘Faust muß mit Schienenteil und Forke Kreuz bilden können’ (Bennewitz/Meiningen, 1995).2 Other props include two looming refuse bins and a wooden box, a chaotic mountain of books, a metal lantern, wheelbarrow, blanket, voodoo mask and shakers, and a book of magic on the floor. Faust appears muddle-headed, with clown’s nose and collar, reading glasses, and Renaissance coat. His study is in a state of catastrophe, and he dumps armloads of volumes in disgust into a massive industrial bin while ranting his way through the familiar opening lines. Bible in hand, he looks up, as if to ask advice from God – and then into the bin goes the ‘good book’ as well. ‘Faust versetzt sich in einen meditativen Zustand (Trance [sic]) für die Geisterbegegnung,’ reads the director’s note to the entry of the Erdgeist, a gigantic shadow with female voice. ‘Angst vor dem Wort “Gott”! – Faust taucht kontemplativ in eine andere Welt, bis er bemerkt, daß er nur Betrachter ist. Wut.’ Wagner enters in slippers and nightshirt, wrapped in a warm blanket (‘indische Art’), carrying a notebook and pen. The notes describe him as ‘machthungrig, totaler Wissenschaftsgeist, Rationalist. Nachbarschaft eines Genies (Faust) ist für ihn eine

2 This reference holds for the remaining unannotated quotations in this chapter.

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permanente Provokation, führt gar keinen Dialog mit Faust, sondern “überschneidet” dessen Sätze > Machtgierige Leute bestehen zu 99% aus Angst! … Immerwährende Spannung zw. Faust – Wagner, da dieser ihm das Genie nicht verzeihen kann … Faust sieht Wagner als “Neandertaler,” als sinnlose Störung.’ The poison scene is dealt with quickly, as in the original text. In the transition to Vor dem Tor, however, a children’s song and some nameless background music replace the heavenly Easter chorus, but no bells ring. The scene is secularized. Instead of a joyous celebration of spring, the shadowy stage is populated by depressing individuals, a legless beggar on a rolling platform, girls in tastelessly short skirts, and a disorganized cluster of soldiers and songsters. The director’s notes read, ‘Burschen: Alkohol, Weiber, Gewalt … Bürger: Bild-Zeitung … Obdachloser: Pappkarton, Mundharmonika > “Ratten,” Soldaten: “Verbrannte Erde.”’ Faust enters to the strains of a classical piano piece, delivers his monologue to celebrate spring, and is dutifully thanked by the citizens’ delegation. Yet there is no joy apparent, nothing green to indicate new life, no atmosphere of celebration, no sign of hope. A confused Faust grasps the hand of the legless beggar as he rolls past in his cardboard box. Darkness and refuse containers continue to dominate as Wagner and then the poodle appear, the legless beggar crossing the stage once more. Despite this, the director’s notes read, ‘Durch die Begegnung mit dem Alten Bauern entsteht in Faust das “Bedürfnis nach Bekenntnis.” In einer Selbstanklage, deren einziger Zuhörer Wagner ist, “reinigt” sich Faust. > Katharsis, und bestimmt seine Haltung dem Vater gegenüber. Wagner hat absolut kein Verständnis dafür. Er begegnet mit trockenem Zynismus: “Das Schlimme ist die Normalität seiner Meinung!”’ (Fiedler 1995, 26–7). The gloom continues through the second study scene. The notes to the costumes and props read, ‘Pudel – Handpuppe für Faust? Kopfhörer, Apfel, Feuerzeug für Mephisto Faust. Mephi: Schlabberjacke, Netzhemd, “rachitischer” Schal … erscheint in wahrer Gestalt. Kostum: Pakt: Bratenrock mit Reversnadel [lapel pin] (Paktszene) und Kavaliersstock mit Knaut. Requisiten: Afrikanische Stockmaske, Rumbakugeln, Gebetschal.’ Mephistopheles appears in identical fashion to the female Erdgeist before. Female and male seem to emerge from the same shadow, but while she recedes, he breaks forth in a fury of smoke and fire. The rubbish container remains. Faust rummages in it to retrieve the Bible and makes his attempt to translate. ‘Sehnsucht nach Offenbarung,’ comment the notes, then adding the words ‘Im

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Anfang war die Tat,’ and the comment ‘Gottesleugnung, damit ist die Bibelübersetzung beendet, da Tat = Schöpfung.’ The poodle is transformed as Faust raises the pitchfork to the projecting railway line to make a cross, puts on the ‘African’ voodoo mask and shakes the maracas. The latter doesn’t work, but the cross does. The power of Christianity! Faust resorts to the pentagram, and then to the pact, confident that he has the upper hand. He sleeps. A rat crosses the stage. The gloom is not lifted, nor is the rubbish container removed, and in both scenes the detritus of Faust’s early ranting remains as the curse is shouted and the pact is made. The director’s notes explain, ‘Faust nimmt von allen deutbaren Utopien Abschied (Wissenschaft, Magie, Urchristentum) und gibt Absage an Gott. Leere, Nichts, Einsamkeit, was für den Teufel ein gefundenes Fressen ist. Faust hat keinen “Vater” mehr, er hat der Leere, der Dekonstruktion ins Auge geblickt, aus Angst in Mutters Schoß, übergibt sich dem Troste Mephistos.’ The Schüler enters and returns us to the farcical absurdity of the opening scenes as he punctuates the dialogue with a squawking claxon, rendering the exchange with Faust ridiculous. The director’s notes to his costume and props read: ‘Mütze wie Tennisspieler, Bermudas, ohne Brille, im Faust – Mantel – Hornbrille … DIN-A5 oder A4-Heft mit leeren Seiten und leerem Umschlag > Pornoheft.’ The satire on the institution of learning continues. Faust and Mephisto depart, Faust in leather jacket and sport shoes, with lighted cigarette dangling, looking the part of the failed GDR intellectual, again as reviewer Daniel Franke succinctly put it, ‘Durch Text aneinandergeklammert, besichtigen die beiden den Trümmerplatz der menschlichen Geschichte’ (Meiningen Reviews). Auerbach’s Keller continues in uninspired shadow and crudity, students sitting on barrels, two in student caps, one in a Pickelhaube, singing a new song, ‘Du musst ein Schwein sein,’ a musical leitmotif for the entire scene and apparently a new philosophy of life in the modern world. Innovative activities include dissecting flies and urinating in Petereit’s Pickelhaube, which counts as a ‘doppelt Schwein,’ and laying their penises on the table. The song of the ‘Heilige Römische Reich’ is now paired with the Horst Wessel- Lied, the unofficial National Socialist anthem, a direct slap in the face of the new Germany’s attempts to come to terms with its recent past. Faust is perplexed and silent. In the Hexenküche, advertising slogans directed at teenagers blare from a television, skeletal classical musicians in white smocks and top hats sound the chords, apes illuminated in green rummage through an enormous refuse bin behind a bright blue backdrop to pull out scraps of

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knowledge and insight. Figures dressed as physicians brew the magic potion, using symphonic musical instruments as their tools – a satire on the uncritical adulation of doctors in the GDR and elsewhere, and their abuse of the profession. The association extends to scientists who discover ‘progressive’ techniques and inventions, some of which are destructive to society. A transvestite witch – a remarkable double of literary pope Marcel Reich-Ranicki – dances in a red costume, reciting the Hexen-einmaleins with exaggerated pathos, a cruelly ironic jab in view of Bennewitz’s own homosexuality. The rejuvenated Faust emerges from beneath her skirts, pointing to similar salacious antics in the recent Manila production, as we shall see in that chapter. The figure of Helena, Georgione’s Venus in classical reclining pose, is projected on a screen upstage, and stage-right an object resembling an altar is illuminated. The Gretchen tragedy begins with the sound of church bells, in contrast to the secularized Easter scene. The stage is bright. She is characterized as ‘spitzbübisch.’ Her room is described in the notes as an ‘Insel der Unschuld … kleine Welt. Bezugspunkt der Liebe = Bett = Ort.’ The refuse bin is gone. A spirited Gretchen laughs at Faust’s clumsy approach. The following core scenes are played simply, downstage, with minimal sets, classical music providing the background transitions, and bright illumination continuing for the action to its end. The set is further described in the notes: ‘Bett, Laken, Decke, Eimer, Handtuch, Buntdruck, “mater dolorosa,”’ the last, in the videotape, evident on Gretchen’s wall. Faust and Gretchen are playful, a sense of levity permeates the scene, there is movement and happiness. On her delivery of ‘Der König in Thule,’ the notes comment, ‘Gretchen entdeckt während des Singens das Lied und ihren eigenen Körper > unschuldige Sinnlichkeit,’ – the video shows her rolling about on her bed in a white night-dress, an action that attracted some comment from the critics and perhaps surprised the audience. Further, ‘Schmuck: urwüchsige Erkenntnis ohne Selbstmitleid oder Sentiment: “Was hilft euch Schönheit, ... Nach Golde drängt .”’ The scenes with Marthe are played close to the text. The notes call her a ‘strenge Katholikin, was den letzten Wunsch des Toten anbelangt,’ and remark that she is ‘1. Opfer in diesem Stück – tragische Figur.’ This mood is interrupted with a return to gloom in the Straße scene and Faust’s dispute with Mephistopheles, and then to contrasting brightness again in the garden, a wall, archway, rain barrel, bench, and rose vines providing the minimal but pleasantly suggestive set.

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The couple’s simultaneous scenes pass by conventionally, the essential conversation between Faust and Gretchen naturally and lovingly, but the notes remark, ‘Im Verlaufe ihrer Erzählung über das Leben, werden seine Erinnerungen wach: Osterspaziergang – Wagner. Durch Vatertod werden in ihm Assoziationen geweckt > ihre Unschuld weckt seine Schuldgefühle. Er empfindet, daß Gretchens Glücksgewinn aus der Zuwendung zu anderen Menschen zieht, was er nie verspürt hat.’ Then, in Wald und Höhle, Faust despairs in darkness, drinking himself to near oblivion, staggering, and slurring his way through the confrontation with Mephistopheles, and heaping guilt on himself. Bennewitz’s rehearsal notes to Faust I stop at this point. The startling brightness of Gretchens Stube intervenes once again for ‘Mein Ruh ist hin,’ and then, in Marthes Garten, a remarkable variation from the text occurs. Precisely when Gretchen asks the renowned question ‘Glaubst du an Gott?’ Faust strikes her down violently in a rage, jumping to line 3434, ‘Ich glaub ihn?’ and shouting his reply with uncharacteristic anger as she lies at a distance on the floor. He then returns and takes her in his arms, but soon rails on anew and shoves her away roughly. This is one of the most remarkable scenes of the production and likely for the history of Faust productions in general. Fiedler included these early thoughts of Bennewitz about this action in her notes: ‘Verschließt Faust ihren Mund mit Kuß oder schlägt sie aus Verzweiflung?!’ (1995, 20). In the end he chose the second, the violent path. Pasch explained the act as Faust’s desperate frustration with the inability of Gretchen and the ‘Kleine Welt’ she represents to distance herself from superstition, religion, and magic, and address the material problems of the world. What at first shocks the viewer and seems a thoroughly reprehensible act, an act that must distance Faust from much of the audience, upon reflection shows the genius of Bennewitz’s sense of directing, for it was exactly the alienation of Faust from society that he wished to portray. At the Brunnen two women, not one, gossip about the fallen girl. The Zwinger scene is severely shortened, without props, suggesting a Christian association. Valentin and the street scene are played frontstage, and he staggers to die beside Gretchen’s bed. It is to her personally, without the town’s citizens listening, that he delivers his withering curse. The townfolk, Lieschen, and some street thugs then enter her room with baseball bats and run amok, smashing her walls and furniture, followed by a cluster of women, the ‘bigotten Weiber’ from Bennewitz’s notes, with white masks of anonymity, who strangle her with

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their rosary beads, a second savage diversion from the text. ‘Luft,’ she cries, struggling for release, anticipating the climax of the Dom scene, which is now played out through stage effects of smoke, darkness, and lightning. The dies irae chant is distorted to the point of being unrecognizable. Gretchen’s murderers reveal themselves as women townsfolk. They remove their outer garments and, half-naked, provide a vulgar transition to the licentious frenzy of the Walpurgisnacht. This scene, much more Pasch’s doing than Bennewitz’s (yet recall the latter’s reference to ‘Atompilz Hiroshima’ in his notes), begins with the sound and fury of an atomic explosion which sets off a chaotic dance to booming techno music and ends with stillness and death. The satanic mass, a chaotic collage of mannequins constructed from diverse plastic body parts, is reduced to an orgy of money and sex. The action is driven by greed and profit, symbolized by rocking figures and a frontend shovel loader scooping and spilling rivers of gold. Georgione’s Venus flashes in the background and Faust catches a glimpse of Gretchen before storming off the scene to play the essential text of Trüber Tag downstage. The final scene of Part I contains several notable twists. The stage is bare except for the remains of Walpurgisnacht. Gretchen emerges from a sunken cell, crawling out like an animal. Citizens pass upstage, illuminated, and then stand to watch her suffering and her rejection by Faust. Mephistopheles does not appear, neither do we hear the reassuring voice from above. This Gretchen is not saved. She is lost, and the townsfolk look on. ‘Wer mordet Gretchen?’ is the question in Fiedler’s notes. The answer: ‘Bürgerlichkeit (Woyzeck, Büchner …) … Katholische Welt? Sachsenhausen / Frankfurt > Goethe > evangel. Stadt mit großem kathol. Anteil, wobei dieser der “Hinterfotzige” ist. Katholizismus: begreifen Mensch und Natur nicht’ (1995, 22). In sum, this was a dreary and pessimistic Faust I. It had moved even further from the 1981 production’s ironization of the heroic model of 1965/67 to abandon the protagonist entirely in favour of a thoroughly negative depiction of modern Germany. In 1981 the East German socialist society was at least a political entity, so there was hope that it could be adjusted to meet the idealism of Bennewitz’s original Weimar Faust. But with the reunification, that hope was dashed, and the new Germany offered for him nothing but a capitalistic quagmire of greed, profit, and waste – and in socialist terms, moral bankruptcy. The only ray of optimism could be seen in the shifted stress from Faust to Gretchen, demonstrated visually by the illumination of her early

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scenes, but that bright light was extinguished soon after. Pasch felt sure that he understood how Bennewitz wanted to portray the Faust and Gretchen figures in Part I. From Faust’s initial monologue, he was to be a man who intended to throw off the past and begin a new era, and he would do this by way of Gretchen. On the dim stage, she was to emerge as a dazzling white light, a symbol of new hope in the future. Yet her potential as representative of a new ideal was dashed violently when Faust struck her down and the representatives of the church and society murdered her. Faust the socialist hero had become so corrupted by the new social, political, and economic environment that he himself spearheaded the destruction of the only remaining symbol of idealism. This is more than criticism of the new Germany, it is despair. Fiedler’s notes during Bennewitz’s last days show that his thinking was allied with Samuel Beckett’s world view. They record commentary on Beckett by the pessimist Romanian philosopher and essayist Emile Cioran (1911–1995), who emphasized Beckett’s rejection of historical heroes in favour of anonymous, unusual characters from the common ranks of society, primeval figures rooted in pre-history, who are part of Carl Gustav Jung’s collective unconscious (Fiedler 1995, 2–3). In his review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Siggi Seuß recognized the connection and asked if this was a reflection of Faust or perhaps, in a broader sense, the fate of the GDR intellectual in 1989 (Meiningen Reviews). Bennewitz’s violent Faust and fellow citizens in the production could also be seen as foreshadowing a new trend in German theatre to depict Gretchen and her relationship to Faust as increasingly violent. Faust’s despair and savage victimization of her were in similar evidence in celebrated interpretations not long after, for example, F@ust 3.0 by the Catellan theatre company La Fura dels Baus at the international celebration of the 250th Goethe-Jahr in Weimar in 1999, and Michael Thalheimer’s Faust I at the Deutsches Theater Berlin in 2005. Critical Reception For the first time, a Bennewitz Faust was reviewed by a wide representation of newspapers in both eastern and western Germany, with the number of each almost evenly divided (see Meiningen Reviews). This was a very different range of critics than for any of his previous Fausts. Half of them came from a land he hardly knew and whose perspective he had never shared. Some were trite and unabashedly derivative, for example, Lenn’s in Die deutsche Bühne, where the writer does little more

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than quote a snippet from Siggi Seuss’s review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and then concludes grandly, ‘Auch wenn die Inszenierung nicht mehr die Krönung seiner lebenslänglichen Auseinandersetzungen mit dem Stoff geworden ist, wie es sich Bennewitz erhofft hatte, verdient die Entscheidung der Meininger für die Aufführung Respekt.’ To the author’s knowledge Bennewitz never expressed such a hope. Another review on the same level is A. Möller’s in Bild Thüringen in which the writer claims that the director ‘schockt brave Goetheaner mit einer Art Soft-Porno’ and delivers an adolescent account of the production’s sexual trappings. Just one reviewer was distinctly negative. Karl Schweizer in the western Hannauer Anzeiger harshly criticized Bennewitz’s deletions from Goethe’s text: Wer Goethe’s Text kennt und wem der Text gegenwärtig ist, wird von der Meininger Inszenierung enttäuscht gewesen sein; denn aus dem Goetheschen Faust ist ein Meininger Faust geworden, der die Substanz des Werkes erheblich schmälert. Durch Streichungen des Textes, wie zum Beispiel beim Prolog im Himmel, beim Eingangsmonolog, aber auch durch die Abänderung des Schlusses, ist der Mensch Faust nahezu einer Marionette in der Hand Mephistos geworden, der dessen Treibhaftigkieit geschickt zu steuern weiß, während Goethe genau umgekehrt den Geist über das Emotionale im Menschen triumphieren läßt und damit den Plan Mephistos, wie in der Wette im Prolog angedeutet, von vornherein zum Scheitern verurteilt. (Meiningen Reviews)

In his review, Schweizer gives two further examples of critical deletions beyond the Prologue: Faust and Gretchen’s conversation on religion which is ‘bis zur Unkenntlichkeit verstümmelt,’ and the absence of the words ‘ist gerettet’ in the final scene. He concludes: ‘Eine Welt ohne Gott, ohne ordnenden Geist, eine Welt des Chaos? Dies ist nicht die Welt Goethes, aber auch nicht unsere Welt, sondern die der Regie.’ It is ironic that a West German critic should take to task the East German director for disrespecting the words of a classic, for it was East Germany that repeatedly mocked the Westerners for this practice, as Western theatre directors had long produced outrageous adaptations in the wave of Regietheater of the 1980s. Contrary to his intention, Schweizer’s criticism actually points to how far Bennewitz had developed since 1965, when he, too, argued as if Goethe’s text and its author were sacrosanct. It is also disturbing to read that beyond an insistence

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on greater textual fidelity, Schweizer’s principal argument is ideological, that Goethe’s work is a testimony to the fact that there is a preordained order in the world and that it continues to be guided firmly by an Almighty. While that point of view was, indeed, held by many in the mid-1990s, and still is today, it seems anachronistic and an injustice to the complexity of Goethe’s text to claim with such self-confidence that it is the only way to read or perform his Faust. By contrast, the East German Klaus Brückner, writing in the Südthüringer Rundschau, captured the message of the production in his title’s allusion to Nietzsche: ‘Gott is tot, kein Ausweg, kein Trost.’ Brückner perceived in Bennewitz’s concept, ‘puren Skeptizismus mit einem gehörigen Schuß der Zukunft gelassen ins Auge blickenden Nihilismus.’ In concluding, he expounds, ‘Mit dieser Faust-Inszenierung hat der weltläufige Regisseur ein dunkles Weltspektakel an die Wand gemalt, das kein Vertrauen in das Streben nach Vervollkommnung setzt angesichts einer Reise durch die Höhen und Tiefen der dieses Streben begleitenden Begierden und Leidenschaften, das menschliche Antlitz ist vom kosmischen Staunen verzerrt, die Verzweiflung kriecht herauf.’ Brückner is compelling. He says bluntly what many of the other critics only hint at. He says, in effect, that Bennewitz ended his life as a director in despair. Faust’s constant striving had always been the key to his strength and exemplary character, but the notion of ‘Verzweiflung,’ the ultimate personal and social failure in the GDR, was not only unacceptable and censored in his former homeland, but something almost unthinkable for the idea of Faust that Bennewitz had always cherished, at least until now. Most reviewers were respectfully positive, emphasizing that this was Bennewitz’s last Faust of seven and making comment on his lifetime accomplishments as a director in Germany and abroad. Silke Wolf, in the Südthüringer Zeitung (Bad Salzungen), called it weakly ‘eine gelungene Mischung’ that received ‘einen eher braven aber langanhaltenden Beifall.’ Experienced readers would have smiled knowingly, aware that Meiningen audiences have long had an extraordinary sense of loyalty to their theatre and the devotion of its artists. Many critics described this last Bennewitz Faust as an expression of the director’s frustration with the development of socialism in the GDR and its eventual bankruptcy in the new Germany. In his review in the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung, Henryk Goldberg concluded his brief piece by calling the process insightfully a ‘Verlust der Illusion: Das Selbstverständnis einer Zeit. Die Summe eines Lebens, das Testament eines Ernüchterten. Das Haupt-

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geschäft zustande gebracht.’Seuß’s two reviews were similar, and the one in a major newspaper, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, adds background on Bennewitz for members of the broad Western reading public who might not be familiar with his work, guiding them through the stages of his Faust interpretations from the ‘Anfang: Faust als vorwärtsschreitender sozialistischer Aktionist, 1965/66’ to ‘1981/82 in Weimar ein in der DDR geliebter und geschmähter “Faust des Widerstands” gegen die Apologeten der Lichten-Morgenrot-Dogmatik.’ In this Meiningen Faust Seuß sees a Germany made of ‘eine Gesellschaft aus Opportunisten, Ignoranten, bigotten Geschöpfen und Gewalttätern’ with only Gretchen as a ray of light, and even she has licentious characteristics. There was ‘Kein Fünkchen Hoffnung’ left. Summarizing the director`s five-decade occupation with Faust, Seuß remarks perceptively, ‘Je älter Bennewitz’s Faust wurde, desto enger geriet der schmale Pfad zwischen Himmel und Hölle, zwischen überirdischer Hoffnung und irdischer Hoffnungslosigkeit’ (9 Nov. 1995). Finally, in her last review of Bennewitz’s stage productions, published in the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung, Erika Stephan, after a lifetime of observations on them and friendship with him, was understandably as positive and respectful as she could manage to be. She concluded that this last production was ‘eine wohlbedachte und bedenkenswerte Antwort des Theaters auf die um sich greifende Orientierungslosigkeit,’ but kindly refrained from delivering any of the negative comments on the details of it that many others did. The obvious dissonances in the production she attributed to an underlying irony, pointing out the unusual reversal of roles in the Vorspiel, which signalled that from the start, when the lustige Person is played by the later Faust actor and the Brechtian poet figure by the later Mephistopheles. Her praise of the production is credible only in that she avoids discussion of the many conceptual structural weaknesses, dismal jumble of sets, costumes, and props, and confusion of jarring trivial references, emphasizing only the quality of the ensemble and particularly the principal actors Rodewald and Kunze. She called the Pact scene the ‘Höhepunkt und Zentrum der Inszenierung,’ but that is surely not where the high point of the entire Faust I should lie. Josef Kuhn’s striking review title in the Fränkische Volkszeitung (Schweinfurt-Würzburg), ‘Der “andere Faust” – obszön beschädigt,’ is not as negative as it first seems, but his opening statement certainly reflects mixed feelings: ‘Eine nicht ganz unumstrittene Inszenierung … Ausgezeichnete schauspielerische Leistungen standen Ungereimtheiten der Regie gegenüber.’ Regarding the latter, he calls it a ‘Panorama,’

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but only ‘weil es nur schwer szenisch zu trennen war,’ and for the most part excuses the constant dissonances and chaotic atmosphere by calling them ‘das Anderssein’ and ‘das Andere,’ which sounds as if he were connecting the production to the theory of alterity, but he goes no further along this road. Even in his generosity there were some scenes to which he felt he had to object, particularly Auerbachs Keller and the Walpurgisnacht (which Bennewitz did not plan or direct – he fails to mention this), because they contained too many ‘bis an die Grenzen des Erträglichen gehenden Ferkeleien.’ Like Stephan, Kuhn nevertheless arrives at a positive conclusion, resting his case on the actors’ strengths: ‘Eine großartige Gesamtleistung … Diesen drei “Stars” [actors of Faust, Mephistopheles, and Margarete] war in erster Linie die Brillanz dieser Aufführung zu verdanken.’ More than any other critic, Rudi Glaesner, in the West German Rhönund Streubote (Mellrichstadt), assessed the humour of the play positively as theatre of the absurd (although he doesn’t employ that term), carrying Goethe’s essentially tragic work into post-modern times principally through ‘die zahlreichen Regiegags.’ Among his favourites was the parody of the ‘literarisches Quartett’ pope Marcel Reich-Ranicki – a frequent object of German media satire in the 1990s – as the witch in the Hexenküche, and the exploding testament under Mephistopheles’s ample bottom. This constant cloaking of the action in absurdity, as well as the central image of the refuse bin, which Glaesner declares to be possibly the most meaningful symbol of the modern world, were for him highlights. As others, he praised the actors’ accomplishments, even going so far as to compare Kunze’s Mephistopheles with Gründgens’s renowned interpretation in Hamburg. A number of reviewers assessed Bennewitz’s attempts at humour differently. Sigi Seuß detected flashes of Bennewitz’s wit, suggested an ironic ‘Schweiksche Philosophie,’ but admitted in the end that on the whole there was ‘ein seltsamer Mißklang zwischen Idee und Spiel,’ a failure to carry the ironic chord through the production consistently (9 Nov. 1995). That irony, Seuß claimed, was what made Bennewitz’s 1981 Faust so successful and kept it on the stage for fourteen years. Seuß agreed with Daniel Franke’s and Frank Quilitzsch’s assessment that ‘blitzt noch einmal der Schalk des alten Bennewitz,’ but that he ‘sich ansonsten überraschend oft in Klischees und Selbstzitate flüchtet’ (30 Oct. 1995). In sum, despite their respect, and in some cases personal liking of the director, critics of the Meiningen Faust could see that this last effort was

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a reflection of desperation, not hope, both from the point of view of its artistry and its message for the old and new Germanies. Conclusion With the Meiningen Faust, Bennewitz returned to the place from which he had started forty years earlier. He was then a young man, thoroughly convinced of the merit of the new socialism that the German Democratic Republic and its citizens were sure they could build, and of Goethe’s Faust as the work through which this spirit could best be communicated and celebrated. Like his friend Albert Pasch, Bennewitz had envisioned in the 1950s and had worked for decades to build a socialist utopia. By the 1990s, many of those who did likewise were convinced that what they had in the end produced was ‘alles für die Katz.’ They had lost their chance and were now thrown to the mercy of what they perceived to be a voracious neighbour. In the performance text of this final Faust, Bennewitz deleted for the first time the lines from Faust’s final famous speech ‘Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen: Verweile doch, du bist so schön!’ (11581–2). This constituted a dramatic alteration to one of the most significant, perhaps even the most significant line of the tragedy. Pasch clearly had difficulty with the deletion. The video recording shows his compromise. Faust makes the speech while staggering forward to stage-front, as if in the onset of seizure, blurting out the lines of this last speech as if in agony. Suddenly, at the last line, he seizes his heart and falls to the floor dead, truncating the last line and never saying the words ‘Verweile doch, du bist so schön.’ In 1955 Pasch, and Bennewitz, believed that this line was a forecast of their new homeland, but now all hope for its becoming a reality had vanished. Pasch, and those who had shared his views, were prepared to admit to themselves, ‘wir haben uns betrogen’ (Pasch, ‘Interview’). GDR socialism had not turned out to be a new and glorious realization of socialist theory; the opportunity had been botched. The notion of socialism had slipped back to become an unreachable ideal. Erika Stephan rightly called Bennewitz’s Faust in Meiningen ‘eine Selbstauseinandersetzung’ (chapter 2, p. 52). The Meiningen Faust was not a success among the public – who needs to have their nose rubbed in failure? – closing early, well before the hoped-for length of the run. It was the product of a disappointed, even desperate man who was pressed by deadlines set beyond anyone’s control to do the impossible. It was Bennewitz’s only completely nega-

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tive Faust, and in simply provoking and supplying no positive ideas to fill the nihilistic ideological void he had lost sight of the lesson he had learned in Meiningen in his early years which put him on the road to success: ‘daß ein solcher Standpunkt unproduktiv ist; denn man kann Theater nur für und nicht gegen das Publikum spielen’ (Erck, Erck, and Schaefer 1982, 33). It was probably the least inventive, least stimulating, and least cohesive of all seven links in Bennewitz’s exceptional Faust chain, but should nevertheless be judged kindly with that remarkable record and the circumstances in mind.

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PART III The Intercultural Stagings of Faust

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7 The First Black Gretchen: New York 1978

Background On 5 May 1978, Goethe’s Faust I, in Walter Kaufmann’s translation (1961) and directed by Fritz Bennewitz, opened at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (LMA) on the Lower East Side of Manhattan Island, New York. With thirteen performances through 21 May, it was a major production with twenty-two actors, an eight-person chorus, six musicians, numerous dancers, and eighteen crew members. This was a federally funded cultural project, made possible by the Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA) Artists Program, which was devised to support unemployed talented artists and contribute to the cultural

The source material for this chapter includes a videotape of selected scenes from the original performance at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York when they were repeated at Princeton University some weeks later, videotape located in the FBA (New York Faust); Bennewitz’s director’s book and notes; stage manager John Ferdon’s notes to rehearsals (1978); program materials; transcripts of interviews with actors Christine Campbell (see Baevsky, ‘Interview’ 1979) and Tom Kopache (1978); and transcripts of discussions of the performance at Columbia, Georgetown, and Princeton universities, all in the La MaMa and/or FB archives, as indicated in the Bibliography, in New York (LMA). See Bennewitz, Princeton [Notes] and New York Faust. The director’s book was Walter Kaufmannn’s 1961/63 translation, but it is possible that Bennewitz also used C.F. MacIntyre’s 1949 translation as well. This chapter is based on the author’s article ‘The First Black Gretchen: Fritz Bennewitz’s Faust I in New York,’ Monatshefte für den deutschen Unterricht 94/4 (2002), 441–57, revised and expanded substantially. He wishes to thank Monatshefte and its editor Hans Adler for permission to include his article here in its recast form.

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strength of the community. La MaMa was and remains well known and highly regarded internationally as a socially engaged theatre. The fact that such luminaries as Peter Brook, Philip Glass, Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeus Kantor, Sam Shepard, and many more of that ilk have directed there attests to its repute (La MaMa website). Bennewitz was a colleague and personal friend of Ellen Stewart, La MaMa’s founder, executive director, and director of the CETA program. There were 4,000 applications for the available positions, and the very ethnography of Manhattan’s talent pool ensured that this show would be multiracial. Jamil Zakkai, of Syrian descent, played Faust; James Leon, a white actor, Mephistopheles; Christine Campbell and Marilyn Amaral, both black, Gretchen and Marthe respectively. The rest was a colourful interracial mélange (NY Press release, FBA). Dubbed ‘a national treasure’ by Brook, La MaMa’s vision since its founding in 1961 and through more than two thousand productions was then and still is today to nurture, encourage, and provide fiscal support for the endeavours of new generations of artists, and provide a continuing forum in which they can be evaluated. Creative risk taking, experimenting, and challenging artistic boundaries have always been the focus of the work performed in its several theatres. La MaMa has insisted steadily in the past five decades that art is a universal language, and that cultural pluralism and ethnic diversity must be inherent in the work created on its stages. Its global vision of the universality of the theatre has involved artists from over seventy nations, many of whom are now recognized among the international stage, music, and directing greats. Their association had grown from mutual involvement in the Third World International Theatre Institute (iTi), also an organization committed to theatre as a force for social justice. Both Bennewitz and Ellen Stewart were prominent in the iTi by the late 1970s, Bennewitz because of his reputation as a leading German director and, foremost, his directing in many countries abroad. Stewart’s invitation to him in 1978 resulted directly from his successful staging of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle at La MaMa in 1977, also with a multiracial cast, including fourteen ethnic and national minorities. The 1978 invitation did not require him to do Faust specifically, that was Bennewitz’s choice, and to some it came as a surprise. Since the production made theatre history, indeed, a singular contribution to the history of Goethe’s Faust by Bennewitz’s casting Gretchen for the first time as a black woman, and since it was so culturally diverse, it provides an excellent example to argue that Bennewitz was a leader in the conceptualization and development of intercultural theatre and intercultural studies in general.

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It bears reminding that at the same time as he was directing this Faust I in New York in 1977/78, he had recently completed his second Weimar Faust in 1975, which was continuing its run. In 1976, between that Faust and his work in New York, he directed Des Kanzlers Siegelring, a German translation of the Indian Vi◊àkhadatta’s Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa in Weimar, and in 1977 an adaptation of Brecht’s Kreidekreis in English at La MaMa in New York; that play again in the same year in Manila, but this time in Tagalog with a Muslim theme; and also in 1978 Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper in Leipzig (see Appendix 3). It was during this time as well (1976) that he also suffered extensive injuries from the terrible auto crash, in which he lost an eye, and was subject to an extensive series of treatments and reconstructive surgeries that continued for many years. Bennewitz’s energy and commitment to his profession were remarkable. The earlier chapter on his persona and theory referred to his ‘split personality’ and discussed the dichotomy between his national and international politics and aesthetics, and his constant travelling and international directing parallel to his activity at home. This should always be kept in mind as the backdrop to individual projects, and while the two sides of his split personality, one national, one international, were indeed pronounced, they should not be seen as separate, for from 1968 until his death they were intertwined, with German plays being constantly recast for audiences abroad, and foreign plays the same for German audiences. Exchange in both directions was an essential part of Bennewitz’s sense of intercultural theatre. The first black Gretchen must be placed into the context of American racial history. In his 1989 study, James V. Hatch documented the neglect of Afro-American theatre history for more than a century, listing five critical obstacles, ‘the loss of primary sources in Africa and America; a severely circumscribed definition of theatre (as promulgated by most historians); a paucity of scholarly publication in Afro-American history; a disgraceful absence of theatre scholars who know both black and white theatre history; and an abundance of institutionalized racism’ (1989, 408). He observed that while Mary C. Henderson’s awardwinning book Theater in America (1986) indexed more than 2,200 artists, only fifteen of them were black, and six of the fifteen were noted for their participation in white shows (408). Athough the former’s accusations have some validity, it should nevertheless be pointed out that before Hatch’s study (and certainly after), the subject of black theatre in America had been treated by numerous scholars, for example, Mitchell (1967), Sanders (1988), Woll (1989), Riis (1992), Thomas (1997), Krasner

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(2002, 2005), Wetmore (2003), Bigsby (2007), and Anderson (2008). Still, it will take some time to even the racial balance when it comes to black actors and scholarly studies of their contributions, if indeed, that can ever be done. In the case of Bennewitz’s Faust and his black Gretchen, there is a wealth of archival material for researchers in both the Fritz Bennewitz and the La MaMa archives, but despite the renown of La MaMa, Faust, Goethe, and Brecht, scholarship to date has done little to explore it. In many personal writings, and in an arm’s-length interview published in an article by the Weimar journalist Georg Menchén and based on notes that Bennewitz had sent to him (Benewitz, ‘Notes to Menchén on the New York 1978 production’), Bennewitz expressed his reasons for doing Faust at La MaMa: Die Entscheidung für Faust wurde erst ‘vor Ort’ getroffen. Dennoch hat der Versuch seine Geschichte und die Stückwahl vielfältig miteinander verwobene Gründe. Sie erinnern sich: Noch vor der Wiedereröffnung des Deutschen Nationaltheaters Weimar mit Faust 1975 wollte ich das Menschheitsgedicht unter den unkonventionellen Spielbedingungen der kleinen Bühne im ‘Haus Stadt Weimar,’ unserer Interimsbühne, inszenieren. Wie sollte ich da nicht zugreifen, wo das Stück im Experimentierraum des Off-Off-Broadway und mit Schauspielern aus ethnischen Minderheiten auf Un-Bekanntes, Un-Erprobtes, Un-Erfahrenes stoßen konnte? Die Voraussetzungen beider New Yorker Inszenierungsarbeiten [Brecht’s Kreidekreis, Goethe’s Faust], waren ähnlich; der wesentlichere Bezug liegt in der Kontinuität der Erfahrungen und Fragen, die wir einbrachten und herausholten. So war das Publikum von Brecht und sich selber überrascht: da war sozial und künstlerisch funktionierendes Theater. Die Lust an Geschichten, die mit dem Verlust des Glaubens an die eigene Geschichtswirksamkeit verlorengegangen schien, wurde neu entdeckt. In diese Bresche sollte der Faust mit den ihm eigenen Geschichtsdimensionen, d.h. der Mensch als sein eigenes Geschöpf und seine Bereitschaft, in die Geschichte (als Pioniersituation in Permanent) aufzubrechen und dabei die Lust und Qual individueller Verantwortung (für Geschichte) auf sich zu nehmen ... Zunächst: es waren Fragen, die in einer geschichtsunbewußten Welt das Abenteuer schwierig und aufregend machten, weil jede Situation im Stück, jeder Satz, jedes Wort bis an die Wurzeln hinunter aufgesucht werden mußten. Dann: das Stück kam in eine andere Erlebnis- und Bewußtseinswelt: Würde es aus dem Vorurteil zu treiben sein, daß es unübersetzbar ‘deutsch’ sei? Würde es nicht vielleicht sogar seine

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Heutigkeit, seine Welt-Hiesigkeit kräftiger vermitteln, wenn es als Theater aus der lokalen Geschichte hinaus mußte? Würde es mit dem Verzicht auf historisches Milieu menschliche Grundsituationen direkter zeigen und doch ihre historische Bedingtheit nicht verlieren? (Menchén 1980, 126–7)

Clearly, the New York production gave Bennewitz an opportunity to explore dimensions of Faust that his current circumstances in the GDR did not offer. These comments also underscore the interconnections between his work in Germany and that abroad, despite the apparent physical disjuncture between the two. The New York experience was obviously a test ground for much more than a Faust I or an exploration of racial relations in the United States; it was a fundamental test of cultural transportability, of intercultural activity, and in Rustom Bharucha’s terms even intraculturalism (2000, 8), for what the Gretchen Christine Campbell and the entire cast brought to Goethe’s Faust was an enrichment from their own culture – better said, cultures – not the reverse. When it comes to Gretchen, the problematics in Goethe’s Faust are related primarily to gender, social class, and economics; in terms of race, Gretchen is every bit as noble as Faust. In New York, by contrast, while gender, social class, and economics certainly continued as themes, it was the racial one that dominated and defined all the others. Bennewitz’s own notes and typescripts, written in German and English, return again and again to the main points Menchén captured above, as for example in this terse summary: What are the basic reasons for doing the La MaMa-Ceta FAUST? To see if the values of the play as a stage event can be a theatrical reality. To take the challenge of getting the play alienated from its historical, cultural, and local vicinities since history is everywhere. History as the basic condition of human existence and realisation ... Man as his own creator. The creative attitude is to be ready to risk, to try again and create a new history, which is a pioneering act of permanence. To remove the play from a prejudiced context to represent the typical. (Bennewitz, ‘Notes to Faust I in New York,’ 1979)

Bennewitz’s use of the words ‘the basic condition of human existence’ and ‘typical’ in connection with Faust cannot help but remind us of La MaMa’s mission statement and of Goethe’s emphasis on ‘Weltliteratur’ with its significance beyond national boundaries (Eckermann 1986, 207). Yet, while the very setting of Brecht’s Kreidekreis at La MaMa neces-

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sitated cross-cultural mixing, Goethe’s Faust I did not, and hence Bennewitz’s eagerness to employ such a casting and context underscored his intention to remove the German classic from its monoracial and monocultural tradition. Of course, his approach to history was consistent with East German socialist principles, but Bennewitz was much more international in his thinking than that. Now Faust addressed American history, multiracial social problems, and especially the situation of Afro-Americans, the struggle and the responsibility of people of colour to take charge of their fate. The director’s notes to the production reveal many links between his staging concepts for Weimar and New York. Of the Easter Parade scene he notes, Aus der dramaturgischen Überlegung der Weimarer Inszenierung ... WIDERSPRUCH zwischen der natürlichen und sozialen Landschaft des Menschen: das Volk – die Bettler, die Narkoten, Alkoholiker der Bowery, Kinder der Bronx [Carter’s Anschauungsunterricht der Verwirklichung der Menschenrechte in den USA] die Soldaten – Krüppel, Vietnam-Veteranen [1. Avenue – fashion center] die Bürger – die Kinder der Bronx [‘. . . sehen Sie, da kommen ja Tausende . . . !’] (Bennewitz, ‘Notes to Faust I in New York,’ 1979; square brackets in the original)

Goethe’s text is linked to contrasting images of social privilege and disadvantage to form an American perspective on the throng that Faust perceives in his nightmarish Easter vision (Faust I, 1053–5). The anticapitalist agenda of his 1975 Weimar production now became fleshed out in American terms as Bennewitz applied it to ‘die Anarchie des Marktes,’ to the minorities caught in its force, and ‘deren grundsätzlichen Nicht-Identität mit der sozialen Ordnung’ (Menchén 1980, 129). In transferring his Weimar agenda to New York, Bennewitz had two advantages. He was aware that the basic story of Faust was known to many American theatregoers and readers, through Marlowe’s, Gounod’s, or even Goethe’s versions. Goethe’s Faust had been produced at least seven times in the United States since 1938, three times in German, and four in English, most recently in 1961. It had been produced in German in San Francisco (1938), directed by Max Reinhardt; in New

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York (1947), directed by the Iffland ring holder Albert Bassermann; and on the Gustav Gründgens tour in 1961. It had been performed in English at the New York Equity Library Theater (1946), San Jose State College (1949), the Yale University Theater (1949); and in Lakeland Florida (1951; Menchén 1980, 127). At the same time Bennewitz knew that the public’s knowledge of Faust was vague, so that he could adapt it to their social setting without having to deal with purist critics. He consciously drew attention to his casting of Christine Campbell, as ‘das erste farbige Gretchen,’ her ‘erstaunliches Presselob,’ the latter somewhat of an exaggeration, and to ‘die farbige Darstellerin Marthe’ (Menchén 1980, 128). The Performance Rehearsals for the show began on 15 March 1978, seven weeks before the opening, Kaufmann’s translation of Goethe’s Faust I (1961) in hand. This text was drastically adapted by Bennewitz in conjunction with his actors in the process of rehearsal, and their method of doing so is meaningful for the approach and philosophy of the production, especially for Gretchen’s role. It is particularly difficult to track Bennewitz’s changes via a director’s performance-text book since the FBA does not hold a copy of Kaufmann’s translation but does hold two others, MacIntyre’s (1949) and Wayne’s (1949), the former heavily annotated with markings typical for Bennewitz. One suspects that he used this when actively directing, while the actors learned their lines from Kaufmann’s version. As always, Bennewitz felt an obligation to stage the play with a considerable degree of loyalty to the original, but during the rehearsals and performances, Kaufmann’s dramatic text gradually evolved into a performance text that became fused with elements beyond the stage, the actors’ personal experiences, the audience’s, and the broader sociological milieu elements – which Richard Schechner’s theory sees as essential to understanding any performance (see Introduction). Bennewitz was not as theoretically systematic as Schechner, but every bit as experienced and skilled in conducting creative rehearsals. He had a great respect for the power of Goethe’s text, and even more for the new meanings he could draw from it with creative actors. We are unusually well informed about the rehearsal process since stage manager John Ferdon recorded it meticulously in a document of 557 pages which he claimed to be modelled after the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a ninth-century record in Old English of the history of the

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Anglo-Saxons. Ferdon’s chronicle of the La MaMa production of Faust begins on 15 March 1978, about seven weeks before the première, with a final entry on 18 April (Ferdon 1978). From accounts of rehearsal conversations between members of the cast and the director, it becomes clear that like Brecht and Schechner Bennewitz encouraged his actors to make modifications to Goethe’s text in keeping with their own interpretation of their role. They brought translations other than Kaufmann’s and altered his as well, suggesting that MacIntyre’s 1949 translation, among others, was also in use (15). The final decision on the text lay, in fact, not with the director himself but with the actors. For Bennewitz, cutting was necessary to make the work more transparent, but just as much to free the actors’ imaginations (17). He recommended Brecht’s writings on theatre to Ferdon to help him understand what he was doing. With his actors, in constant dialectical exchange, his theatre became a blend of his own approach to the material and theirs (20). He surprised the actors by the freedom he granted them to improvise, and told them that there were three types of audiences they needed to address: the ‘around-the-corner’ people with no knowledge of Goethe or of Faust, the off-off Broadway theatregoers, and the learned university academics (19). The first was the neighbourhood folk of New York’s Lower East Side, to whom the CETA program was primarily addressed, the people for whom Campbell and the Gretchen figure stood. The second was the intelligent, educated, liberal public who frequented offBroadway artistic and political theatre, as they still do today. The third was an extension of this group, but removed, as scenes from the production were hosted at libraries and universities soon after. The performance ran for three hours, and the full range of characters and scenes in Part I was played, except for the Walpurgis Night’s Dream, which is conventionally omitted and the Vorspiel, no doubt because it would have had more of an alienating effect on the American audience than contribute to its understanding of the Faust legend. There was also a substantial chorus of eight singers and six musicians forming an orchestra, although the musical score is not recorded among the archival materials. A crew of seventeen was in charge of costumes, make-up, stage, and technical management, and the La MaMa and CETA organizations had a further nine people involved in publicity and management. Hence Bennewitz’s production of Faust was a major undertaking for a theatre of La MaMa’s size. Runnning 104 minutes, the archived videotape of selected scenes from the peformance, along with subsequent discussion, represents a substantial portion of the

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original complete performance. At Princeton University, the excerpts were performed on an almost bare thrust stage, to a full house of several hundred, and save a few chairs, a table, a ladder, and minimal key props such as Faust’s gift of the jewellery, the set was extremely simple, as were the costumes, both similar to the arrangements at La MaMa. Visually, Gretchen was the only person who stood out because of her appearance, wearing an arrestingly bright white dress in contrast to the others’ generally dark and drab attire. The blackness of her skin against the vivid brightness of her dress was a stark reminder of the colour dichotomy that underpinned the production and became central to her role. The Princeton excerpts include a few words of introduction by Walter Kaufmann and then Bennewitz, this time without the intense socialist interpretation he delivered before the television transmission in 1965, although he did say that both of his early stagings of Faust (1965/67 and 1975) had also been shown on television in Austria and the Soviet Union, so they were having an extended life. There followed parts of Night, including the Erdgeist, the poison potion and Easter choir, Before the City Gate, and Faust’s monologue ‘Released from the ice’ (903), parts of his exchanges with Mephistopheles in the Study, including the pact, Faust and Gretchen’s first meeting in the Street, and her sharing of the gift of the jewellery in the Neighbour’s House, the Street and Garden scenes, Forest and Cavern, Gretchen’s Room, her rendition of ‘My peace is gone,’ more excerpts from Martha’s Garden, including her agreement with Faust to give the sleeping potion to her mother and meet him, her prayer At the Ramparts, Dreary Day, and finally the Prison scene which ends with her famous ‘Heinrich! Heinrich!’ without response from above. One is struck by the professional competence of the actors and particularly by the convincing emotion Gretchen conveys, especially in her poignant monologues. The scenes were played at times with fine humour, especially in the case of James Leon’s Mephistopheles, and overall gave the sense that the company and director held Goethe’s text in high regard and wished to let it speak for itself. To begin the discussion period, each of the main actors, Jamil Zakkai (Faust), James Leon (Mephistopheles), and Christine Campbell (Margarete/Gretchen), made a statement about what the work and their character meant to them, each impressing by their maturity, sensitivity, and insight, but although she made the shortest statement, Campbell was the most memorable. This videotape was shot in October, hence five months after the run at La MaMa, yet it is remarkable how immediate and meaningful the

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experience seemed to have remained with all the actors, an unusually striking example of what Richard Schechner would call the extended post-performance cool-down and aftermath. Campbell’s outstanding rendition of the Gretchen figure at Princeton was entirely consistent with the impression she made during the run at La MaMa, as we shall see from the reviews. This was not only because of her delightful performance on stage, but also, as she recounted later, because of the way she prepared herself for the role. Of this the La MaMa and Bennewitz archives hold a remarkably vivid record. Performance Consciousness Schechner uses the term ‘performance consciousness’ to denote the force that ‘activates alternatives. In ordinary life people live out destinies – everything appears predetermined: there is scant chance to say “Cut, take it again.” But performance consciousness is subjunctive, full of alternatives and potentiality. During rehearsals especially, alternatives are kept alive, the work is intentionally unsettled’ (1985, 6). This performance consciousness can lead to what Schechner calls a ‘transformation of consciousness’ (4–10), in which the identification of an actor with another, a character in the play, or a blend of that character and external characters who are connected in the mind of the actor to the play’s character, becomes intensified, even dominant (10–16). Marvin Carlson would agree with this process, citing and accepting ethnologist Richard Baumann’s definition of performance (1996, 5–6): ‘All performance involves a consciousness of doubleness, through which the actual execution of an action is placed in mental comparison with a potential, an ideal, or a remembered original model of that action. Normally this comparison is made by an observer of the action, but the double consciousness, not the external observation, is what is central’ (Baumann 1989). Christine Campbell as Gretchen is a striking example of how Bennewitz’s liberal rehearsal method and text adaptation initiated the process of character transformation and opened doors to the social and cultural setting in which he staged his work. In the 1975 Weimar production Helga Ziaja stressed how important it was for her to identify personally with the Gretchen figure, and how she, indeed, experienced a level of character transformation when she accomplished this. So did Campbell, but much more intensely. Campbell reflected on her interaction with the historical dimension of Goethe’s play, and Gretchen within it. Her own blackness and the life

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experiences that resulted must be seen as the equivalent of Gretchen’s social and religious path. In Goethe’s text, the pregnant Gretchen feels ostracized and vilified in At the Well, and thereafter seeks solace and forgiveness from the Christian saint: Help! Rescue me from shame and death! Incline, Mother of pain, Your face in grace to my despair. (Kaufmann 1961/63, 3616–19)

Campbell recalled her anguish as she prepared herself for the part: Gretchen spoke to me – I went up to the Cloisters in a desperate attempt because I felt I was drowning at one point in the rehearsals – I felt I couldn’t do it, so I went to the Cloisters ... a museum of medieval art in New York which is actually a monastery ... brought brick by brick over here. There was a statue of St Margaret and I stood in front of it and meditated, and walked through a garden which I was sure in many ways was in the style of the garden Gretchen and Faust walked through ... that’s another key to acting ... you don’t just come through the intellectual, your feelings, and your emotions ... you have to use sensory things around you, the place where you are, the things in your room, the things in your trunk aside from the props you are given ... where you are with your own imagination ... you ... feed all your senses. (Baevsky, Interview with Christine Campbell, 1978, 8; ‘Conversation with Christine Campbell,’ 1979, 7–8)

Although Campbell repeatedly drew attention to the fact that Gretchen was faced with social censures rooted in an entirely different historical time and ethic, it is remarkable that as she submerged herself into the role, she, too, turned to the same fundamental religious images as her counterpart. Her reference to the Cloisters in the north part of Manhattan, above Harlem, is meaningful for the history of New York. They are a recreated fortified monastery housed in four medieval cloisters transported from Europe, reconstructed, and filled with original exquisite medieval and Renaissance works of art. Campbell associates her role with religious icons from her own environment, brought from an entirely different one, to expand their meaning. She singles out the statue of St Margaret, her new namesake, which is, in fact, the only example of that figure among the many religious statues in the collection. As she faced St Margaret there, she faced Margarete, she faced Gretchen, she faced herself. She transposed the European history and religious ico-

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nography of Goethe’s time and place to become her own environment and reality. The site and the image that Campbell actually saw are well documented and can still be visited today (Rorimer 1951, v–vii, 74–5; Michelin Travel Guide 1999, 150). Campbell’s identification with Gretchen and St Margaret in the Cloisters is one phase of her character transformation. There is an even more powerful one, which draws the religious and racial connections to a terrible conclusion. She recalled: ‘I was able to use the fact that I am black and ... could identify and could use some of that ... as in the church ... I could use that in terms of feeling a terror ... people behind me in den Kutten … KU-KLUX-KLANKutten … and I could identify with the fear’ (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 4).1 Goethe’s ‘evil spirit’ in the Cathedral harasses and terrifies its desperate victim until the ‘face of forgiveness’ at the ramparts turns away in condemnation: The transfigured turn Their countenance from you. To hold out their hands to you Makes the pure shudder Woe! ... She faints.

(Kaufmann 1961/63, 3828–35)

For Campbell, the religious robes of the sanctuary become the costumes of the clan, symbols of the most feared persecutors of her race. Campbell’s use of the German phrase ‘in den Kutten’ shows that Bennewitz, along with the cast, was directing in two languages, his usual procedure when working abroad. Campbell insisted on more than one occasion that the key scene in the work was Gretchen’s famous song ‘My peace is gone’ (ibid., 3374ff.): From that point on I feel that Goethe wrote pure music, the flow from moment to moment is incredible – rhythmically, emotionally, the colors that I had to achieve and the images to fulfill and create. Truly an actress’s dream. It gives me chills even thinking about it now ... ‘My Peace’ is actually the turning moment for the whole play, for all the characters. ... this is

1 The author has done some minor editing on this and later quotations from Campbell’s interviews (Baevsky, ‘Conversation,’ ‘Interview’), as they tend to be somewhat rambling and repetitious.

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where I get the feeling of the rhythm, where the events move so fast that it’s almost as if the characters were carried on a wave, on a tidal wave to their end. Rhythm, the music of the script, is a major key to characterization. (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 7; ‘Conversation,’ 1979, 8–9)

As an actress, Campbell’s early training and successes had been in music and dance. Gretchen was her first classical role, and first in verse, and so here, through the rhythm and lyricism of a verse drama, theatre and music became for her combined. As she struggled to master the antiquated language, metrics, and rhythmic structures, she turned to music to gain access. Music was at the core of her indigenous Caribbean history, her place of origin, and of black history in America, with its roots in the laments and hymnal rejoicings of labourers and slaves. Warming up for rehearsal in her apartment, surrounded by the mundane objects that made sense of her daily life, she tried to capture the essence of her character and the mood of the scene: As part of my morning preparations, to tune and activate my impulses and senses, I decided to play a record. I reached for Lady in Satin, my favourite Billie Holiday album. Almost without thinking I ran my eyes over lines and passages in [Goethe’s] dramatic text. The soft tones of the music filled the air, and then it happened. Time stopped, I felt myself rooted to the ground. Every word that Billie Holiday sang, every line of her lyrics sounded as if Gretchen was singing, reflected Goethe’s poetry. She was alive, she was mine – my experience, my century. Billie sang: I’m a fool to want you I’m a fool to want you To want a love that can’t be true A love that’s there for others too I’m a fool to hold you What a fool to hold you To seek a kiss, not mine alone To share a kiss the devil has known.

(Woithon 1979, 3)

Here are themes central to Faust, betrayed love, collusion with the devil, Gretchen’s sadness and desperation, and a breakthrough for Campbell: ‘she was alive, she was mine – my experience, my century.’ In the process of performance consciousness, through free association, a transformation had occurred – Gretchen was Campbell, and she was Holiday.

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Campbell ‘felt rooted to the ground’ suddenly discovering that hers was the common root of all three women. A link between the German eighteenth century and the American twentieth had been forged.2 That Billie Holiday (1915–1959) was the flash point for this experience is not surprising. She was for Campbell, and remains, a symbol of the struggle of black Americans, especially black American women for civil rights and equality (New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985; Gleason 1975; Holiday and Duffy 1984). Many Holiday songs are moody complaints of lost or betrayed love like the one Campbell found so close to her feelings about Gretchen, but beneath Campbell’s fascination was a deeper awareness of the terror and cruelty that were part of race relations with whites, an awareness shared by every black in Harlem and, indeed, in many parts of America. In her life and singing, Holiday embodied this as well, most poignantly in an unusual song, ‘Strange Fruit,’ written in 1939, and sixty years later in 1999 named by Time magazine as the best song of the twentieth century. A photograph of Holiday, which accompanied an article in Time and Life magazines in 1939, was said to be the first ever of a black person in the pages of those publications. According to Barney Josephson, founder of Cafe Society, a liberal jazz club in Greenwich Village where Holiday first sang the song, and coincidentally then just a few blocks from La MaMa’s location, the songwriter Abel Meeropol chose Holiday to sing his lyrics first (Globe and Mail 2000).3 As Michael Denning, an American Studies professor at Yale has written, Cafe Society ‘represented a unique synthesis of cultures, blending the politically radical cabarets of Weimar, Berlin, and Paris with the jazz clubs and revues of Harlem. In both its Village incarnation and at a second location in midtown Manhattan, Cafe Society attracted people like Nelson Rockefeller, Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, Lauren Bacall, Lillian Hellman, Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson’ (Margolick 2000, 41–2). Under the circumstances, it is unintentionally meaningful that Denning links Harlem with Weimar. Here is the full text of ‘Strange Fruit’:

2 Campbell spoke little German, and the author has not been able to find the exact original English version of what she says here, so he has translated it from the German article by Hans-Dieter Woithon (1979). The segment from Holiday’s song is there in German. The author has replaced it with the exact words from Holiday’s original; see Holiday, ‘I’m a Fool.’ 3 The author wishes to thank his colleague James M. Skidmore for this reference.

The First Black Gretchen: New York 1978 Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood on the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, And the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.

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(Holiday, n.d.)

Although the song and its imagery on their own pack a whopping punch, when complemented by the music and Holiday’s unique voice and singing style, it is almost overwhelming in the horror of the scene it invokes – we can still hear it today on the recording. As so many of her ballads, Holiday sings it slowly, languidly, in her full southern black accent, with piano accompaniment. It is a voice full of sadness, of weariness, one that describes the horror of the scene, the grotesque contrast between the elegance and beauty of the American South and the brutality of its treatment of blacks. The whole results in a perverse image of nature’s cycle and the grotesque interplay of its elements. There is no rebelliousness in her voice, just resignation and sorrow. At her last words the piano crashes to a chord that reverberates through the air into a void of silence. The ranking of this song as the most important of the twentieth century by one of America’s most popular and durable magazines, and this distinctive recording of it by none other than Billie Holiday, gave it iconic significance for that society and its black culture. When Holiday sings of the ‘blood on the root,’ it is the same root as Campbell’s, the one nourished by black blood. Although Holiday sang the song with sad resignation, it is seen today as one of the first American protest songs. ‘Strange Fruit’ raised an outcry against lynching in the South. Campbell’s free association with Holiday’s songs as she prepared for rehearsing the Gretchen role connected the looming figures of the Cathedral scene in Faust to the cloaked-and-hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. ‘I was able to use the fact that I am black and was surrounded by a white cast,’ she said, ‘and I could identify and could use some of that ... as in the church ... I could use that in terms of feeling a terror

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... people behind me in den Kutten KU-KLUX-KLAN-Kutten ... and I could identify with the fear’ (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 4). She was, in fact, not the only black person in the production, Marilyn Amaral who played Martha shared that with her, as did Robert Stocking who played the Lord, but her feeling of being surrounded by white people – when, in fact, they were multiracial – shows her enormous sensitivity to her colour and vulnerability because of it. Unlike Bennewitz, Christine Campbell did not initially connect her blackness to the role of Gretchen or think about its significance. In Erika Fischer-Lichte’s terms, she was simply an actor pretending to be another person. The audiences who saw her at La MaMa and Princeton were interested because of the effects she stimulated and the denotative and connotative associations she aroused. Her skin colour was a denotative sign of a black actor pretending to be Gretchen, pretending to be what had traditionally been exclusively a white person (Fischer-Lichte 1997, 344–6). Within the context of inner city New York in 1978 her blackness created in the minds of the audience a constant link with black cultural history and the living ethnography outside the theatre’s doors. She was also only vaguely aware of the Faust story and of Goethe. Her professional focus was on the problem of being a black actress in America and the difficulty of acquiring major roles that were normally played by whites, especially in classical theatre, and she wrote of her own determination to overcome these barriers in terms very similar to those Bennewitz had affirmed as his goals for the production: It would have been easy to play Gretchen as a victim. I sometimes feel that I am a victim in this world because of its challenges and rejection. But that is exactly what I am striving to come to terms with and overcome in myself: not just to react to things and events, but to be active, to take responsibility for my actions ... I never saw Faust before, nor Gretchen, but I have met Gretchens. For me it played no role that I am black and play Gretchen. I created a character, a person, who had to come face to face with her surroundings and her world. And still – or perhaps just for that reason – in my identification with this situation my life’s encounters and experiences became meaningful and useful. (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 3)

Campbell’s ‘not just to react to things and events, but to be active, to take responsibility for my actions’ echoed Bennewitz’s philosophy of the Faust figure as he impressed it upon the television audience in his introduction to the 1965 production, the individual as his own creation

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(‘sein eigenes Geschöpf’), ready to take responsibility for the creation of his own future. Such a philosophy had emerged from Campbell’s experience and she found it reinforced through her role. In effect, she became a new Faust figure. In turn, Bennewitz’s casting of her as Gretchen foreshadowed a process of realization in Campbell that she, in fact, did represent more than the struggle of one individual in society, and was indeed a representative of her gender and race. In the same interview, she remarked: ‘Every woman can be a mother and every woman has her first love, a mother, a brother, independent of her skin color and culture. I can compare the pitilessness and restriction that Gretchen had to bear with what it is like to be a black person in this country’ (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 2). In the summer of 1979, Campbell sent Bennewitz the typescript of a retrospective interview she had done in English, a year after her Gretchen experience. Tellingly, she included for his reading an article on black Shakespeare from the New York Times magazine and the greeting, ‘Love, Christine.’ To Bennewitz’s reminder, ‘You are the first Black Gretchen in history,’ she replied modestly, I’m sure that there is some black actress somewhere who has played the role in a non-professional production, say a university or community theatre in the West Indies or Africa where color traditions are different, and no one thinks twice about a black Titania or Chinese Oberon. But in the major international theatre, it seems to be that I am ... I really felt quite honored that I was chosen to hold this place in history, to break an excluding tradition. I have always tried and been very conscious of wanting to make a difference in the way of the world. I’m glad to be able to put my handprint or my character print and my spirit out there in terms of how people perceive and experience things. (‘Conversation,’ 1979, 4)

Campbell understood her uniqueness not just in racial, but also historical terms. As she put it, it was important ‘for me to play Gretchen, for me a black person, non-European, to be in a European play and setting deals with a very important truth: we are all people who have the same basic needs, wants and fears no matter our language, color of skin or religion’ (ibid., 5). Despite this claim to universality, she constantly relies on points of reference in black culture and history, in that sense contradicting herself. We might call this an example of intercultural influence on Goethe’s Faust and German literary tradition. Understandably, her orientation was to her own culture and could be to no other, as was that

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of many in the La MaMa audience. Campbell credited the production for ‘breaking through the wall of racism, and transcending time,’ and continued to place her role into historical context. For her it was a ‘point of fact: most of what happened to [Gretchen] was not within her control ... she actually thrived and achieved a clarity within the limitations of the social and religious order of her time’ (7). But which time is that? In fact, the production bridged two historical periods and cultures, Goethe’s eighteenth-century Germany and Campbell’s twentieth-century America. Her sense of ‘transcending time’ meant that the eighteenth-century historical and ethical location of Goethe’s original had become relevant for her life in Manhattan. Campbell could not identify with Gretchen historically, but Gretchen’s and Campbell’s social groups were both pushed by similar forces beyond their control, as she grew to understand: ‘One of the major differences between Gretchen and myself is historical, the whole religious order of society she grew up in. However, the rigidity she faced is something I can equate with, both as being black and being female … I brought my life understanding to the role, … I know that playing the role affected me very much, affected my life, so I know that I had an effect on the character of Gretchen’ (8). The moral and religious pressures that destroyed Gretchen were replaced for Campbell by forces of race and gender. Campbell spoke at length in her interview with Sonja Baevsky about her experiences as a Caribbean immigrant to the United States, growing up in Harlem, where she was bullied and intimidated by children of various races because of her different black culture and accent (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 4). Later she was bussed and became the only black in an all-white school where she was classified as a slow learner and ignored. Then she had the good fortune to transfer to an excellent multiracial school in the Bronx and blossomed with an international career in music and dance. By the end of the process she described reaching a plateau, a sense of ‘black pride’ at having made a contribution to her new country that was finally being acknowledged. Of Gretchen, she concluded, ‘I think the important thing ... was that she took hold of life as it was being given to her ... she took responsibility for it and was destroyed for a difference, as black people are destroyed in this country’ (5). Critical Reception Before the three-week run at La MaMa ended, Bennewitz had to return home but he came back to New York the next spring, for the core of

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the cast had been invited to perform excerpts of key scenes at Princeton University in October, to be followed by a discussion. They were invited originally to do the entire show, but because of actors’ equity problems had to settle for less. The initial invitation came via a personal letter from Walter Kaufmann, professor of philosophy at Princeton, and translator of the Faust used for the La MaMa show. He had seen the original production at La MaMa and was a friend of Bennewitz’s assistant Sonya Baevsky. In his letter, Kaufmann expressed regret that he had not been able to speak to the director during his visit, but wrote that he had found the performance ‘extraordinarily moving’ and said that ‘it was thrilling to see my translation on the stage.’ He went on to praise the actors, commenting, interestingly, that ‘Martha almost made one feel that the role had been written for a black woman. In the case of Margaret the color did not seem to matter.’ How wrong he was on that point! He lauded James Leon for bringing to his Mephistopheles ‘such a sustained intensity.’ Kaufmann then offered to give some accompanying lectures in German if the production should be mounted in Germany and at his end to explore the possibility of having Bennewitz’s Faust done at Princeton (Letters, Kaufmann, 30 May 1978). Assured of Kaufmann’s influence and cooperation, it was then Baevsky who set things in motion. Between May and December she wrote to Bennewitz frequently and at length, revisiting the La MaMa production and planning the Princeton continuation. The two obviously had a very close professional relationship, a mutual respect, admiration, and sustaining strength. The two also telephoned repeatedly across the ocean. It was complicated to work out the schedule for Bennewitz, who still held heavy directing responsibilities in Weimar, was planning imminent trips to India and the Philippines, and needed another operation on his eye and face. Skin grafts and nose reconstruction were now on the agenda. Baevsky was also key to interface with La MaMa founder and executive director Ellen Stewart, who was similarly supportive. Baevsky saw the Princeton connection as having potential for an ongoing relationship between La MaMa in general and Bennewitz’s socio-theatrical mission. She also provided Bennewitz with a wealth of information on the current off-off New York socially engaged theatre scene and frequently referred to possible future productions for him not just in New York but also elsewhere in the United States, but it seems that such long-range plans were never realized. The core cast was reassembled in spring 1979 and rehearsed the key scenes once again in preparation for the Princeton performance and

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videotaping. Considerable interest arose from the university community, and the evening drew a packed house to Princeton’s Murray Theatre (capacity 200), with an overflow audience spilling out onto the stage. After that event there followed guest visits, screenings of the Princeton videotape, an invitation to Bennewitz from Kaufmann’s colleague Stanley Corngold to speak at the Princeton German Department about the mounting of the show, discussions at Georgetown, New York, and Columbia universities, as well as at the Donnell and Jefferson Market libraries in New York City. Bennewitz took extensive notes on the university visits, and there was further documentation in the press (Bennewitz, Princeton, Commentary in Princeton Weekly; Miller 1979). As part of his official report to the authorities at home, ‘Bericht zum Arbeitsaufenthalt in den USA vom 1. April bis 6. Mai 1979,’ Bennewitz provided details of all of these events, including the attendance of over 200 at the Princeton live performance, and some 350 people additionally at the screenings, talks, and discussions. Attendance figures of the original run at La MaMa are not available. There were many speakers in the discussion period at Princeton, members of the cast including Jamil Zakkai (Faust), James Leon (Mephistopheles), Christine Campbell (Gretchen), Marilyn Amaral (Marthe), audience members, the translator and philosophy professor Walter Kaufmann, Stanley Corngold, and director Bennewitz. The actors made natural and humourful comments on their characters and perceptions of the thematics of Faust, but said nothing with the intensity or depth of what we have just seen from Campbell. It is striking, too, that the contributions of the university speakers and director remained almost completely theoretical, focusing on such questions as the play’s dialectics, pragmatic activism, problems of history and dehistorization, overarching archetypology, and psychological interpretations. That is also true of the other venues as far as the documentation shows. Except for one brief reference in the Georgetown materials, there is little evidence of any discussion of the production’s ethnic or racial dimensions. Christine Campbell’s later perspective on universities and civil rights, as recounted in her interview with Baevsky is telling: It is a weary struggle ... it’s swinging right back ... less blacks have been hired in jobs ... it is happening with the whole university system now ... this pendulum is constantly switching around ... yes, it was politically right at a certain point ... the civil rights bill was for money, it wasn’t for a real caring for people, and politically I have become aware of such things

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and what coming to grips with what blackness means: ... you feel ashamed to say but you have to look at your skin and you have to look at your culture. (Baevsky, Interview, 1978, 7; ‘Conversation with Christine Campbell,’ 1979, 7)

Unfortunately, this seemed to be her last word, just as sorrow and resignation had been Holiday’s reaction forty years earlier in the dirge ‘Strange Fruit.’ Yet three decades beyond that, the American people have elected their first black president. Slowly, things are indeed changing. The La MaMa and Princeton performances generated reviews in the American and East German press, but also with little reference to race (see New York Reviews). In the New York Times, Mel Gussow discussed the quality of the translation, the actors, sets, and scenes. His opinion of the whole was mixed. ‘Enduring this “Faust,”’ he wrote, ‘takes considerable patience, fortitude and a sense of obligation. Rarely are we presented with such a full dose of Goethe on stage.’ Yet, he concluded that ‘Visually and musically, there is merit in Mr Bennewitz’s production.’ Gussow makes no mention even of the fact that there were black actors. In his letter to Bennewitz of 30 May 1978, Kaufmann expressed anger over Gussow’s review, a reaction reinforced by Baevsky’s account (Letters, Baevsky, 26 July 1978), and a reader objected to it in a pubished letter. Gerald Rabkin in the Soho Weekly News lamented Goethe’s ponderously philosophical bent, which he associated with the German mind, but rejoiced that Goethe’s Faust, so rarely seen in the United States, was at least staged, and acknowledged the difficulties involved. He added some praise and much criticism. The only hint of race is one remark on Jamil Zakkai’s ‘Assyrian features.’ Erika Munk in the Village Voice concentrated on the acting performances and the lasting power of Goethe’s text, also not mentioning race. A piece in the Princeton Packet, however, stressed the production’s innovative nature, one feature of which was the fact that the two female leads were played by black actresses. In his article in Film Library Quarterly, based on the video of the Princeton performance, film and video historian Michael R. Miller (1979) praised the production, Bennewitz’s direction, and the actors, but left the racial issue unmentioned. The single German onsite review, by Charlotte Beradt of the Frankfurter Rundschau, generally offered high praise, especially for the quality of the acting and in particular for Campbell’s Gretchen. She did refer to the question of race, and in an amusing way: ‘Gretchen und Marthe Schwerdtlein sind bei Bennewitz farbig ... aber

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das fällt selbst bei blonden Gretchen Aufgewachsenen (zwei Freunde aus Deutschland begleiteten mich) kaum auf.’ Woithon’s later review article in the Thüringer Landeszeitung (TLZ), translated into German from predominantly English accounts gathered in August 1979 in New York, is based on the archival typescript of Menchén’s interview with Bennewitz, and Christine Campbell’s comments to Bennewitz after the performance (see Menchén 1979). For the most part, the TLZ piece provided little that had not been said publicly before, but it did address the racial issue directly, and in doing so drew attention to a crucial element of the play’s creative process and the elemental association between this Gretchen and her black heritage (Woithon 1979). Conclusion Such a remarkable combination of elements is rare: Goethe, Germany’s most celebrated poet; Faust, the most important work of German dramatic literature; the first black Gretchen; La MaMa, America’s leader in multicultural theatre and the tackling of social issues; and a setting that allowed all four to fuse into an historically unique event. In terms of theatre history, overcoming the exclusivity of Gretchen as the archetypical German blonde, blue-eyed girl, and even more importantly as a white one, deserves to be called revolutionary. It also stands as evidence to support Goethe’s famous claim, often questioned, often challenged, that poetry is universal and applicable to all people in all places at all times. Christine Campbell’s character transformation demonstrates this powerfully, at first thinking that her blackness had nothing to do with the Gretchen role, but becoming convinced that her colour and race should indeed be equated with the religious time and place of Goethe’s character, and also with her own. For Campbell and then her audience, the eighteenth century flowed into the twentieth, history and iconography were physically and emotionally transferred to Harlem and the Cloisters, and finally the horrors of racial persecution and the voice of one of its saddest victims, Billie Holiday. Bennewitz should receive everlasting credit for casting the first black Gretchen in the history of the stage, and for doing it so meaningfully. There can be no doubt that the New York production was a triumph of intercultural theatre.

Fritz Bennewitz in the 1960s. Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1965, Faust (Wolfgang Dehler) and Mephisto (Fred Diesko). Courtesy of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Theatersammlung, 3b, 46/2, Günter Dietel.

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1965, Margarete (Gudrun Volkmar) and Marthe (Linde Sommer). Courtesy of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Theatersammlung, 3b, 46/2, Günter Dietel.

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1975, Faust (Manfred Heine). Courtesy of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Theatersammlung, 166b, Günter Dietel.

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1975, Margarete (Helga Ziaja). Courtesy of Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Theatersammlung, 166b, Günter Dietel.

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1981, Margarete (Elke Wieditz). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar 1981, Program, Part II. Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen 1995, Bennewitz’ sketch (Faust I, 1603ff.). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

La MaMa Experimental Theater Company, New York 1978, Faust (Jamil Zakkai). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

La MaMa Experimental Theater Company, New York 1978, Faust (Jamil Zakkai) and Mephisto (James Leon). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

National Centre for the Performing Arts, Bombay 1994, Martha (Girija Katdare) and Margaret (Sharvani Dhond). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay 1994, Faust (Naseeruddin Shah). Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Philippine Educational Theater Association, Manila 1994, Bennewitz directing. Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Philippine Educational Theater Association, Manila 1994, Bennewitz and actors. Courtesy of Fritz-Bennewitz-Archiv, Leipzig (Prof. Rolf Rohmer).

Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen 1995, Hexe (Klaus Martin). Courtesy of Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen, Roland Reißig.

Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen 1995, Faust (Hans-Joachim Rodewald). Courtesy of Das Meininger Theater, Meiningen, Roland Reißig.

8 The Hindu Faust: Bombay 1994

Background In his interview, Dieter Görne made these remarks about Bennewitz and India: Ich weiß gar nicht, wie gut er da als Regisseur war. Aber dort war er als Theaterenthusiast und einer, der für Theater wirklich mit aller Leidenschaft und Konsequenz lebte. Da war er, denke ich, unglaublich gut und unentbehrlich. Er war ein neugieriger Mensch, er wollte nicht abgekapselt leben, sondern wollte, wenn er nun schon da war, das Leben kennenlernen. Von einem der ersten Besuche in Indien ist er todkrank nach Hause gekommen, weil er Eisenbahn gefahren ist, letzte Klasse, und irgendwann verseuchtes Wasser getrunken hat. Er hat Jahre daran laboriert. Ich werde

There exists no videotape of the entire performance, but a partial one taken at a late rehearsal in Bombay by Dietrich Schade and Sigrid Schade, German friends of Bennewitz, is available at the FBA (Bombay Faust). The source material for this chapter includes that videotape, as well as the program, Bennewitz’s director’s book, notes, and sketches; some of his writings on India and correspondence surrounding the production; interviews with Indian actors and others who were involved and whom he directed there; critical reviews; and extensive documentation in Hindi in the library of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai. Parts of this chapter have appeared in the author’s articles ‘Fritz Bennewitz in India: A Co-operative Research Project?’ (2005) and ‘Stage Productions of Goethe’s Faust in India’ (2008b). He has decided to use the city designation Bombay instead of the more recent Mumbai since it is consistent with the time in which Bennewitz directed this Faust. The name was officially changed to the Marathi Mumbai in 1996.

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es nicht vergessen – wir sind mal nach seiner ersten Indienreise gemeinsam nach Chemnitz gefahren. Da hat er wirklich die zwei Stunden, die wir gefahren sind, ununterbrochen von seinen Erlebnissen in Indien erzählt. Er quoll richtig über und das überraschte mich gar nicht, dass er Korrespondenzen gehabt hat bis zu den untersten Schichten und dass er da Verbindungen gehabt hat. Das ist typisch für ihn. (Chapter 2, p. 57)

The remarks refer to Bennewitz’s return from his first visit to India in 1970 and direction of Brecht’s Dreigrosochenoper in Hindi in collaboration with the National School of Drama in New Delhi (NSD). They summarize with appropriate enthusiasm Bennewitz’s relationship to India, something which far transcended the later Faust production. Görne manages to catch the essential elements of this relationship: Bennewitz was in India not just as a director, but as a passionate theatre lover and observer of other cultures. He played a singular role in the history of modern Indian theatre. He was a new and different person there, filled with enthusiasm for the culturally strange and unknown, devoting himself to his work with a phenomenal selfless energy and commitment which even pushed the borders of his health. He lived as an Indian and made a huge circle of loyal friends of all types. For the next twenty-five years India became the most important focus of Fritz Bennewitz’s life. Because of this, we must put the Faust production of 1994 in Bombay into the broader context of his complete Indian experience. Of all the countries Bennewitz visited, India was by far his most frequent destination and location of the most personal contacts. As listed in Appendix 2 and Appendix 3, he visited and worked there at least eighteen times between 1970 and 1994, directing not fewer than thirty-seven plays or collages, with Brecht and Shakespeare in the foreground by far. In addition he conducted many actor training workshops, alone or with Indian colleagues. His travels and work with theatre folk took him all over the country, to Bangalore, Bhopal, Bombay, Calcutta, Chandigar, Heggodu, Karnataka, Lucknow, Mysore, New Delhi, Poona, and Vishakapattnam, most repeatedly, and required the use of numerous Indian languages. Although Bennewitz was linguistically talented and extraordinarily sensitive to cultural differences, he could not have directed these alone, and the fact that he did so much cooperative directing with others of his stature, as well as the actors themselves, testifies to his openness, gregariousness, and ability to work as one of an interculturally cooperative group. On the occasion of his production of Volker Braun’s

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Grosser Frieden (Maha Shanti) in 1992 he received the Sangeet-NatakAkademi-Award for his lifetime contribution to Indian theatre, the significance of which is underscored by the ceremony’s program of 18 February 1992 which included remarks by chairman of the National Academy of Arts Girsih Karnad, Chief Minister and Governor of Rajasthan Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, Dr M. Chenna Reddy, and Indian President R. Venkataraman (Sangeet). He also developed personal and artistic friendships which resulted in Indian colleagues and actors visiting the German Democratic Republic and on occasion mounting Indian productions there. Leading in this was Vijaya Mehta (Weimar, Mudrarakshasa/Hayavadana, 1976 and 1984; Leipzig, Shakuntala/Nagamandala, 1980). After the reunification of Germany in 1989, such activity was intensified, with September 1991 to April 1992 designated as the theatre ‘Festival of India’ in Berlin and guest performances by Indian troupes during the Berliner Festtage. Overall, the cultural exchange in theatre that Bennewitz initiated between the GDR, then the FRG, and India lasted from 1970 to 1994. Bennewitz’s first Indian Brecht production, The Threepenny Opera in 1970, was sponsored by the International Theatre Institute (iTi) as well as the GDR and Indian ministries of culture, and it marked the beginning of decades of artistic cooperation and friendship between himself and Vijaya Mehta at the NSD. With justification, he claimed that their co-direction of C.T. Khanolkar’s Ajab nyaya vartulacha (Strange Justice of the Circle), from Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1973 (Lal 2004, 45), introduced a new stage in Indian Brecht reception (Pietzsch 1983, 43). It later led the way for his entry to New York and Manila, was the first Indian play to be invited to the Berliner Festtage, and engendered further Brecht productions by Indian directors such as M.K. Rainas (The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Mother) and Habib Tanvirs (The Good Woman of Sezuan; Pietzsch 1983, 45). His report entitled ‘Internationale Co-operation auf dem Theater,’ to his own government and to the International Theatre Institute, gives an overview of the GDR-Indian theatre exchange until about 1980. Bennewitz genuinely wished to encourage intercultural exchange and believed that fundamental commonalities among peoples could be demonstrated through the works of these playwrights. His conviction that the local language must be used as the play’s vehicle of communication was essential to his commitment to cultural understanding. Hence Bennewitz used Indian actors and their languages, engaging in an extensive learning process to familiarize himself sufficiently with these languages and their cultural

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associations to correct and direct the natives, relying then on English as a vehicle for explanation (Galot 1994). Correspondence with friends at home and personal photographs attest to the hardships he faced in adjusting to Indian life, for he usually chose very simple quarters like those of most of his actors. Archival films of rehearsals and discussions show a remarkable warmth and openness in his working relationships. This can be seen in the following, which is a typical sample from his Indian correspondence, comprising excerpts from an eighteen-point summary by B.J. Suvarna (1981) which was also published in Kannada in conjunction with Bennewitz’s production of Puntila in Bangalore: Though he is in his 50’s, his active involvement would make a teenager feel ashamed. He is full of life. From morning at 9 (sometimes 7) to night-time at 11 o’clock he rehearsed, but we never heard a word about tiredness or boredom ... He never cared for food nor bothered about the poor rehearsal space, but he was very particular about the rehearsals themselves ... For our actors and actresses, working with Bennewitz was a different experience. We are used to copying our directors in each and every respect, but Bennewitz gave the actors utmost freedom and never encouraged the habit of copying the director. As a result, each actor felt responsible for his or her character. If an actor did something good on the stage, he used to express his happiness like a child ... He used to tell the actors to try to understand the co-characters as well as their own ... Everybody is his equal. His friendliness and sense of humour are noteworthy ... He had high ambitions and at each stage encouraged the actors to do the same ... It was amazing that though he knew only a few words of Kannada, because of his understanding of acting he was able to make some remarks in that language ... He likes the stories of our Puranas and Ramayana. Ganesh is his favourite god. He told us he has different photos of Ganesh in his house in Germany.1

Even though most of the actors were not highly talented and needed to learn a great deal about Bennewitz’s concept of acting, the feeling of respect was mutual. In his private correspondence, he wrote back to Germany with specific reference to the Bombay Faust: das Gretchen ist eine ‘Straßenenteckung’ und ein Wunderkind. Die Mehr-

1 Slightly edited to smooth stylistic bumps.

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zahl ist gut – und wenn ich durch die Barrieren hiesiger Manierismen, (unartigen) Gewohnheiten durchkomme (was oft über die Gelassenheit hinaus Geduld braucht), können sie auch besser als gut werden (obwohl, ein Abstand wird bleiben). Der Zwang, das Stück durch zwei Sprachen (aus dem Englischen – was auch doppelt- und dreifache Rückübersetzungen aus dem Goetheschen Text braucht – ins Hindi) hindurch auszuwinden, ist freilich auch mein Vorteil in der Arbeit: in einer fremden Sprache muß ich den Text in der Tiefe des Schauspielers, an der Nabelschnur der Wahrhaftigkeit aufsuchen. Und ich bin nicht so vermessen, daß ich das Weltgedicht vermitteln wollte oder könnte – ich schicke das DRAMA in eine andere Kultur, was nicht sofort dasselbe sein muß. (Letters, Anon 3, 1 Nov. 1993)

Beyond his obvious admiration and gratitude to the director, the Indian actor’s tribute above also gives us a good idea of Bennewitz’s appreciation of Indian culture and brilliant sensitivity to language. His knowledge of the Ramayana, along with the Mahabharata, the most ancient Indian epics which serve as a vast source of material for traditional drama, and the Puranas, ancient philosophical writings with a status similar to the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, demonstrate the depth of this understanding. Such testimonials are common in the archival documentation where his India correspondence fills a remarkable nineteen binders, each containing several hundred pages of text. Bennewitz’s range and cultural flexibility in India were all the more impressive if we hold his Indian repertoire against the fact that the country has distinctive theatre traditions in twenty-two states, functioning in seventeen official languages and several hundred dialects (Chatturvedi 1998, 129; Brockhaus 2002; New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985). His statement above tells us much about the process of his apparently facile linguistic flexibility. He clearly had to work very hard at it by switching among three languages, from the original to English, to the local language, and back and forth constantly, to distil the essence of what needed to be communicated in the target language and have the actors comprehend and deliver it effectively within their cultural context. That was a lofty goal, and with his Faust and all of his other productions it no doubt reached varying levels of success. Yet the intercultural commitment, to blend both the culture of the source text and that of the actors’ milieu, was always clear. Roland Beer’s official GDR–India: Cultural Relations summarizes Bennewitz’s activities from 1970 to 1984, including the official state ex-

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change agreements and connected reciprocal visits ([1984], 5–6, 43–7), and gives him appropriate recognition. Bennewitz’s own reports, ‘India overview’ (n.d.) and ‘Internationale Co-operation auf dem Theater’ (1980), enrich this account through his description of the essential elements of traditional Indian folk theatre which he kept in mind when adapting all of his productions. Other valuable overviews of Bennewitz’s activity in India include the interviews ‘Theatre for the Masses’ (Lal 1983), ‘Theatererfahrungen in der Dritten Welt’ (Pietzsch 1983), and ‘Am wichtigsten ist der Dialog’ (Stephan 1995). Indian theatre has a tradition spanning several millennia. Indian folk theatre received an enormous boost when India achieved its independence in 1947, and the new government strove to support traditional art forms after two centuries of British colonial influence and rule (Chatturvedi 1998, 144–50; Brandon 1997; Frasca and Ananthakrishnan 2007; Lal 2004). Ironically, the beginning of India’s post-colonial period coincided almost exactly with the creation of the German Democratic Republic. In his ‘India overview,’ and with reference to the Natyashastra (A Treatise on Theatre), a poetics comparable to Aristotle’s and attributed to Bharatamuni, Bharata the Sage (Sastry 1977), Bennewitz summarized the essential characteristics of traditional Indian theatre in this checklist: • The significance of music and dance. Traditional Indian theatre is more danced and sung than spoken, with choreographic interludes both independent and integrated into plays. • Rules for the stylization of language, the alternation of verse and prose which from Sanskrit drama is part of the characterization of the play’s personae. • The role of the chorus. • The absence of stage sets and decoration and the role of the actors to describe it in an imaginary fashion. • The use of masks and the ritualistic art of make-up. • The significance of costumes and colours. • The meaning of gestures and mimic expressions. • The relationship between actors and audience. • The position of the audience and movements of actors with respect to it. • The various functions of dialogue, to narrate, to describe, and to comment. • Reliance on the great Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, the

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Puranas, medieval legends and folk tales as almost exclusive, and seemingly inexhaustible sources of plots. • The tendency of folk theatre to integrate local gossip, current politics, and social criticism into its action; and to use alienating techniques. Bennewitz’s objective as a director in India was to integrate these characteristics into his productions. Adaptations of Faust, encompassing Goethe’s and Marlowe’s versions, had been produced five times in India before Bennewitz’s attempt, as colonial theatre and in the older styles of Indian tradition. Two fine examples of those in traditional Indian style and form include a version directed by Krishna Kamail in 1976, done as a Kathakali dance drama, and another directed in 1993 by the American Erin B. Mee, in Indian folk style (John 2008b). Mee’s adaptation was performed in the south Indian Malayalam language by the Sopanam theatre company at the Karthika Thirunal Theatre in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Southern India. For her dramatic text, she turned to the distinguished author and director Kavalam Narayana Panikkar’s adaptation (Panikker [sic] 1999). Mee worked closely on site with Panikkar, creating a performance rich in elements of Indian folk theatre. Their discussions, as documented in Mee’s notes, are an impressive record of intercultural communication and exchange. Almost twenty years earlier, Aymanam Krishna Kaimal had directed his own translation and adaptation of Goethe’s Faust in the Kathakali style. It was performed in Kottayam, Kerala, with narration in Malayalam, and with subsequent stagings in Kochin, Trivandrum, Mumbai, and New Delhi over the next three years (Kaimal 1979). Kaimal blended Goethe’s concept with the Hindu legend of Rugmangatha Charitam from the first part of the epic Mahabharata. Kathakali is a form of dance drama stemming from the sixteenth century with narration, accompanying music, and elaborate systems of costume, make-up, mimicry, and gestures (details of both productions are in John 2008b). Bennewitz makes no mention of either of these productions, although a playbill of Kaimal’s Kathakali Faust performance in New Delhi is among the FBA materials, as is a typed description of Kathakali, written by Bennewitz, so he was certainly aware of this indigenous art form and likely saw it performed during his travels to Kerala (Bennewitz, ‘Kathakali,’ n.d.). There have also been published translations of Goethe’s Faust in several Indian languages. The revered poet, philosopher, and politician Al-

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lama Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) had it translated first into Urdu in 1931 and later Hindi in 1939. Bholanath Sharma translated Part I into Hindi as well in 1939 (A. Sharma 2008). Goethe had approached India with some trepidation. He made few references to it in his oeuvre or private writings, and the Indian perspective on life, religion, and social order generally alienated, even repelled him, especially its circular philosophical foundation and strict social stratification. Yet there was an abiding fascination as well, as seen in his allusions to India in book twelve of Dichtung und Wahrheit, the Groß-Cophta, his knowledge of Kàlidàsa’s Shakuntala, the ballads of his Indische Legenden, and his ‘Vorspiel’ to Faust I (Mehlig 1998). Despite his lifetime passion for Faust and eagerness to produce it repeatedly on the Weimar stage, Bennewitz insisted later, ‘I would never have dared to do Faust in India, ... but I was also waiting for someone to ask. First Girish Karnad [actor, playwright, play and film director] did, and then came this amazing offer from the Indian National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Vijaya Mehta. It was a tremendous challenge’ (Galot 1994). From the Indian point of view, Bennewitz was ‘one of the best theatre directors in the world’ (ibid.), and Mehta wanted a coup for her new stage at the NCPA. To help achieve this, it was agreed that two celebrity actors who had studied at the National School of Drama would be engaged: Panjay Kapur as Faust and Naseeruddin Shah as Mephistopheles. Both were by 1994 stars of Indian stage and screen in Bombay; Shah, more accurately, an idol, which he still is in the Bollywood scene. These Bollywood darlings brought instant cachet to the enterprise, and both had even agreed to work gratis as a favour and tribute to Bennewitz and Mehta, who had inspired them in their careers (see Bombay Reviews by Siggi Seuß). Michael Quinn’s (1990) and Marvin Carlson’s (2001) writings on the notions of ghosting and celebrity in theatre are instructive in this regard. Carlson writes, ‘In the case of actors who appear on television or in films as well as in the live theatre, the mass circulation of these other media makes it highly likely that even an active theatregoing public may bring to an actor’s newest theatrical creation associations drawn more for that actor’s work in the mass media than onstage. Often this ghosting is actively encouraged by the production’s publicity program, hoping to draw to the theatre audience members who have enjoyed the work of a particular actor on television or in films’ (70 and 135). In 1993, as Bennewitz’s friends were preparing documentation on his life, Naseeruddin Shah contributed this personal tribute:

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I met Fritz for the first time in 1970, 23 years ago, when I had finished my university studies and had come to New Delhi to see his production of the Threepenny Opera which he had done with the National School of Drama – and I must admit that that was a substantial reason for my entering acting school. I think it was a grand production, I harbored the desire to work with Fritz, and this wish has now been fulfilled after all these years … I have worked with many directors who had no love for their actors, and it is so wonderful to meet a director who not only loves us, who not only cares about the acting, but who helps the actor to improve, with extraordinary care, even to the point of mutual exhaustion. The degree of warmth he brings to the actors is phenomenal and I don’t think I have ever experienced another director who has shown the degree of trust that he shows … I mean, he would take ten minutes to explain something that takes five seconds, but not a word he says is superfluous or superficial. The direction he gives and his understanding of theatre are absolutely phenomenal. I consider myself extremely fortunate that I have been able to work with him in this way.

One could hardly ask for a more convincing testimonial to Bennewitz’s influence on Indian actors, his dedication to his craft, his sensitivity to human relationships, his talent to draw the best from those around him, and his ability to command loyalty among his apprentices and colleagues. Even considering Indians’ post-colonial penchant to praise extravagantly such father figures, and indeed be kind, generous, even sycophantic to Westerners in general, there is so much evidence that Fritz Bennewitz was loved by his actors and theatre colleagues that it is beyond doubt. This author’s own experience at the 2003 conference of the International Theatre Association in Jaipur, and in the years since then, asking colleagues and others who knew him for assistance in his research, has reinforced this belief even more. There are dozens of letters in the FBA, especially from the late 1980s, from aspiring actors asking for Bennewitz’s professional advice, as well as copies of his painstaking, generous responses. The author can also attest to the fact that both Kapur and Shah feel the same about Bennewitz today; while researching this book in Mumbai he spoke with both of them and they were more than willing to sing his posthumous praises and provide anecdotes about his influence. An extensive correspondence surrounded the production, beginning with Vijaya Mehta’s letter of 22 March 1993 from Bombay to Bennewitz in Weimar and continuing until that autumn. It contains initial organi-

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zational details, information on travel plans, cost schedules, details of set building and costume design, suggestions on casting, translation, rehearsals, an actors’ workshop, and music. Much had to be done before Bennewitz’s arrival in Bombay in September 1993. Supplementing this correspondence are letters between Bennewitz and Jamshed J. Bhabha, trustee of the NCPA, which focused further on business matters, and between Bennewitz and Anna Winterberg of the Max Mueller Bhavan Indo-German Cultural Centre, a branch of the Goethe Institute in Munich, the primary financial sponsor. Both influenced the production’s success directly. It was scheduled initially for the experimental theatre space of the NCPA with three hundred seats, but Bhabba wrote to Mehta, ‘in order to make Faust a greater success, I personally request you, on behalf of my colleagues and myself, to consider featuring this important pioneering project in the thousand-seat Tata Theatre,’ to which Bennewitz agreed, but with uncharacteristic hubris: ‘Our promise has been from the very beginning to let our imagination move within the limits of the budget, i.e., to make the project financially viable and to ensure that the production can be kept alive for a few years,’ and as a side-remark: ‘my last German production of the play – premièred on 7th October 1981 – is still running to packed houses and will see another two seasons’ (Letter to Bhabha, 1–2). These turned out to be fateful words with regard to both productions. Vijaya Mehta adopted similar goals, seeing it as a personal challenge to fill the Tata Theatre, the largest of its type in Bombay. It is a well-lit, modern auditorium, without any architectural suggestions of being Indian, in Marvin Carlson’s terminology (1990), completely out of context with the indigenous culture surrounding it. The name Tata bore a certain stamp of credibility for the production, most of all in the industrialized world, for the Tata family was, and remains, one of India’s wealthiest and most influential in business and international corporate ownership. It is also a major philanthropic supporter of the Indian arts. But the choice of this performance space proved problematic, for the theatre scene in 1993/94 Bombay was a far cry from the state-protected Weimar Nationaltheater of the GDR. Despite its ongoing flirtations with socialism, India was then, and still is by population the world’s largest democracy and capitalist state. Put simply, the box office would be one of the major factors for achieving success. That the Tata Theatre and NCPA facilities were selected as the venue for the production had an ironically symbolic dimension as well. The land for the theatre had been obtained by building a dyke and drain-

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ing the seawater, like Faust’s grand plan in Part II, but the grandeur of this in both cases led to mixed success. Bennewitz flew to Bombay on 27 September 1993 to begin rehearsals and make final production arrangements. His first letters home already showed reservations about the working conditions, the Tata Theatre space, and the commitment of his leading actors, who were focused more on television and film roles in the burgeoning Bollywood industry than on his Faust, despite their generous commitment to him. He had a great deal of confidence in the ability of the other actors, but they still needed considerably more training and discipline than anticipated (Letters, Anon 1). The stars, Kapur as Faust and Shah as Mephistopheles, were actors of the highest quality and experience, but their work schedules were problematic. It was difficult even to get them together on stage because of their other commitments, with most of the communications done via their secretaries (Letters, Anon 2). Despite Bennewitz’s renowned ambience with his actors, problems began to arise early in the rehearsal phase. In a letter home to Frau Mertes in Weimar, he complained, Ich bin nun in der achten Woche hier … Acht Wochen sind eben eine lange Zeit und auch wenn ich jeden Tag ausgelastet arbeite: die FORTSCHRITTE in der Arbeit stehen in keinem Verhältnis zur ZEIT … Und ich erwähne es auch nur, damit ich’s mal loswerde. Wenn ich manchmal eine Stunde warten muß, bis eine Probe beginnen kann, da sinkt auch der Energiespiegel; zum Glück bin ich mit solchen Energien reichlich begabt, daß ich sie in der Arbeit immer wieder hochholen kann. Auf die Dauer aber erschöpft sich der ENTHUSIASMUS. (Letters, to Mertes, 10 Nov. 1993; uppercase in original).

Anyone who has visited, and especially lived and worked in India, knows that the concepts of punctuality and time efficiency in many circles are much more flexible than they are in the West. Yet Bennewitz had worked there many times before this, so more than that was at play here. His impatience resulted in part from his own stressful situation, the intense schedule he was trying to maintain, and the ongoing demands in Germany and internationally which he constantly had in mind – he had just recently tried unsuccessfully to mount Brecht’s Mann ist Mann in Bangladesh, directed Der Richter von Zalamea in Thale, as well as the first part of Wallenstein in Meiningen, and was at the same time negotiating with his contacts in Manila to do a Faust there as well,

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on top of Shakespeare’s Sommernachtstraum in Thale and the second part of Wallenstein in Meiningen. Advancing age and illness were undoubtedly significant factors as well. Despite his broad experience in India co-directing plays in the local languages with Indian colleagues many times, now he complained privately about the problems this caused: Natürlich weiß ich auch um die Schwierigkeiten, die – außer unseren Protagonisten, die ich eben noch nicht auf einer Probe hatte, die haben nämlich HINDI als ihre Muttersprache [i.e., Kapur, Shah] – alle die anderen Schauspieler haben, die zwar Hindi sprechen, weil sie das auch in der Schule gelernt haben, MARATHI als Muttersprache – und selbst wenn sie den HINDI-Text genau verstanden haben, kriegen sie ihn schwer in die dieser Sprache natürliche Logik – im Unterbewußtsein rennt der MARATHI-Rythmus und steckt den Hindi-Satz wie mit einem Virus an, und da kommen zwar die Worte, aber sie sind nicht im inneren Zentrum des Schauspielers angenabelt. (Rohmer, ‘Faust auf drei Kontinenten,’ n.d. 15; slight stylistic corrections made)

In the case of the stars Kapur and Shah, with whom there were no language problems, his aside to the effect that he had not to date actually rehearsed with them pointed to a problem that was never solved. They, like he, were terribly overbooked, and when it came to a conflict between shooting films concurrently, the choice was obvious. They did rehearse later, and performed well when the show opened, but clearly their absence was a growing concern and undermined the coordination and to some extent the quality of the production. This was not Bennewitz’s style, which was to give and require full commitment. Neither he nor his stars were meeting that standard. The Performance Bennewitz adapted Goethe’s text drastically to create the performance text, a process in which his actors played an active part. As was usually the case in his productions, it remained a text in flux, changing from evening to evening, as mutually contradicting markings in the director’s book suggest. He almost certainly used C.F. MacIntyre’s 1949 translation as his dramatic text since the volume of it in the FBA contains a picture of a Bombay rehearsal. This list of the major adjustments gives some sense of Bennewitz’s revisions:

The Hindu Faust: Bombay 1994 Dedication Prelude in the Theatre Prologue in Heaven Night Before the Gate Study I Study II Auerbach’s Cellar Witches’ Kitchen Street (F&M) Evening (Margarete) Promenade (F&M) Neighbor’s House Street (F&M) Garden Garden House Forest and Cave Gretchen’s Room Martha’s Garden At the Well Rampart Night Cathedral Walpurgis Night W-Night’s Dream Overcast Day Night Prison

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Deleted Deleted Reduced by half Reduced by two-thirds Reduced by two-thirds Generally reduced by two-thirds, but central Faust-Mephisto part kept intact Faust-Meph parts cut by half; Meph-Student part kept largely intact Reduced by two-thirds Reduced by three-quarters Reduced by half Reduced by two-thirds Reduced by half Kept almost intact Kept almost intact Reduced by two-thirds Nine-tenths deleted Three-quarters deleted Kept almost intact Three-quarters deleted Kept almost intact Half deleted Two-thirds deleted Three-quarters deleted Nine-tenths deleted Not in this translation Half deleted Deleted Half deleted; last 200 lines kept almost intact (Bennewitz, Bombay Scene Outline)

Bennewitz maintained only what could be called the essence of Goethe’s text. If there was a pattern in the major deletions, it was to eliminate anything not central to the Gretchen plot (Prelude, Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Night’s Dream), maintain a textual core for the central characters, and give Mephistopheles/Shah opportunities to shine. While Bennewitz’s notes to the production give us a clear idea of the relationship between performance and text, they only tell half of the story of the directing process, for he was working with Vijaya Mehta as

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co-director. In the NCPA library, her own working copy of the text can still be inspected, including her marginal notes (see NCPA Holdings re Bennewitz’s 1993 Faust production). There was also a team of Indian costumers, musicians, dance coaches, and technicians. The Hindi translation was done by Ramesh Rajhans and Atul Tiwari, and is very close to the original. Met Rajesh Rathod worked backstage in production and on stage in crowd scenes. But Bennewitz brought with him from Germany Kristian Panzer, his principal set and costume designer as well as lighting director, and Conrad Aust, a composer, for the Western music score. Panzer attempted to design the set as a compromise between Western and Indian theatrical traditions, as he later described in an interview (Bennewitz, Interview NDR, 1993), and Bennewitz worked with Indian staff responsible for Hindi songs (Bhaskar Chandavarkar), costumes (Bharati Jaffrey, Anisha Agarwal), masks (Banoo Batliboi, Dilshad Faroodi), and choreography (Dodo Bhajwala). In an interview with Deepa Ghalot, Bennewitz called the production ‘a major cross-cultural experiment – the coming together of two contrasting organisms. “It may not become an Indian play, but it may not remain German either. And we might have something truly global.”’ The extensive documentation on the production in the library of the NCPA is evidence that almost all of Bennewitz’s Indian support crew was working not in English but in Hindi, as well as the local language, Marathi. Their eleven binders of material are described in the Bibliography (see NCPA holdings). Judging from a visual scan of the audience, it was a generally affluent group who were no doubt also aware from the venue that it was planned as a grand event. The video actually begins with scenes from the upscale neighbourhood of the NCPA and beautiful boulevard on Nariman Point just in front. A visit to the largest theatre of its type in the city, which bears the Tata name, suggested first class all the way, international standards, and not Indian folklore. Probably not many in the audience knew much about Faust, although university-educated individuals might well have come across it on a reading list during their studies, for the work by Marlowe and to some extent Goethe is known in India on that level. They also might have known one of the translations or even seen one of the Indian Fausts performed, or might have read reviews in the press. Most or even all audience members were likely aware that this was a European play and not an Indian one, so the performance in their minds drew a connection to post-colonial, rather than to indigenous theatre. The program and cast list, with information

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on the play, sponsors, and an endorsement from the Goethe Institute/ Max Mueller Bhavan Director Anna Winterberg all pointed them in that direction as well. As India is approximately 85 per cent Hindu, it is likely too that the great majority of audience members were of that faith, so they would have little understanding of the many Christian allusions so important to the Faust drama, unless these were recast substantially. The videotape also includes extended interviews with Goethe Institute Director Winterberg and the play’s co-director Vijaya Mehta, the latter’s remarks being particularly noteworthy. Mehta talked about literary exchanges between India and Germany and her long association with Bennewitz, saying that the aim of the Faust production and NCPA’s work was to ‘conserve and promote excellence in the performing arts,’ and then she went on to mention examples from the Western classical ideal of acting and performance tradition, and to Indian ancient and historical conventions. She talked as well of the significance of choosing Hindi as the language medium, for it made sense as one of the country’s two national languages, alongside English, giving the Indian alternative precedence. Mehta said, in sum, that she saw her role as co-director and sponsor as ‘communicating Fritz’s ideas to an Indian audience’ (Media, videotapes, Bombay). We will evaluate this position here after looking at the play. The Performance2 The set for the scenes was constructed of light brown wooden planks with several levels and a tower-like structure rising from the rear. Possible associations include references to the layers of history that preceded Faust and formed his thinking, or perhaps the chaotic, ever-present Indian caste system. The costumes were generally modern but with mixed cultural associations as will be described from scene to scene. In general, the sets, costumes, and sparse props suggest a minimalist and at the same time universal approach, in other words, from the play’s appearance most of the time it could be located almost anywhere.

2 The author wishes to thank Saskya Jain and Anandita Sharma for their substantial contributions to the following analysis. His thanks go as well to Dietrich Schade and Sigrid Schade, who took it upon themselves to videotape the only filmic record in existence and took the time to discuss it with him.

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For those aware of the very few connections between Goethe and India, it may come as a surprise that the production begins not with the Prelude to the Theatre but with the Prologue in Heaven. In his writings, Goethe indicated explicitly that he had taken his model for the Prelude of Faust from the legendary Indian Sanskrit poet and dramatist Kàlidàsa (fourth to sixth century) and his drama Shakuntala (Goethe, Goethes Werke, WA I, 4: 122; Mehlig 1998: 521–4), a connection that has been noted and explored by many scholars. Such preludes, in fact, became thereafter a common structural part of Indian theatre, and are still today maintained in many folk theatre productions. In the Prologue to begin the performance, the Lord appears in a wheelchair flanked by the three archangels. One of them fumbles to start up an antique gramophone, and after some banging and scratching succeeds, resulting in a fanfare of German classical music (a parallel to the action in Bennewitz’s 1981 Weimar production). Unlike the original, the angels are female, suggesting Hindu apsaras, a type of celestial nymph. Indian cosmogony has no place for angels, just gods, goddesses, and natural creatures. Raphael’s and Gabriel’s lines are chanted in metres recognizable to the Hindu audience as the Vedic style, hence connecting them with the Brahmanas, the Vedic ritualistic texts. Only Michael diverges from this pattern and addresses the Lord directly. The depiction of the Lord and his antiquated ritualistic supporting cast could be seen as a satire on the strength and relevance of monotheistic authority. The third archangel breaks the chanting at one point and says her lines leaning towards the Lord in a loving manner, as if trying to console him. Perhaps he and his wheelchair symbolize the helplessness of the Christian God, or indeed any supreme being in today’s world, or on a local level frustration about India’s public hospitals, well known for their mismanagement, lack of sanitation, corruption, and ill-tempered staff. The gramophone can be seen as an archaic, decadent, symbol of colonialist luxury, past glory, and better times, and its Western classical music a sign of the disjuncture between that era and Indian tradition and culture. The Lord’s weakness becomes even more apparent when the brash and handsome dandy Mephistopheles appears to the beat of American rock music. He would have been immediately recognizable to the audience as Naseeruddin Shah, the popular star. The audience would side with him at once and the stage would be set for him to steal the show. Unlike most members of the acting corps, Shah knew something about the Faust legend and that the role of Mephistopheles had historically

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been an opportunity for actors to make a mark in theatre history by creating their own definition of the character. He knew, for example, of Gustav Gründgens’s characterizations of 1941 and 1957, the most celebrated of all. Shah’s Mephistopheles enters the Prologue wearing a trendy leather jacket, red socks, a bowler hat, horns, and with painted face, defying the traditional values that the Lord and his entourage represent. He is marked from the beginning by a red light surrounding him. The language for both him and the Lord is pure, stylized, and poetic Hindi, almost devoid of colloquial expressions or ‘Hinglish’ phrases that are common in everyday Hindi in India, a pattern that holds for the rest of the scenes, with few exceptions, where rougher language is required by the characters and circumstances, for example, in Auerbach’s Keller. At his line ‘Nein, Herr! ich find es dort, wie immer, herzlich schlecht’ (296), he throws a newspaper at the Lord’s feet, jets sound overhead, and the audience hears the instantly recognizable musical motif and announcer’s voice of the televised Indian national news, so Mephistopheles is connected immediately to current affairs in India and perhaps internationally. He addresses the Lord as ‘Malik,’ meaning Master, but without religious connotation. He in turn is referred to by the Lord as ‘jaitàna,’ mischievous demon or devil. Shah’s Mephistopheles is not evil, but rather the rascal or rogue, the German ‘Schalk,’ a figure that traditionally captured the fancy of the Indian public. In Mephistopheles, the phenomenon of evil is placed specifically into contemporary Indian society through the newspaper reports and telecast, as if Satan were reporting from India. But as opposed to God, he is completely in control of the situation. The figure of Satan was also made popular in India at this time by a TV commercial promoting the ‘Onida’ brand of televisions. Satan would appear on the screen and encourage buyers to purchase an Onida TV with the slogan ‘Onida – neighbor’s envy, owner’s pride.’ After this commercial, everybody in the Indian middle class knew that a Satan has two small red horns and a tail and encourages you to do things that make everybody else envious. The figure of jaitàna in the Indian context had also been made popular by third-rate Bollywood horror films of the 1980s and 1990s. As the problem of evil is not so clearly marked out in the Hindu religion, these films often turned to Christian symbols for help. The evil spirit or a badly made-up monster was frequently referred to as jaitàna who could be driven away by holding a cross before him. Obviously, to this point Bennewitz has attempted to blend Indian elements into the postcolonial stew.

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The use of music in the Prologue also signals Bennewitz’s hybrid approach to the production. Classical German music played on the antique gramophone obviously links the scene to the past, to Europe and to India’s colonial phase. Classical music in Indian Vedic religions, as suggested by the angels, has a divine history. That music was born through the will of the gods. There is harmony in music as there is harmony in the heavenly spheres. Both European and Vedic classical music follow a strict note scale. Any sense of divinity in the European music though is jarred by the malfunctioning gramophone and the entry of Mephistopheles and his background of blaring rock. The music of rebellious youth now becomes a signature for the scene, the instrument of revolt against all age-old conventions. In the Prologue, this pot-pourri of symbols and allusions from Christian and Hindu traditions, as well as historical and contemporary times, suggests a universal application that helps define the approach of the entire production. Faust’s thick overcoat in the Night scene has no place in Indian tradition and along with his skull cap connotes a Western or universal style, but Wagner’s costume, balaclava, shawl, stick, and bent pose strongly suggest the traditional Indian watchman character often depicted in Hindi films. His nose-poking into Faust’s study, whence he hears the ranting, is thus only natural. His reference to a ‘griechisch Trauerspiel’ (523) is translated into Hindi as ‘purana natak,’ ‘old play,’ and is thus universalized. In the scene, the word ‘Geist’ representing the Erdgeist is translated as atma (soul, spirit), and its presence through sound and changes of light suggests spirits not of any specific context but rather universal symbolism. No form is shown, but the voice is female, and therefore could evoke in this audience’s mind the figure of Bh·mi devμ or Bh·devμ, the representative goddess, Mother Earth, who plays a prominent role in Hindu cosmology (Vitsaxis 1997). This is Bennewitz’s second gender conversion in the production, after the archangels. A third occurs in the Witches’ Kitchen. The witch’s voice and presence create here a feeling of strength, in contrast to the weakness and senility of the Lord in the Prologue, so she could perhaps be seen as a denial of the Christian figure in favour of the Hindu, and the motif of the hospital is picked up here again in the costuming of the witch and her entourage. Wagner’s reference to Easter (598) is omitted, Faust’s monologue after his departure is de-Christianized (602–736), and the explicitly Christian dichotomy of Heaven and Hell (762–84) is minimized and generalized to the level of a moral and ethical struggle. The bells do, indeed, sound at the end of the scene and make Faust think of

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new beginnings, and they do evoke Christian church bells, as opposed to Hindu temple bells which ring monotonously, but there is no Easter or any other religious sentiment attached to what is said. Before the Gate is marked by the music of a street band and Indian melodies, but their drums are not traditionally Indian, and there are no traditional Indian instruments (e.g., dhol drums, flute, sitar, swarmandal), except perhaps for the tambourine. Neither is there any dancing, surely an excellent opportunity to introduce Indian cultural material. The farmer and villagers are clichés of the Indian rural poor, bent beside long walking sticks, as often depicted in Indian films. Some of them ask for Faust’s autograph, perhaps a touch of Bollywood irony, given Panjay Kapur’s prominent role. Wagner represents the service class of urban India with his sweeping hand and arm gestures and typical movements accompanying his lines (e.g., the sideways ‘headshake’). Faust and Mephistopheles, by contrast, use more stylized, universal theatrical gestures. ‘Fieberwut’ (999) is translated as ‘plague’ – the English word is used – overlooking possible Hindi equivalents. In 1994, there were, indeed, cases of bubonic and pneumonic plague in south central and southwestern India, which briefly spread panic in the media, but they were quickly contained. In the first Study scene the poodle is transformed initially into a type of ghost monster with pointed black hat and a red mark on his forehead, with no apparent association to organized religion. Faust tries to dispel him with a rattle and an exorcistic routine, reminiscent of typical tricks of the traditional Indian Ojha or Shaman, and of Indian magicians in Hindi films. He succeeds at last with the sign of the cross, thereby turning to Christian imagery in the absence of a Hindu equivalent. The embodied Mephistopheles then enters and doffs his hat, a Western rather than an Indian gesture. In the scene of Faust’s Bible translation, ‘Im Anfang war das Wort’ (1224) remains clearly the biblical text, but it is unlikely that many in the Hindu audience would recognize it as such, and would more likely understand it as some sort of ancient universal wisdom. From the exorcism rhyme (1283–91), the words ‘Salamander ... Undene ... Sylphe ... Incubus [Goblin]’ are said in English instead of their available equivalents in Hindi, another example of universalization. For the second Study scene, Mephistopheles appears like an Indian dandy in orange shawl, walking stick, and top hat, strutting with pleasure in his fancy attire, again defying traditional values and morals. Faust’s ‘du mußt es dreimal sagen’ (1531) remains, as do the details of the blood signature (1635–98), neither of which has a place in Hindu

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belief or Indian superstition. At the end, Mephistopheles’s scene with the student is a parody of the traditional Indian school and university systems, the master figure recognizable by his nasalized voice, thick spectacles, and command that the student write down everything he says. The names of the faculties of medicine and law are translated with outdated terms used before the introduction of the modern university system, so the allusion is primarily historical. Generally, the spirit and angel choirs are substituted by a play with lights and sound effects, including strains of ‘Ave Maria.’ Like Before the Gate, Auerbach’s Cellar is marked by music, but it is typically European, even evoking German Jahrmarktmusik. The four young men in Indian hats launch into ‘The Holy Roman Empire’ (2090–1), but straight from the text and with no apparent allusions to any political parallels, missing what would seem to have been a good opportunity for fruitful contemporary commentary. They greet Faust mockingly with ‘Salaam,’ the Muslim greeting, but here likely used as an elegant (royal) address to emphasize their disdain. When Mephistopheles tells the story of the flea (2211–38), he adjusts his language to their coarse tone and vocabulary, language reminiscent of the rural thekas or pubs in India which are generally found on the margins of the cities or villages. The Hexenküche, the final scene captured on the videotape, begins with classical music, but that soon becomes a foil for the rest. Generally, the wickedness, crudity, and bestiality of Goethe’s scene is toned down, and there is no witch’s cauldron or ‘entsetzliches Geschrei’ (2464). This is now essentially a hospital scene, as was that in the 1981 Weimar production, and also a continuation of the medical motif in the Prologue. The Hexe is now depicted as a doctor, perhaps a comment on the domination of that profession in India by males. Thus Bennewitz plays with gender for a third time, a reversal that will evolve to become an outlandish variant in the Manila production. The potion is injected into Faust, inviting comparisons with Indian or international medical procedures, performance-enhancing drugs, and cosmetic surgery, perhaps even placing into question the ethical standards of Indian physicians and state hospitals, as in the Prologue. A version of the Hexeneinmaleins remains, but it is played after Faust and Mephistopheles’s departure, at which time the scene dissolves into a chaotic break-dance with disco lights, a transition to the Walpurgisnacht. It seems unlikely that Bennewitz’s basic approach changed between this point and the end. What we know shows us an adaptation in Hin-

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di with a very mixed, even confusingly mixed, array of associations with and illusions to both Hindu and Christian religions, historical and contemporary events, local and universal elements. The three character gender reversals are notable, but do not allow general conclusions about their significance. Yet some things are certain. The overwhelmingly Hindu audience would have understood the clearly Hindu and Indian associations, and likely the local and contemporary allusions. But the Christian markers and Western historical allusions would likely have gone over their heads. Above all they would probably have been confused by the figure of Faust himself and his problem. What problem, they would well have asked? Why is this Western man ranting on and on about this existential issue of being dissatisfied with his knowledge and why would he want to keep striving to change himself and the very world? Why doesn’t he do what every good Hindu knows is both sensible and inevitable: accept his kharma and live his life according to it? If we return to Bennewitz’s checklist of the essential characteristics of traditional Indian theatre, cited above, it seems that some of these were in evidence in the production: Indian music and dance; a chorus (angels, spirits); an absence of stage sets and decoration, causing the actors to describe occurrences in an imaginary fashion; some costume and colour significance; gestural and mimic significance; dialogue narrating, describing, and commenting; and the integration of local gossip, current politics, and social criticism into the action. But these elements are also generic parts of many dramas, and in themselves do not strictly show that the production reflected Bennewitz’s own checklist criteria for Indian theatre. As we have seen in the scenic analysis, at best there was occasional and spotty evidence of this, mixed into what was basically a distinctly European text and set of problems. Bennewitz’s key point on the checklist that Indian folk drama ‘draws strongly from the great Indian epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, the Puranas, medieval legends and folk tales as almost exclusive, and seemingly inexhaustible sources of plots,’ would be impossible to claim for this production. Critical Reception Unfortunately, the critical reception in the press and public discussion provided very little additional information about the production. Assessment in the press was marked by extremes: uncritical praise or reservation, and most strongly put, nationalistic bitterness (see Bombay Reviews). Reviewers given to hyperbole were in the majority, perhaps

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reflecting the continuing Indian inclination to public kindness, especially towards post-colonialists. Bennewitz and Mehta were recognized, even praised to the heavens, for their contributions to what some called an internationally significant project, and their Faust was said to be an important milestone in the development of Indian theatre: ‘The staging of Faust in Hindi is an inmissable [sic] moment in dramatic history,’ wrote the exhuberant Maria Da Cruz (see Bombay Reviews). Meher Petonji entitled his February 1994 review ‘A Plethora of Images,’ and lauded the German director’s sensitivity to the language and his energetic direction, keeping ‘his production bubbling without diluting the existential conflict of its central character.’ The choice of two celebrated film stars for the leads was seen by Da Cruz as a stroke of genius. Pankaj [sic] Kapur and Naseeruddin Shah he considered ‘matchless’ and, hectic schedules be damned, they had to be the stars. While most reviewers praised the cleverness of this casting, one, writing in the Bombay Daily, commented on the cultural taste of the Indian public as an explanation for what would become mediocre attendance figures: ‘Two of the best stage actors from the National School of Drama of the [Ephraim] Alkazi decade in Delhi could draw only 60 per cent of a Tata house. It is a sad commentary that in Bombay there are not even one thousand people seeking cerebral excitement on any one given evening. And yet they are filling houses of Mani Ratnam’s “Roja” [an immensely popular Tamil epic, released in 1992] for over fifteen weeks at the Metro cinema.’ Another, Hima Devi, wrote in the same newspaper: ‘Naseeruddin Shah excels in “Faust,”’ and called his Mephistopheles, ‘the performance of a lifetime,’ while Deepa Ghalot, for the Times of India, enthused: ‘a magnificent comic-sardonic Mephistopheles.’ Reviewers’ assessments of Pankaj Kapur’s Faust were mixed. Hima Devi suggested that he ‘still looked a bit unsure,’ and in the end called him ‘a complete misfit especially in the second half ... the whole play fell short because “Faust” failed to meet the challenge of his role.’ By contrast, another reviewer, Dnyanehwar Nadkarni, noted that ‘Naseeruddin Shah has a much easier role than Pankaj Kapur,’ and goes on to conclude that ‘the evening belongs to Pankaj Kapur’s Faust ... Having seen Olivier, Gielgud, Redgrave, Richardson, Guiness [sic], Richard Burton et al. on the British stage, and actors like Sambhu Mitra here, I had never imagined that we also had a younger actor in their league!’ Much attention was given to the set, lighting, and sound. An excited Dolly Thakore rhapsodized in the Bombay Daily: ‘The first half of the play made my flesh tingle with excitement. It was so refreshing in its

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staging, lighting and sound. And it was the unfamiliar and strange music and lighting design that set Faust apart from anything seen in Bombay in a long time.’ Such innovation is certainly not evident in the videotape, although that was shot from a rehearsal that possibly did not include all technical enhancements. Similarly, another observer, Meher Petonji, described how ‘Varied images chart their own course amidst a melange of sounds – a dog yelping, a rat hobbling, a wasp buzzing – offset against musical church bells, bird song and Shah’s deliberate stressing of the ‘s’ syllable to create tension.’ Nadkarni praised the ‘superbly functional, innovative, Expressionist set,’ but a moment later added, ‘the round pillar built for [the] ... revolving stage of the theatre almost detroys [its] impact!’ Although the production was in Hindi, the set, costumes and choreography were still essentially Western: ‘You never forget you’re watching a European play being performed for an Indian audience ... Yet the cultures do not clash,’ wrote Petonji. While Petonji saw that as an accomplishment, another reviewer challenged the entire Western thrust of the play and its director. Despite Indian involvement, wrote Hima Devi, ‘The Indian songs were insignificant and could be ignored. Was it necessary to hire foreign talent at this particular stage in our theatrical history? ... Naseeruddin’s striking performance was the only excuse for having a foreign director.’ This was a semi-professional boulevard press, one anxious to praise and please. It smacked of colonial times. The few ripples of discontent at the production’s inadequacies in terms of its Indianness are much more significant. As was his custom when directing abroad, Bennewitz translated some of the reviews for the benefit of colleagues and supervisors at home, but there were also independent German ones. These add little to our understanding of the production, devoting themselves to placing it within the context of Bennewitz’s career and official release from the Deutsches Nationaltheater in 1992 (see the Bombay reviews published in Thüringische Landeszeitung, Neues Deutschland, Neue Presse, Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung, and Thüringer Landeszeitung). Bernhard Hecker’s claim in the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung that this was the first Indian Faust was wrong, as demonstrated in the early pages of this chapter. Aftermath Unfortunately, once the play was rehearsed, Bennewitz abandoned it. He attended a preview on 11 January 1994 and left India two days later. It is normal for directors to leave the scene once things are up and run-

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ning, but certainly not before the première or before all major problems have been solved, and that was surely not the case in this instance, even if several of his actors presented Bennewitz with a fond and appreciative written farewell on the day he left. With a new play to prepare in Weimar, and then Faust in the Philippines, Bennewitz was overcommitted once again. The play in Bombay opened on 22 January 1994 and the director’s responsibility was placed into Mehta’s hands. After Bennewitz’s departure, she sent him progress reports like this one: ‘Faust has had five shows – three were excellent, one bad, one okay. The problem remains of everybody coming together for rehearsals. Naseer and Pankaj come regularly – it’s Nandu, Ganesh and Kishor who do repeated disappearing acts’ (Letters, Mehta 7 March 1994). Ironically, the stars were keeping their commitments; it was in the rank and file now that discipline was breaking down. Bennewitz himself had done a ‘disappearing act’ very early, quite in contrast to the commitments he had made to previous productions in the 1970s and 1980s, and this in turn might well have led to his own actors’ breakdown of commitment as well. On 17 November 1994, with some historical perspective, Mehta wrote to him in Weimar: Now on to ‘FAUST.’ I can sum up the whole exercise in one basic phrase – ‘It misfired.’ It was a combination of negative forces on many fronts – Audience reception could not be sustained and petered out within the first six shows, its business management was poorly handled and most important the actors lost faith in the production. That is why despite NCPA’s and Max Mueller Bhavan’s desire to do a video recording, the plan could never materialize. The root cause, perhaps, was a non-communicative translation and your departure before the play was jelled and ready … the chapter is over and we can say philosophically ‘such things do happen.’ (Letters)

Mehta’s resignation was parallelled soon after by Bennewitz in a letter to his Indian friend, the theatre director and outstanding culture critic Rustom Bharucha: ‘The Bombay-FAUST has been a futile exercise – however much praise critics rain on it. We have our own perspective and objectives too. I could and should have known it: Bombay and NCPA (Tata Theatre) are the least proper place and space for it. After a few months it died a natural death by the virus of its condition’ (Letters, Bharucha, 1 Jan. 1995). Bennewitz was also reluctant to praise the production in an interview soon after with Bernhard Hecker, published in the Weimar Kultur Journal of 1994. His honesty is admirable.

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Conclusion Co-director Vijaya Mehta suggested that the production failed for three reasons, its inability to sustain audience attendance and reception, poor business management, and the actors’ loss of faith. Any one of them would have been sufficient, but truly there were even more reasons, and more important ones. Looking first at the business aspect, Bennewitz’s naive socialist attitude in his early cocky remark to Jamshed Bhabha foreshadowed the economic problem and showed his obliviousness to such practical necessities as actually motivating enough audience members to pay the price of a ticket to see the show. Associated with this were the motivations of the partners, Anna Winterberg, director of the Max Mueller Bhavan/Goethe Insitute, who wanted to see Goethe on stage to prove that she was fulfilling her mandate; Jamshed Bhabha, who as a trustee of the NCPA aimed to fulfil his by bringing to the stage an incontestably international classic; and finally, Bhabha and Mehta agreeing to place it in the Tata Theatre so as to give the show a national profile and draw an educated, well-heeled, and influential portion of the Bombay public to their house. They lost sight of the fact that the centrality of dramatic success is artistic integrity and the quality of the production itself, in addition to its ability to communicate with and move its local, in this case Indian and Hindu, audience. This is what brought about Mehta’s second reason, the production’s inability to sustain audience attendance and reception. Simply put, it did not do well in terms of intercultural communication; it did not speak to Indian audiences. This Faust was an intercultural hodge-podge, devoid of a unifying concept. Her third reason, the loss of the actors’ confidence, was in a sense the most damning, for it occurred in large part because of Bennewitz’s broken commitment. He had become consumed by an unrealistic schedule of responsibilities and had abandoned his actors at a crucial time. Mehta’s reference in that interview to the choice of Hindi as the language medium made sense as one of the two national languages of India, alongside English, yet this is a national perspective, not a local one, in which each Indian theatre tradition is rooted. As residents of the province of Marahashtra, the native Indian language of this audience was Marathi, and a Faust in that language would have had a very different effect. Mehta also said that she saw her role as ‘communicating Fritz’s ideas to an Indian audience,’ but she failed to elaborate on what those ideas might be or execute them. Her statement that the aim of the production and NCPA’s work was to ‘conserve and promote

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excellence in the performing arts’ seemed, when it came down to it, to imply that this was to be accomplished through a Western classical ideal of acting and performance rather than through the Indian folk tradition. Even when she referred to Indian stage tradition she evoked not contemporary but ancient, historical conventions. We have also seen above that Bennewitz, despite his stellar work with the actors and the transfer of the text to Hindi, made a muddled attempt in this production to integrate the elements of his own checklist of the essential characteristics of traditional Indian theatre. The broader reason for their lack of success revolved around the nature of Faust and its protagonist. In the interview (Media, videotapes, Bombay), Mehta talked about literary exchanges between India and Germany and her long association with Bennewitz, but she did not mention any conceptual problems in doing Faust. One must ask if the Faust figure and the main themes of Faust can be accommodated in a Hindu concept of individual and collective existence. Hinduism has no place for an individual who does not recognize his kharma and adjust to it. Such constant striving, such guaranteed failure, is pointless and unintelligible to the Hindu mind. For Faust to work in such a society, the play’s problematics must be recast philosophically, which in this instance they clearly were not. We know that two previous directors, the Indian Krishna Kaimal and the American Erin Mee, seemed to have achieved this in their adaptations of Faust, but with much more drastic adjustment of Goethe’s original than Bennewitz and Mehta undertook. As quoted at the outset, in his director’s note published in the program, Bennewitz underscored his commitment to bridge the two cultures instead of importing one from abroad. Before going into production, he had called this Faust ‘a cultural venture and experiment ... It cannot be an Indian FAUST – and not even an Indianised one. And it cannot be a German FAUST either.’ What he produced was an intercultural hodge-podge. Surely the interculturalism he had in mind was not like this. Later, he was cited as saying that he felt there was no need for a sense of identification for the audience, but a respect for their otherness in such a cross-cultural experiment – the coming together of two contrasting organisms. He went beyond that to suggest that ‘we might have something truly global’ (Galot 1994). This was at that point a pipe dream and far from anything that could be called intercultural. What Bennewitz describes is universality and as such would, in effect, eradicate essential cultural markers and differences. Characters are defined by the other characters with whom they are interacting. They give

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meaning to each other while moving in a social system. Without that they have no character and no culture at all. This was perhaps the most important reason why ‘audience reception could not be sustained.’ Bennewitz, finally, saw this himself, yet drew a very odd conclusion: ‘Die indische Philosophie befragt im Grunde Schicksal nicht. Faust aber ist jemand, der ohne grundsätzliches Infragestellen gar nicht existieren kann. Wie wird er da zur Identifikationsfigur und zur Reibefläche mit den Gewohheiten? Ich war von der Auffassung der Inder überrascht und habe es in dem Satz zusammengefaßt: Das Fremde ist in der Fremde nicht fremd. Der Faust erweist sich hier als ein Weltgedicht’ (Quilitzsch 1994a). When asked about the resonance of his work in India, he replied, ‘Es ist auf jeden Fall kein indischer Faust, den ich in Bombay gemacht habe,’ but continued, ‘Es ist nämlich ein Vorurteil, der Faust sei der deutsche Nationalcharakter und dadurch nicht grenzüberschreitend. Wenn es einen deutschen Nationalcharakter gäbe, dann wäre eher bei Hölderlin zu suchen als bei Goethe’ (ibid.). Despite this statement, we should return, in the end, to the broader picture drawn at the beginning of this chapter. Bennewitz’s Faust in Bombay was not typical of his relationship with India, nor his capacity for intercultural activity there or in Germany, nor his influence on the development of India’s actors or stage. If we expand our consideration to his twenty-five years of experience and activity in India, then our conclusion would likely be different, but we will leave that until the final chapter.

9 The Christian Faust: Manila 1994

Background The Republic of the Philippines is an archipelago of 7,100 islands in Southeast Asia, about a thousand of which are populated with more than ninety million people. It has a centuries-old Malay-type indigenous culture with diverse influences from outside. The Filipinos have been repeatedly colonized during the last half millennium, so much so that their indigenous cultures have become blended with those of their colonizers, for more than three centuries the Spanish (1565–1896), and for almost a half century the Americans (1900–46). It has only been independent again since just after the Second World War, although American influence remained strong, especially because the United States retained a military base there until 1992. Each phase of colonization

The primary materials on which this chapter is based include a videotape of the full production, the program to the performance, a nine-page single-spaced typescript by Bennewitz entitled ‘Conceptual fragments (FAUST)’ (1994), his extensive correspondence with collaborators in Manila, and reviews of the performance, as well as Bennewitz’s director’s books, scene sketches, and other papers (FBA). The Goethe Institute in Manila, one of the sponsors, was helpful in searching their archives for materials on the production but could find only one review, which is discussed among others below. Inquiries to the other sponsoring organizations, the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA), and the Philippine National Library in Manila were kindly answered but neither has holdings on the production. The author also consulted two native Filipinos and Tagalog speakers, Karen Francisco and Lulu Paleczny, for whose insights he is most grateful. Some slight corrections have been made to Bennewitz’s and Rody Vera’s English in their cited correspondence. Parts of this chapter have appeared in the author’s article ‘Goethe’s Faust in Manila’ (2007).

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left its marks on Filipino theatre. The Spanish remains in the komedya, a colourful theatrical form with plots about the social, political, and religious conflicts between the Muslims and Christian heroes; sinakulo, passion and religious plays; sarswela, musical dramas; and the drama, spoken dramas. The bodapil, vaudeville, remains from the period of U.S. colonization, as do a variety of plays, both classical and modern, which are performed in English by international dramatists, past and contemporary (Tiongson 1998, 377–82; Tiongson and Barros 2007; Brandon 1997; Brockhaus 2002; New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985). All of these forms still existed when Bennewitz produced his Faust in Manila, and indeed elements of several of them can be seen in his production, in addition to indigenous folk performance practices that preceded them. In the indigenous culture of the Philippines, as probably all Aboriginal cultures, ritualistic actions and dances constituted the earliest evidence of theatre, reflecting phases and events in the cycle of life, into which religious elements were woven. The shaman figure often played an important role in enacting, celebrating, and reacting to these phases and events, and was believed to carry magical powers and embody a metaphysical dimension. Burial customs and rituals, for example, could be called indigenous theatre performances and are evidence of widespread folk belief in the spiritual world. Such ritualistic performances are still practised today, substantially unchanged, and remain the oldest theatrical customs of the land (Tiongson 1998, 377–8; New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985; Brandon 1997). Over the centuries of colonialization, this indigenous religious tradition became integrated into institutional religious dogma and practice, particularly that of the Roman Catholic Church because of the long Spanish period, so that Filipino Catholicism today has a distinct metaphysics, set of practices, and rituals, and an intensity all its own. Religion has a central role in the lives of most Filipinos. Many in rural areas are still animists, believing in an array of spirits of the earth, but the great majority are Christians (81%), and among these, overwhelmingly, are Roman Catholics. There are also substantial minority groups of Protestants, Jews, Muslims (5%), Buddhists, and Daoists, with the Muslim minority growing quickly in certain areas. Among Filipino Catholics, the many traditional and indigenous customs have made their way into the rituals and ceremonies of their form of Catholicism and are intertwined with their family, heritage, and social practices. Thus, the religious form brought to them during the period of colonizations has been acculturized into their own.

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It is impossible to read an outline of the history of Philippine theatre and religiosity without being struck by how many of their elements could be integrated into a production of Faust. The Filipinos’ love of comedy, tragedy, and demonstrative extravaganza, and their tolerance to mixing these together, their fascination for religion, both in its primeval forms of superstition and magic, and in the structured dogma and rituals of the liturgical calendar as well as its symbols, all blend well into the Faust drama. The Christian symbolism of the Lord and his angels in the Prologue, the fundamental tension between him and Mephistopheles throughout the play, Easter Sunday, Gretchen’s relationship to Christianity, the silent saint at the ramparts, and the cluster of holy figures to conclude the final act of the work, these would all appeal to Filipinos’ Catholic sensitivity. The grotesque figures of the Walpurgisnacht scenes, the transformation of the poodle, and the bursts of fire and magic from Mephistopheles’s hand, his magical trickery in Auerbach’s Cellar, and the phantasmagoria of Part II all suited their taste for the theatrical, spectacular, and exciting. Thematically, questions of social justice, particularly in terms of the treatment of Gretchen by Faust and her society in the small world, were also of interest to Filipinos who have built and maintained a strong commitment to social issues throughout their modern history. Their repeated involvement in revolt, revolution, and the defence of workers’ rights are evidence of this. As Hindi in Bombay, the Manila Faust was performed in Tagalog, which shares official language status with English in the Philippines. Approximately ninety indigenous austronesian languages are spoken there, of which Tagalog, or Filipino, as it is designated officially, is the most common, spoken by about seventy of the ninety million native inhabitants (Brockhaus 2002; New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985; Philippines, Library of Congress website). Of course, one of the many English translations of Faust could have been used for Bennewitz’s production in Manila, and would have been intelligible to most in that urban setting, so the switch to Tagalog was a clear sign of intercultural rapprochement. This is underscored by the fact that no Tagalog translation existed, so Bennewitz’s and his partners’ resolve in this matter was strong. They knew that Tagalog carries a great deal of significance for the political development of the country, especially during the popular uprisings and revolutions which have dotted its past. The artistic director at the time of the Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA), Rodolfo C. (Rody) Vera, was commissioned for the task of translating the work, and he produced a performance text in that lan-

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guage, although, unfortunately, it has not been published and remains unlisted in formal bibliographies (Weimarer Goethe-Bibliographie online; Goethe-Bibliographie 1950–1990; Library of Congress Online Catalogue). The production was staged during the presidency of Fidel Ramos (1992–98), a turbulent time in Philippine political history. At the beginning of his term Ramos declared ‘national reconciliation’ to be his highest priority, referring to the disputed and unstable leadership of his immediate predecessor Corazon Aquino (1986–92) and before her the military rule of Ferdinand Marcos (1965–86). Marcos ruled as a dictator, denied freedom of the press, outlawed many media agencies and civil liberties, and had political opponents arrested. He was forced eventually into exile, in 1986, and with Corazon Aquino as president democracy was returned to the land. A government of elected representatives was formed, a new constitution restored civil liberties, the civil service was cleansed of corruption, and the powers of the president were restricted and excluded the invocation of martial law. Despite this, that fledgling government was weak and hampered by political opponents, so that the Philippines remained politically unstable and experienced a series of failed coups. A radical shift in foreign policy occurred in 1992, a reflection of Philippine nationalism and its rejection of foreign influence, when the Senate refused to extend the treaty allowing U.S. military bases in the Philippines, so the era of official Philippine-American strategic cooperation came to an end. Ms Aquino stepped down in that year, choosing not to run for re-election, and endorsed Mr Ramos as her successor. With national reconciliation as his highest priority, he legalized the Communist party and created a commission to negotiate with dissident groups, Muslim separatists, and military rebels, in 1994 legalizing a general conditional amnesty to all rebel organizations (sources for the above overview are Brockhaus 2002; New Encyclopaedia Britannica 1985; Tiongson 1998; and Brandon 1997). The Manila Faust was co-sponsored by the Goethe Institute and PETA, which has as one of its goals the support and promotion of indigenous culture. This is very different from the co-sponsorship by the National Centre for the Performing Arts in India, whose role it was to support classical theatre arts, be they foreign or Indian. As one means to meet its goals, PETA sponsors at least one play a year in Tagalog, usually a traditional piece related closely to Philippine folklore and culture (PETA website; hereafter PETA 1). That PETA, Vera, und Bennewitz agreed precisely on Faust to translate and present in Tagalog showed not only their sense of obligation to the Philippine language and culture, but

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that it should be seen to dominate over the German in this case. It was important, too, for all three partners that in the production Philippine theatre and cultural traditions be reflected and honoured. PETA artistic director at the time Rody Vera was the person who invited Bennewitz and secured the co-sponsorship of the Goethe Institute, and he did so because of Bennewitz’s previous work there. Along with Vera, Bennewitz had directed many Philippine productions since 1977, a critical trail of which had been followed in the GDR press. Bennewitz had by this time been named an honorary member of PETA. The organization was founded in 1967 by Cecile GuidoteAlvarez with the purpose to promote and guide the growth and development of theatre arts in the Philippines and perform the role of coordinating agency for a national association of drama groups. PETA started by staging Philippine plays in English, but after establishing its own theatre in the Fort Santiago ruins of Manila, now called the Dulaang Raha Sulayman, it became committed to the indigenous language of the Philippines and has since presented adaptations, translations, and mainly new plays in Filipino. Such associations of theatre with place can be powerful indicators of social function and thematic purpose (see Carlson 1990). Precisely stated, PETA’s mission is to be an ‘educational theater organization composed of artist-teachers who are dedicated to the pursuit of artistically excellent theater aesthetics and pedagogy towards the empowerment of people and society’ (PETA 1). The close, supportive nature of the organization and its people is important to understand: ‘Actually, we’re more than all that. We’re a family of 70-plus active members who thrive on the spirit of kapatiran (sister/brotherhood/solidarity). But even if theater is our passion, passion can’t sustain our practical needs. Some of us are also active in broadcast, film, advertising, education, community and development work, and various organizations and movements for children, the youth, women, gender, indigenous people, human rights and the environment’ (quoted from PETA 1; see also Fernandez 1996, 22–3, and Tiongson 1998, 385, 392). Missing in the organization’s public profile is any explicit doctrinal connection to the Catholic Church, but one of its many affiliations is with the World Association of Christians in Communication. Its executive director at the time of the production was Gloriosa Santos-Cabagnon, who was also a member of the board of trustees, and its artistic director was Isabel A. Legarda. Hence, while it was and still is a secular organization, its social and artistic engagement nevertheless included at the time of the production an important

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and strong partnership with the Roman Catholic community, the two sharing many common social goals. Bennewitz and Vera were not just theatre associates, they were close colleagues and friends. Bennewitz was on close professional and personal terms with many other members of PETA and the Philippine theatre and artistic communities as well, relationships that had grown since his first visit to the Philippines in connection with the International Theatre Institute (iTi) in 1971 when he was a guest of the First Third World Theater Conference initiated and organized by PETA in cooperation with the iTi. The Third World Committee of the Institute was founded at this conference and Bennewitz became a member. The invitation to do Faust in 1994 can therefore be seen as the climax of many years of artistic cooperation and mutual support which began more than two decades previously. In all, including this last visit, Bennewitz worked in the Philippines at least eleven times, becoming acquainted with and directing in a variety of places including Bolinao, Boutao, Cebuano, Cebu, Karachu, Mindanao, Paopanjan, and Sagada, and always in Tagalog, or, as the venue required, one of the other indigenous languages of the Philippines. In all cases he worked closely with local directors, actors, and theatre crew. His repertoire was similar to that in India and included Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Galilei, Puntila, and The Good Woman of Sezuan; Shakespeare’s Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Taming of the Shrew; and besides Goethe’s Faust, Walter Jens’s Der Untergang (The Fall of Troy; see Appendix 2 and Appendix 3). It is noteworthy that he directed performances at two universities in the Philippines, Marawi and Mindanao, reminiscent of his university-linked staging of Faust I and subsequent discussions in the United States. Of further note was that his activity included directing in the Muslim region of the country on the southern island of Mindanao, where along with local theatre folk he created Muslim adaptations of Brecht’s Kreidekreis and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the first of which was awarded the Philippines’ critics prize for the best production of the year when it was produced originally in Manila in 1977/78. The cultural and religious emphasis in Mindanao was obviously distinctly different from the one that prevailed for his Manila Faust; hence, the Philippine critics’ praise can be seen as a stamp of credibility that propelled the rest of his career in this linguistically and culturally complicated archipelago. As a result, Bennewitz’s activity in the Philippines rivals that in India, and it could even be argued that it surpasses it in significance, for he expressed late in his life that, of

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the two, his personal rapport, emotional attachment, and success were greater in the former, as we shall see by the end of this chapter. Rody Vera saw Faust as an attractive offering for the company and was confident that he and Bennewitz, in partnership, could deliver a production that would please and impress the audience. Although it is clear that it was a foreign play, reminiscent of the colonial period, the fact that it would be performed in Tagalog and adapted to the Philippine culture suited the PETA mandate well. While this was the first Tagalog Faust, it was not the first Faust performed in the Philippines. An opera entitled Faust, likely Gounod’s (première, Paris, 1859), loosely based on Goethe’s text, had been performed at Manila’s Teotro Variedades in 1882 and 1906, at Manila’s Theatro Zorrilla in 1893, and in the 1930s at the Manila Grand Opera House (CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art 1994: vol. 6, 102, 337; vol. 7, 411). The Zorilla production suggests associations with the Philippine poet José Protasio Rizal (1861–1896), a revolutionary and Philippine hero who was incarcerated in a cell at Fort Santiago, awaiting his execution in 1896. Ironically, in light of the venue of Vera’s and Bennewitz’s Faust, there was no obvious effort to link the staging to that portion of the country’s history, although it could have crossed their minds and that of others, without leaving an obvious trace in the documentation at hand. Vera secured the agreement of the Goethe Institute’s Director Dr Dirk Angelroth to sponsor the 1994 Faust production with 100,000 pesos (approx. Can $5,681 or U.S. $4,129, at the time) and assumed the task of translating the play, indeed both parts of Faust, into Tagalog, although the combination was to be played in one evening and the show was not to run longer than four hours. This meant, of course, savage cuts. Bennewitz also urged Vera to translate the second part colloquially, ignore the metres, and to reduce the entire intrigue of the court and war in Part II to twenty minutes. Vera advised Bennewitz artistically and served as a confidant throughout. The two exchanged many letters, a mixture of business, artistic discussions, and personal matters, which also reflected the mutual regard and fondness extending throughout the PETA theatre family. Letters were routinely concluded by both men with such phrases as ‘Love from all of us,’ ‘Love to all PETAs’ or ‘Hugs to all PETAs near and far.’ The correspondence had two parts, pre- and post-production. A fax of 2 December 1993 signalled the start of the pre-production phase, when Bennewitz was still in Bombay and his Hindu Faust I was in rehearsal there. He wrote to Rody Vera on the letterhead of In-

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dia’s National Centre for the Performing Arts that he was optimistic ‘about the daring and exciting project of the Tagalog-Faust,’ adding that ‘PETA’s “Aesthetics of Poverty” had proven to be a creative artistic challenge.’ He promised to send Vera an edited version of an American translation that they would use for Part I, a videotape of his own 1981 production, a videotape of the current Bombay production (the latter, as it turned out, he could not fulfil), and photos of the “highly exciting set”’ (Letters, Vera). As we shall see, there was some similarity between the Bombay and Manila productions, but the differences were much greater. He also promised a letter with ‘some scribblings about my ideas of a concept of the play and its representation related to how our present world is out-of-joint,’ an edited version of Faust Part II, in German, and ‘hopefully some ideas how with PETA’s proven skills and imagination the second part can take over from the first by different means of presentation as different as the second part distinguishes itself from the first part.’ This promise suggests that the interpretation would not focus on the Faust figure, as his GDR and Bombay productions did, but would instead be a social critique. Bennewitz did, in fact, produce such a document which will be dealt with below. Finally, he urged, ‘Don’t let yourself be caught by the German “heaviness” which most wrongly is attached to the play – it is due to a 19th-century misunderstanding of it. Keep in mind: the play’s prime source has been folk theatre.’ This gentle admonition and reminder show Bennewitz’s resolve to uproot this Faust from its European soil and transplant it to the indigenous earth of its host. Vera faxed a response on 6 January 1994, reporting that their Faust would open the PETA season at the end of November, running into January 1995 – and just about the time that Bennewitz would be preparing what was to be his last Faust in Meiningen. Fifteen performances were planned, although, in fact, it turned out that one was eventually interrupted and another cancelled due to torrential rains (Letters, Melvin Lee, 7 Feb. 1995). The performances in late January were also moved to February because of the visit of the Pope for World Youth Day, which completely took over the inner city, just one sign of the strong Catholic presence there. Vera had started the translation of Part I, ‘trying to be as colloquial as possible,’ and six days later Bennewitz replied, confirming the performance dates, again emphasizing the importance of being colloquial, and recommending that Vera ‘avoid rhyme and meter – especially when they hamper the “gesture qualities” of the [Tagalog] language.’ This underscores his goal to let the natural acting of the Fili-

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pinos surface and take precedence over the script. He had already sent by express a copy of Part I, the C.F. MacIntyre translation, and the videotape of his 1981 Part I, as promised, and intended to send some Brecht comments by air mail the next day. Again he promised a video of the Bombay production, saying that it would be sent by the NCPA, and reported that the production there was in rehearsal but ‘taking shape with exciting new insight into the contemporary relevance of Goethe’s towering masterpiece.’ In light of the results, we now know that this was more optimism than fact. With regard to how to stage Part II, Bennewitz asked for help from Vera and his Filipino theatre colleagues to realize, ‘yours and PETA’s imaginative concept to have both parts performed together.’ Two months later, on 11 March – Vera had received several letters in between and apologized for his delayed response – he wrote to Bennewitz, who by now was back in Weimar. Vera had finished translating Part I from the MacIntyre edition, but added that ‘it is just a translation. I have no idea how to adapt it – as it is, the play is overwhelming already.’ They were seriously considering asking popular film actors to play Faust and Mephistopheles: ‘We think “Bodgie” Pascua can play either role together with the film actor. What do you think about this? Obviously this is for marketing and promotional purposes. Philippine theater is suffering a setback because of the havoc that West End producer Cameron Mackintosh wreaked on our audiences. Everyone in this country wants to see Miss Saigon and Les Misérables.’ Their strategy was similar to that used for the Bombay production. Vera also responded in this letter to Bennewitz’s request for ideas about how to link and stage Part II: ‘I asked [a colleague] about his ideas on Part Two … He doesn’t have any clear idea himself except that he just wants the play to end. It is impossible to present the two parts in one evening. But the play has to resolve the deal between Faust and the Devil and the bet between Mephisto and God.’ This is, then, what we can expect when we look at the performance itself. Although the production was advertised as Faust I and II, it is really Faust I with a little epilogue tacked on. Still, their ongoing discussion of Part II at this point is instructive for understanding their overall intentions. In the same letter, Vera added his thoughts on Part II and the general concept: I am thinking of a Faust in the present world – the power of telecommunications and computerization. The beginnings of a new power dynamics that we in the Third World hardly know and feel. I see images of Faust

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on TV monitors viewed via satellite by hungry people. I view Mephisto panicking over his impending obsolescence. This much I can see for an improvised Part Two. I finally got hold of [the Walter] Kaufmann [edition] but without Acts 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Part Two. I read the last Act and that is the only thing I am holding to right now with regards to interpreting the Second Part. I got the impression that Faust, in all his crowning glory and power, seeks the development of the people, and has, after all, care and concern for humanity. Is this Machiavell talking? (Isn’t he in hell too?) Is Faust’s redemption justified then? I think Part Two should be about the world of the great and powerful in a matter of twenty practical minutes.

One can’t resist a smile at the final sentence after the lofty thoughts before. Maybe Faust II isn’t so complicated after all! Vera went on to reinforce the desired length of the performance, this time at ‘no longer than two and a half hours, the shorter the better, but of course not at the expense of Goethe turning over in his grave.’ Bennewitz replied at length on 29 March. Before taking up the issue of the Manila production, he mentioned that he had been occupied with what he termed ‘a (highly emotional) venture,’ which was the plan for the Meiningen Faust. Such transcontinental overlapping had, of course, long been a pattern in his life, but Bombay-ManilaMeiningen, all within eighteen months, seemed to be an extreme. He expressed his confidence that they could work with ‘just a translation,’ and develop it with the cast after he arrived. They had done it before with Macbeth (1984), which he said ‘became a Philippine production … sensitizing the audiences like a play written today.’ He agreed with getting a star actor like Bodgie but warned that such a person must have enough time to rehearse – he was already unhappy with his Bombay experience in that regard, the ‘Bombay-syndrome,’ as he called it. With regard to the coordination of Parts I and II, he still asked for more time to think, but endorsed Vera’s ideas of Faust in the present world and the associations he attached to it, adding that Goethe’s play is a ‘unique “poetic construction”’ and Faust ‘a distinct individual and representative of mankind alike – progress (by the way: we may need a new definition of it for mere survival).’ He pointed out further that ‘there is no final and definite redemption of Faust – there is a chance of it (not given and granted by God who doesn’t appear again in the play and not at all at the end) by continuous striving. The simple … question is: will man succeed to get rid of the devil as his permanent companion and within himself?’ This position is, to some extent, a continuation of Ben-

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newitz’s interpretation of the Faust figure since the 1960s, as it is of his conception of God. For the translation, he wrote that the fifth act of Part II alone would do, and confirmed that twenty minutes for Part II would be sufficient, two and a half hours for the entire play. Taking up Vera’s allusion to Goethe, he replied that he anticipated no restlessness in the titan’s casket, having just done all three parts of Schiller’s Wallenstein in two nights of two and a half hours each, and when passing his grave beside Goethe’s in Weimar that morning had heard no rustling from within. In a further letter of 13 May, Bennewitz embellished his comments on Part II, writing that Acts 1 to 4 could be delivered as ‘improvised narration’ and mime, whereby the basic occurrences and motifs of the emperor’s court, the creation and fate of homunculus, the classical Walpurgisnacht, Faust’s encounter with Helena, as well as the war and Faust’s land development plan could be sketched, ‘to keep the play informative and entertaining.’ He further suggested omitting Auerbachs Keller and the Mephistopheles–student scenes, but was ‘almost burning and bursting about sets, visuals, etc. (if I only knew whether we’ll do it at Fort Santiago which of course would be a beautiful place).’ Bennewitz repeatedly asked about the location in the correspondence, stressing his hope that the venue would be thus. One might think at first that he was after a venue with the cachet to draw an influential theatre audience, as was the case with the Tata Theatre in Bombay, but that was not the case. The connections to Philippine history were foremost in his mind. Soon after, on 26 June, Bennewitz wrote again, this time enclosing his ‘conceptual fragments,’ nine single-spaced typed pages. He had found and would bring the English Penguin edition of Faust II (Wayne 1949) as a guide for their summary. ‘Let us pray,’ he wrote, ‘to get it “stuffed” into a twenty-minute frame.’ He anxiously awaited ‘the daring venture – no better place and concept to think but PETA for such kind of intercultural experimentation.’ What this notion meant to him became clear through the conceptual fragments and the performance itself. As Bennewitz’s visit and the date of the première drew closer, more attention was given to production details. On 28 July Vera faxed a confirmation of the major castings, with Bodgie Pascua, a prominent film actor, as Faust, and Mario O’Hara, a former senior PETA member, now a film director and actor, as Mephistopheles. Like Bombay, the production was thus guaranteed celebrity appeal (Carlson 2001, 70 and 135). Bennewitz had now read Part II and felt that he had enough grasp of the history depicted ‘to select a few lines from Act IV – and then on to

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Act V.’ Most importantly, he announced for the first time that the venue would, indeed, be Fort Santiago. This was an extraordinarily fruitful period of pre-rehearsal preparation and intercultural exchange. In the ‘Conceptual Fragments’ Bennewitz wrote that it was his expressed intention, in conjunction with Rody Vera, to produce intercultural theatre. One of the fragments described the thematic strands of Faust which incorporate magic and the fantastic: As far as border-crossing is concerned, take that: Magic thinking and imagination has assumed power over nature, which should bring man closer to real power over nature (and human relations and conditions alike). It embodies itself already during Antiquity and the Middle Ages and still in pagan and tribal communities by the magician/sorcerer, the specialist for magic, who performs miracles by collaboration with ghosts, who by those terms and practices – from a Christian point of view – want to change the ‘course of things’ against God’s order and will thus be caught by the devil. By that capacity Faust has ancestors in all epochs and relatives in poetry of many people/nations – they are ‘heretics.’ (Bennewitz, ‘Conceptual Fragments,’ 1994, 1)

In his Manila Faust and its characterization of the protagonist, Bennewitz thus raises magic to become the highest authority. Such a radical interpretation of the Faust figure by a director who was a lifelong socialist and materialist, from a country that regarded magic as primitive and childish, and even derided it as morally reprehensible, comes as a surprise. Magic becomes the fuel for Faust’s drive, a force associated with all cultures and periods of human history and poetic tradition. This overshadows the figure of the striving Faust as a representative of what is best in humanity, whose striving in itself is honoured by the Lord as the highest good and guarantee of human supremacy. A second document from the Manila phase further addresses Bennewitz’s intercultural intentions directly. He describes the production as an ‘exciting experiment’ and emphasizes that ‘any play of some stature is a very sensitive organism – dormant in the book and letter only – which meets in a given time at a given place with actors who are likewise sensitive organs of their respective historical, cultural, ethnic and other conditions and structures. In an intercultural encounter the director must initiate the mutual challenge of play and players, watch and guide the process of integration, repulsion and assimilation’ (Ben-

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newitz, Interview Manila with Felix Miguel, 1994, 6, 7–8). In answer to the question what Faust has to offer the Philippine public, he replied: This can only be answered when play and audience meet. The knowledge of the play and its interpretation stutters and stammers when it smells paper. It lives in my guts and brains, runs in my blood and in the best moments my heartbeats, synchronized with the pulse of time and place – revealed by the intimate encounter of the creative dialogue with the actor on that adventurous trip into territory which is everyday unknown anew. Theatre by definition is interpretation – immediate reaction to the play by the here and now. A conscious risk of selection and reduction. There is nothing like an architect’s blueprint. The director should know the route and destination and forge both in the subconscious realms. With his concept he carries the inspiring ignition spark for the actor – and as a good coachman draws in the reins when things mess up and gives free rein to imagination when the guts respond. (ibid., 9–10)

His comments here concerning the development of the performance text through rehearsal in conjunction with the actors, the emotional energy involved, and the linking of it with contemporary events and conditions are not new. We have seen something of them in each of his productions so far. Yet Bennewitz has come much further than before by insisting that there is ‘nothing like an architect’s blueprint,’ especially if we look back to his first Weimar Faust, which was intended explicitly to be a blueprint for the socialist hero and development of that society. The statement above seems even to push the flexibility of the outcome further, even to the point of giving emotional factors the upper hand. The director should ‘forge … in the subconscious realms.’ As Helga Ziaja began to do in the 1975 Weimar Faust, as Christine Campbell did in the New York Faust, Fritz Bennewitz now wanted to plumb the psychological depths of both his actors and their cultural foundations and bring new realizations to the surface. He was demanding liminal theatre that bares the psyche of participants. The Performance Before the première in Manila, the Goethe Institute organized a public event with Bennewitz at their facilities to educate the audience about Goethe’s Faust. The open invitation announced the work as ‘one of the greatest classics of world literature!’ and Bennewitz as ‘former Artistic Director of the National Theater in Weimar/Germany and a well-

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known stage-director [who] has very successfully cooperated with theater groups in various parts of the world, directing productions that were adapted to the local language and conditions’ (Invitation, FBA). Notable is the emphasis on the local language and conditions. This anticipated the sensitivity of Manila audiences to colonialist incursions onto their stage and signalled the Goethe Institute’s delicate diplomacy. The promise of Bennewitz’s presence and introduction to the work, which would be ‘highly interesting and helpful for theatrelovers, students and critics alike!’ as well as excerpts from his former Faust productions on a large video screen were enticing. It also showed the director’s continuing motivation to do all that he could to relate to the local theatre community, as he had done throughout his career. PETA as producer also provided pre-première publicity by announcing its ‘28th Major Theater Season,’ with three plays, led off by Bennewitz’s Faust (Announcement of the Manila 1994 production; hereafter, PETA 2). The announcement explicitly links the selection to PETA’s history: ‘each play treads one and the same singular path – a celebration of strong partnerships between PETA and other dynamic institutions [and] almost twenty years of friendship with Prof. Fritz Bennewitz of the Weimar National Theater.’ The second play, Exodo by Jun Lana and Rody Vera, was ‘a bold inquiry on a fictional tribe’s experiences of disintegration. Creating a montage of storytelling and riveting movements, Exodo promises another eye-opening moment to the Filipino audience.’ The third, a co-production with Teatro Pabrika, an independent theatre network composed of theatre guilds based in workers’ unions around metropolitan Manila, was a satire entitled Kuwatro Kanto, described as ‘a story that has been told a lot of times yet whose urgency has never ceased.’ Clearly, Bennewitz’s Faust enjoyed a privileged position, setting off a season of one of the leading indigenously and socially engaged theatre organizations in the Philippines alongside works on the central social issues of their country. PETA and Vera must have trusted their colleague completely to create a Faust that would be culturally acceptable on their stage and to their audience. Such preparation, advanced acceptance, and support practically guaranteed that this would be a model of intercultural theatre. Goethe Institute Director Angelroth reinforced that assessment in this public announcement: PETA … is an institution well-known even outside the Philippines and one which this country can really be proud of! It is therefore not only a pleasure but an honor for us to have been able to cooperate with PETA in

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staging Goethe’s Faust, the most outstanding work of German literature, in the Filipino language. Personally, I am a ‘Faust Fan’ and have seen several productions. This, however, will be the first one that I have seen in another language, and it might even not only be ‘Faust in Tagalog’ but a new Philippine Faust! (Angelroth, Goethe Institute announcement, 1994, FBA)

Angelroth’s explicit linking of the production to the indigenous language and setting it as a new Philippine work suggests a desired and even anticipated acceptance of the play into the Philippine theatre canon, surely the highest achievement for an intercultural production. His frequent exclamation points suggest boundless optimism, and perhaps with just cause, for this Faust did achieve that goal – to some extent at least. A simultaneous public announcement was made by Gloriosa SantosCabagnon, PETA’s xecutive director, and by her religious order a representative of the Roman Catholic Church: It is with great honour that we present to you a Filipino translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust as our first offering for PETA’s 28th Major Theater Season. As one of the greatest literary pieces produced in the Western World, Faust is both admired as a masterpiece yet feared as dense and difficult material to perform. PETA has embarked on this challenge as part of our continuing process of artistic growth and development. At the same time, we believe that the message that this opus embodies continues to be relevant as we enter the new millennium. We have also seized this opportunity to once again work with Director Fritz Bennewitz who has not only been a friend and collaborator in several of PETA’s highly-acclaimed works, but has also been a mentor who has inspired the company to strive for higher levels of artistic excellence. (Santos-Cabagnon 1994, FBA)

The endorsement of a German director of a German institute is one thing, that of a high-ranking Filipino and one seasoned in both the indigenous theatre and the country’s dominant organized religion is another. This statement was the final and most convincing stamp of endorsement of the production, and Ma. Santos-Cabagnon surely would not have given it without considerable care and confidence in what she had to say. It would seem, too, that the very name Bennewitz had by now been granted a celebrity status of its own in the Philipines.

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There were also pre-performance notices in the press (see Manila Reviews). ‘PETA presents “Faust,”’ advertised one (Philippine Star), calling it ‘the most representative and the most important of all German classic dramas.’ It outlined the roles of Rody Vera and Fritz Bennewitz and underscored the ‘topbilled’ cast members, ‘veteran film director Mario O’Hara as the scheming devil Mephisto, Soxie Topacio as God, and Batibot’s Bodjie Pascua as Faust,’ ‘Batibot’ being a popular children’s television program. It also provided a straightforward plot outline, whose climax is ‘the claiming of a very sinful man, “Faust” reflects the very questions we face in this country as we approach the many promises of the year 2000.’ Subtle emphases point to a steering of the reception to see the play as an allegory of sin and redemption as the omnipotent abstract ‘God’ replaces the more accurate anthropomorphic ‘Lord,’ and it is assumed that Faust is, indeed, saved. Noticeable, too, is the highlighting of media stars to enhance their drawing capacity, which is reminiscent of Marvin Carlson’s theory of celebrity (discussed in the context of the Bombay production). A second announcement came five days later in the Manila Bulletin. Declaring that ‘Mario O’Hara returns to PETA in drama “Faust,”’ it similarly highlights the celebrities, this time reminding readers of O’Hara’s recent success on the PETA stage in The Kiss of the Spiderwoman, in Tagalog. It further provides a plot outline with the same thematic emphasis as the first notice, ‘a wager with God over a sinful man’s soul,’ and designates Soxie Topacio’s role as ‘God.’ This notice comments further on the production’s intercultural significance: ‘“Faust” becomes an all-together unique performance piece that cuts across cultural definitions. The play challenges the artistry of PETA in translating the profundity of the German culture into a Filipino experience’ (Manila Bulletin). It was, of course, impossible for the writer to know this without having seen the play, for the notice appeared on 29 October, well before the première of 25 November, and before a dress rehearsal was even thinkable. Both notices suggest strongly that the production was pitched by all parties to address a religious and world view relevant to contemporary Philippine issues. Attendees of the production were provided with this introductory overview of the play’s content and thematics. It described Faust as the legend of an obscure magician named Doctor Faustus who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power and becomes a classic literature drama in the masterwork of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who lived in 18th Century Germany. Faust occupied Goethe’s life for almost

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sixty years. His version of the legend stood out among Faust literary pieces because of its spiritual depth and socio-cultural scope. Goethe’s Faust is divided into two parts of unequal lengths. Part One introduces Faust’s despair in his life, his pact with the devil, and his tragic romance with Margaret. In Part Two, Faust becomes a man of affairs, trampling on others as he searches for that unique moment of satisfaction. In this giant section, the bet between the devil and the Good Lord ends. (Plot outline distributed to attendees of the Manila 1994 production; hereafter PETA 3)

One suspects that this summary was cobbled together by Vera and Bennewitz. It fails to answer the question of the result of the wager between the devil and the Good Lord or the pact between the devil and Faust. Was this done intentionally to stimulate interest and attendance, or to leave the Good Lord of the Christian faith the assumed champion over evil? A thematically neutral synopsis of Part I follows; there is no synopsis of Part II. As mentioned, the performance space on PETA’s outdoor stage in the ruins of Fort Santiago within the walls of Manila, where the conquistadors once resided, is steeped in Philippine history and colonial atmosphere. The rocky terrain suggests that we are at the foundations of that society, the surrounding ruins that it is in a broken world, the outdoors that the action is closely connected to nature and the fundamental elements of life, and the darkness of night that it is also alive with lurking spirits and danger. The text offered was a drastically reduced version of Goethe’s Faust I, as we might expect from the discourse between Vera and Bennewitz in the preceding months, a fact that is substantiated by the videotape, which is two hours and seventeen minutes long (Manila Faust, and the two director’s books, MacIntyre, Wayne). In general one is struck by the lively acting of the nineteen performers. Both stars, Pascua and O’Hara, were film and television artists, at home in media that offer much more opportunity for mimicry than the stage. This is evident in the performances of both. Beyond that, the lighting, sets, and movement were stimulating to a much greater degree than in any of the stagings of Faust considered so far. The audience, for the most part young, was more of an obvious presence than at any of the earlier productions of Faust as well. Laughs, moans, sounds of approval and disapproval, cries of delight, surprise and repulsion, and glimpses of engaged faces were evident throughout. Their satisfaction was conveyed by vigorous applause at the end. The Prelude is omitted, and the play begins with the Prologue in

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Heaven, the Lord in a wheelchair, signifying His weakness, as in Bombay.1 The three archangels are presented as white-robed winged nuns, chanting Raphael’s, Gabriel’s, and Michael’s verses. Immediately the Catholic motif is evident in this image, as is the force of the matriarchal Philippine society. A modern Mephistopheles, with black leather jacket, suspenders, and baseball cap, swaggers about with a bottle of liquor, one foot in a boot, the other in a red sock and black shoe. He is a man of the people. His face is noticeably whitened, suggesting the representation of the historical colonial masters. Strains of the popular song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy,’ by Bobby McFerrin, well known to Philippine youth and others at the time, connect him to current pop culture. Mephistopheles’s song projects an attitude also typical of Philippine optimism – forget your worries and sorrows, live and enjoy life. The theme music of the Philippine media news is then heard, as in Bombay, linking the scene with events outside, mostly the catastrophes of the day which are typically highlighted by popular Philippine news programs. In the background the sounds of aircraft, perhaps a helicopter landing, suggest a military presence, perhaps recalling for some President Marcos’s sudden entries and exits. Mephistopheles’s dominant position, as opposed to the Lord’s weakness, his connection to the people, and the scene’s symbolic allusions to the contemporary world are established. Faust is seen lying on a heap of books in his study, his atelier and appearance suggestive of a Philippine academic. The Earth Spirit, with man’s voice, appears as a red light, and the text is delivered conventionally. Wagner enters, by his gait and flowing robe looking like a Filipino grandfather about to read to his grandchildren. Childrens’ television programs often featured this character, and it was perhaps as well an amusing local reference to Pascua’s fame as a children’s storyteller on television. After his exit, the skull and poison scenes are played, to which the audience shows no unusual reaction. These elements were not likely to invoke religious or cultural associations in their minds. A gong and chimes ring to herald Easter Sunday, the sounds of the Philippine kulintang are heard. Birds chirp to welcome a new day and nature’s refreshment, accompanied by a Beethoven sonata for piano

1 The author is grateful to Karen Francisco for her close comparison of the videotape of the performance with Goethe’s text, a process which laid bare Vera’s performance text, the original of which could not be found. She also contributed many insights into Philippine culture and superstition which enhanced this section.

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and violin, recognizing the German origins of Faust. They recede to tribal drums in the style of a gamelan ensemble of the southern Philippines and a Philippine choir’s folk song. The appearance of the dragon-like ‘poodle’ at the end, a figure known as ‘bakunawa,’ the god of the underworld to Filipinos, elicits an extraordinary reaction from the audience, pointing to their fascination for black magic which is still an active business in the Philippines, even among Catholics. Faust drives the ‘poodle’ away with a rattle, again a common tool in the folklore of some areas of the country. It is also common, especially in small towns and rural areas, to consult soothsayers who read shells and can thereby recount events of the past and predict fortunes and catastophes. Many people believe in supernatural beings not associated with Christianity or other organized faiths. Many good Catholics continue heathen rituals in the course of their daily lives, for example, sprinkling the blood of a freshly slaughtered hen as a blessing on a new residence to appease and befriend the resident spirits. The atmosphere of witchcraft continues into the Study scene. Mephistopheles enters with a poodle puppet dangling from his arm, which changes spectacularly into a dragon-like monster, and in a futile attempt to dispel him Faust shakes a pair of maracas, a typical indigenous instrument associated with magic and sometimes connected with voodoo practices in primitive parts of Africa. He then succeeds by holding forth a cross. Mephistopheles burns a page of the Bible, a provocation and shock for Philippine Christians who are taught to revere and protect holy objects. Despite this serious exchange, it is noticeable during the dialogue between Faust and Mephistopheles that the occasional sexual allusion seems to delight the audience especially. Despite their Catholicism, Filipino groups can be counted on to catch and react to the slightest sexual inuendo, showing a psychic liberation from the constraints of their faith and effervescence typical of their society. Mephistopheles enters in travel attire, with red lips, blackened eyes, a mixture of devil and clown, his icy glare fixing the audience. The Pact scene occurs so quickly that it is almost unnoticed, Faust signing swiftly with his back to the audience. Much more interesting are Mephistopheles’s antics, as when the student voices the word ‘theology’ which ignites a flash that almost sets the devil ablaze to the delight of the audience, obviously responsive to any suggestion of church satire. Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig is completely recast. Young street thugs in contemporary dress replace the students in the original; they are representatives of impoverished youth with no prospects in society. They

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draw knives, signalling their ethos of survival through violence and crime, while their wild drinking points to the problems of alcoholism in the lower bracket of Philippine society. Popular alcoholic brands replace the champagne and vintages in Goethe’s text. Talk is of the secretary and president, rather than kings and emperors, reflecting the current instability in Philippine government. With regard to understanding the connections between scenes like this and the social climate in Manila, a prominent correspondent to Bennewitz wrote on 18 December 1994, with reference to the brief and rare calm in Manila because of the Pope’s visit: ‘man hatte selbst das Morden und Rauben vergessen vor lauter heilig, heilig; böse Zungen behaupten, die Menschen standen zu eng, um das Messer / den Colt aus der Tasche zu ziehen oder den Vordermann hineinzufassen, man hat auch alles danach kräftig nachgeholt, damit die Gesamtstatistik wieder ins Lot kommt!’ (Letters, Anon 2). Thunder is heard, a sign to the audience that Mephistopheles is about to perform a miracle. The action ends in fighting and chaos. Native drumbeats signal a change of scene. Overt, even outlandish sexual allusions are strikingly frequent throughout the production, exploiting their wealth in Goethe’s text, but often exaggerating or distorting them well beyond what is in the original. Again and again they elicit enthusiastic reactions from the entire audience, men and women, despite their doublessly largely Catholic affiliation. Filipinos maintain an unusually lively interest in lasciviousness, of which type the Witches’ Kitchen scene in the production contains some striking examples, a thick brew of ritualistic performance reminiscent of voodoo once again. Apes and witches are replaced by skulls and skeletons, which would represent for this audience doom and death. Organ music accompanies the action, Bach’s ‘Prelude in D Minor,’ which is often associated with Dracula or the devil. There follows an orgy of drumming, music, and dance with a spectacularly perverse climax: a raving transvestite storms the scene, with shocking red mini-skirt and endlessly long legs in black net stockings, emitting shamelessly jubilant salacious shrieks to the whoops and cheers of the audience. Not only do they revel in his ostensibly perverse sexuality, they are overjoyed to see the actor behind the figure, known to many of them as Khryss Adalia, a darling of the Manila cabaret scene, whose name, of course, had been well publicized in advance. Move over, Bodgie Pascua and Nasseeruddin Shah! It is s/he who passes the rejuvenating potion to Faust, after excreting the elixir vulgarly from her loins. This is a wild concoction of magic, ritual, crude sexuality, and

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primeval impulse. For Philippine audiences the themes of homosexuality and sexual aberration in their extreme forms are a fascination in the cinema and theatre, and they are even considered an expression of high art. Yet at the end of the scene, when the classical beauty should appear as a transition to the Gretchen tragedy, we catch only a fleeting glimpse of a nude Helena, for ironically, Filipinos feel uncomfortable about the public display of nudity. Wild applause at the end of this scene testifies to the audience’s unmitigated delight. The Gretchen scenes show no sign of such lust and are played with a delightful freshness by the dark-haired, brown- skinned Philippine actress Wena Basco. As Gretchen, she is natural, witty, attractive, and effervescent. The set is simple and bright white to signify her innocence. Her songs are translated into Tagalog as is her dialogue, the ‘König in Thule’ spoken rather than sung and delivered with convincing emotional intensity. In the Walk scene, Mephistopheles appears among the audience, a favourite device in Philippine folk theatre, his proximity and jokes about the Church and religion evoking lively reactions. Yet when Gretchen’s famous question to Faust about his belief in God is to be played, the text is cut, and the audience does not hear a Tagalog version of her disappointed ‘Denn du hast kein Christentum’ (3468). Thereafter, the scenes right through to Forest and Cavern are telescoped and accelerated to impressionistic brevity, ending with a tender embrace (3180–7), but not even the most chaste kiss. A clear line has been drawn between the love story and the wild adventures of the previous scene, the series concluding with Gretchen’s prayer to the traditional Catholic image. With the Street scene, murder of Valentin, and its consequences, there is a radical shift back to contemporary Philippine circumstances. Valentin appears in battle fatigues carrying a machine gun, evoking associations with the American occupation and recent coup attempts. A few years before the production a high-ranking Catholic official and friend of Bennewitz had written to him: Dear Fritz: Peace and all good! Coup jitters are with us again. I seriously believe that this is part of the American government’s plan of destabilizing our government or arm-twisting it so that a one-sided treaty (favoring them) would be concluded. In the fact of the world’s retreat from tyranny, the U.S. chooses to bully one small nation to prove its superiority ... extremely pathetic to me. It is as if the U.S.’s reason for existing is based on its neo-

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imperialist control of smaller and poorer nations. How pathetic indeed! (Letters, Anon 3; ellipses in original)

Valentin lunges at Mephistopheles repeatedly but unsuccessfully with a knife, recognizes the presence of a superior evil being, and is stabbed – unassisted by Faust. The entire question of responsibility for his killing is changed by this manipulation so that the scene thematicizes Manila’s uncontrolled urban violence rather than Mephistopheles’s guile and Faust’s culpability. Then comes the climax: Gretchen is dragged off by street thugs and tortured brutally, a dramatic statement on the complicity of society in her downfall and perhaps an allusion to Ferdinand Marcos’s bands of thugs. There is no Cathedral scene. Gretchen is not condemned by the Church, no doubt a taboo topic even for PETA. The violence of this scene would have been distressing to the audience, for by nature Filipinos are not aggressive people. Gretchen would have invoked their pity. Accompanied by alternating march music and a pounding electric guitar, the Walpurgisnacht suggests a climate of war, and a medley of sexual positions create an atmosphere of lewdness and perversity, a hedonistic scene of excess. Some of the dances, however, are accompanied by ‘barrio’ or ‘fiesta’ music, suggesting connections to elemental impulses in society. Sound and lighting effects of thunder and darkness add to the atmosphere of doom. A mannequin is slowly dismembered, a twist on the Gretchen cameo in the text, presumably a metaphor for the dehumanizing nature of such activity. The action moves from here directly to the final scene, with only a few lines from Mephistopheles in between, and the action in the dungeon is brief, reduced to Faust and Gretchen on stage lamenting their fated love and a woman’s voice from offstage, through ecclesiastical musical strains, announcing that ‘This woman is saved.’ There is no sign of Part II. Long and enthusiastic applause follow and thereafter an award of recognition to Bennewitz by PETA leaders and friends, followed by a reception. Critical Reception Many reviews appeared soon after in the Philippine and German press (see Manila Reviews). ‘Faust: A different Kuya Bodjie,’ by Nilo Yacat, immediately drew attention to the celebrity cast, as did all of the Philippine reviews. The ‘different’ Bodjie is the remaking of Bodjie Pascua,

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the beloved Filipino children’s television raconteur ‘Kuya Bodjie’ in the program ‘Batibot’ into the brooding scholar and sinner Faust. It is also an example of Marvin Carlson’s argument that audiences have difficulty separating celebrities from stage characters (Carlson 2001, 70, 135). Of noticeable emphasis in Yacat’s review, again as in all others that appeared in the Philippines, is the high ranking of Goethe’s Faust in the theatre canon, and in most the elements of magic, sinfulness, and religious salvation: ‘Faust is considered the most profound and representative of all German dramas. Goethe’s character is based on a magician called Doctor Faustus who was the foremost necromancer in 15th-century Germany. Since then, the name Faust has become synonymous with black magic, and identified with an ill-minded human creating a pact with the devil for an act of greed … As Faust, Bodjie plays an aging doctor who has turned to black magic.’ Although Bennewitz and Vera ended up playing only Part I, Yacat nevertheless finds it necessary to outline Part II as well, describing its conclusion this way: ‘Mephisto loses his bet. Faust eventually dies, and ascends into heaven where angels and saints pray for his salvation.’ He cites Bodjie as saying that it would have made the play more meaningful if some scenes from Part II had been included, quoting his Tagalog, ‘Sa Part Two kasi makikita ang resultata ng pustahan ng Diyos at ni Mephisto. Dito mangyayari ang salvation ni Faust’ (In Part II you will see the result of the debate between God and Mephisto. This is where the salvation of Faust occurs). Further, the reviewer relates Bennewitz’s comment that many assume Faust to be a German character, but that he is, in fact, universal. As evidence of this, Bodjie explains how he found his way into the role. He delved into his own experiences to empathize with Faust: ‘Sa mga frustrations ni Faust, I try to find my own frustrations in life. These experiences are too personal. They do help me as I confront the experiences of Faust. I have to give extra effort in focusing my energy, in getting into my center.’ This process of role internalization is a character transformation similar to that described by Helga Ziaja and Christine Campbell in their Gretchens of 1978 and 1981. Behind it is not only a gifted actor but a director who guided and encouraged his players to fashion their characters themselves. In other words, it would seem that Bennewitz was able to help this Faust transfer the role to his own personal, social, and cultural sphere. Danton Remoto’s review in the Philippine Daily Inquirer praises Vera’s translation. Obviously he saw the fact that it was played in Tagalog as meaningful. He praises Bennewitz for ‘shearing the beard off this play

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and transforming it into a 20th- century tragedy. While watching this, at the back of your mind burn the bonfires of our century: nuclear and ecological waste, our lives of easy comforts.’ But this is not simply a song of praise. The reviewer takes the production to task for the unconvincing transformation to youth in the Faust figure and the pointless hedonistic activities in the Walpurgisnacht. Most importantly, Remoto emphasizes the intercultural nature of the production: ‘Yo, the devil is cool, even hip! One moment he is impish, even jesting, and in the next cunning and wicked. Mr O’Hara shows us a devil that, good Lord, we can identify with. At one point he spits out the holy names, scorches his butt on a Bible, even ventriloquates the Latin hymns and God with satiric glee.’ The personal identification of the public with the principal actor indicates that a cultural transfer took place. That it is with Mephistopheles, not Faust, underscores the fact that not the intellectual or social thematics of the striving sinner are paramount for this audience but the religious tension between the devil – the devil in all of us – and the Christian Church, something that most Filipinos had felt throughout their lives. As was the case in Bombay, the devil became the dramatic hero instead of Faust, who is easily dealt with by the inference of salvation, as underscored in the reviewer’s description of the last scene: ‘This last scene is brilliant. She [Margarete] has lost her family and her child, and is now scorned by society. Slowly, she begins to drift in and out of sanity. The black wing of tragedy falls. Faust dies, his desires still unsatisfied. Beside him lies Margaret, her clear and sad voice calling out to God. She is saved. It is implied that Faust also ascends the angelic order, and that Mephisto loses on the wager. And remember: this play is framed by the voice of God.’ Through Mephistopheles the audience has an advocate who voices criticism of the Church and Christian doctrine, who delights them by his insolence, and expresses attitudes they would publicly suppress. But there is a limit to his influence, and hence his authority is superseded by heaven’s in the final scene when the Christian order and Church authority are reinstated. There is an unpublished German translation of Remoto’s review in the Fritz Bennewitz Archive, presumably written by Bennewitz and sent home. Another review, ‘Between Mephisto and a Vulnerable Faust,’ by C. Flores Fallarme, appeared in the same Philippine Daily Inquirer the following day, 5 December 1994. It focused on Bennewitz’s lifetime accomplishments as well as on the performance. Dubbed in its subtitle as the ‘Third World Theater’s Father Courage,’ Bennewitz is placed on a pedestal alongside Brecht’s heroine. The piece is a profile rather than

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a review, and its text is lifted almost entirely from Bennewitz’s fourteen-paged handwritten interview notes of 25 October 1994, described above (Bennewitz, Interview Manila). Repeated here are his statements that for this production Goethe’s text had been edited for local conditions, in this case its radical shortening because of the outdoor venue at Fort Santiago. That was, of course, only partly true, for it could have been played on two nights. He repeats that it was PETA’s intention to have some scenes from the fourth and fifth acts of Part II, but leaves us to guess why they weren’t there. More importantly, he repeats the notion that ‘as script, a play is dormant – just plain text, letters. It is when sensitive actors, as if embarking upon an adventurous journey toward unknown territory, breathe life into them – in the context of the moment, of a specific time and space – that historical, cultural, ethnic and other conditions and structures come into play. The director, now in intimate, gut-level dialogue with his actors, in his role as catalyst, guides the mutual intercultural challenge taking place between material (play) and actor, standing witness to a whole process of integration, repulsion and assimilation.’ Flores has nicely smoothed Bennewitz’s visceral outburst in those notes (9–10) to retain the essential core that what makes the production tick is not the text itself but the time and place into which it is transposed and brought to new life by the actors to include the historical, cultural, and ethnic conditions. He also includes Bennewitz’s categorization of Faust as a ‘Drama of Man’ and belief that it is relevant for modern ecological and social problems, although it is at this point that he makes a significant adjustment. Whereas Bennewitz wrote in his notes, ‘can our sleep be sound when there seems no Noah at hand to build his ark and no God to give him a pair of each creature to rescue and reach the top of Mount Ararat?’ (11–12), Flores quotes him as saying, ‘can [man] really sleep soundly in the night knowing that there most likely will be no Noah to build us another ark, no Noah who would preserve once more a pair each of this earth’s creatures?’ God is omitted, as is His responsibility for the earth’s social and ecological catastrophes. A denial of His existence simply would not do in the Christian Philippines. By contrast, Flores includes this comment, ostensibly as a quotation from Bennewitz about Mephistopheles: ‘In an almost mock moment of acknowledging his incomplete power to battle the “supercilious light,” he laments not being able to lead the world towards total destruction, almost bewildered by the eventual triumph of a healing creative power in the universe that as if makes light out of natural and human disasters’ (italics

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mine). But this is what is in Bennewitz’s interview notes: ‘He [Mephisto], in the yet undecided battle with the “supercilious” light, in an almost mock understatement, laments [that] he hasn’t yet “got under the skin of this fat world” – earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, fires – and he didn’t yet talk about social disasters and war. Faust gets a shivering vision of the victims and who the guest and companion is who has come over the threshold. ‘Against the ever-working, healing, creative power you dare to raise your cold devil’s fist’ (12–13; emphasis added). The author cannot say if there was a discussion between Flores and Bennewitz on the adjustment here, and the punctuation in the article is unclear, but it seems likely that Bennewitz at some point approved the change. Technically, according to this, Bennewitz is being quoted in the review, in which case he must have softened his stand from that of his notes on the point of the creative power, for that power appears in the review to be no longer in doubt, no longer contested, whereas in Bennewitz’s original notes to the interview it was anything but that. An endorsement of the triumph of the creative power – for a Christian society, God – seems to have been a necessary cultural adjustment. Flores closed his review with a summary compliment to Bennewitz in Faustian terms: ‘Prof. Fritz Bennewitz, for his part, does not appear as if he is about to cease striving for more courageous and transcendent approaches to bringing together the best that theater traditions of both the First and Third Worlds offer. In fact, he might just bet with the Devil that in the theater, or to be more specific, in any production of “Faust,” east and west shall in the end meet.’ He was certainly convinced that Bennewitz was making productive intercultural theatre that contributed to Philippine society, even if he shifted the emphasis of what the director intended to show. A final review in English, in the Manila Chronicle, can be seen as a counterpart to that focusing on Bodjie Pascua above. ‘O’Hara’s Mephisto Burns like Hellfire’ is a tribute to the hero of the piece and its actor. It reviews O’Hara’s distinguished career as a theatre and film director and actor and voices the customary praise for Goethe’s drama and for Bennewitz. But Manila Chronicle reviewer Noel Vera, who interviewed several members of the production, also does some sprightly probing. ‘The director is Fritz Bennewitz from Germany, which makes you wonder what would happen if we used one of our own directors, maybe one of the young turks from UP [University of the Philippines]. Would his interpretation be more daring? Or more disastrous?’ He leaves the answers to us. The query is important, as it was for the Bom-

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bay Faust. There, it was the Hindu disposition that interfered with audience identification with Faust. Here it is the disposition of an Asian Christian society. Noel Vera is suggesting that the entire problem of the Faust character is perhaps uninteresting to Filipino Christians, or in the end unacceptable to them; hence, their primary interest in Mephistopheles. He is asking whether, in fact, any foreign director can really do cultural justice to an adopted venue. He describes the Faust figure as tortured by a philosophical point, something Germans are fond of doing to themselves but which we Filipinos might have trouble understanding: is there anything left to learn? Anything worth striving for? is there anything more to life than what already is? … Mr Pascua has a problem: it isn’t very interesting. I can’t see that it’s his fault; he sweats to give Faust’s pages-long monologue intensity, and Goethe’s lengthy, convoluted verses … emerge from him as if torn fresh from [the] soul. Call it Culture Clash, call it Generation Gap, call it the Shortening of our Attention Span, but Faust looks like such a small, whining figure onstage that you want to yell at him to get a life.

Bodjie Pascua is indeed small of stature, which made things worse, but the main problem was Goethe’s ponderous text, even when drastically cut, and the problem of his protagonist. This theatre audience did not seek its pleasure in existential philosophy, but rather in entertainment and enjoyment. By contrast, Vera describes Faust’s counterpart: Enter Mephisto: As the demon, Mario O’Hara wears a punk leather jacket and an odd pair of socks – one black, the other red. His posture is macho to the point of parody. His voice is crushed gravel and can fill the stage with booming laughter or hold it motionless in whispered suspense. He is pallid white, and his eyes are accented black with a touch of red so that he looks as if he hadn’t slept since the February Revolution. But they burn, glittering little flames, with the promise of hellfire. The Devil is alive and well and standing on a stage in Fort Santiago.

This was a theatrical figure the Filipino audience liked, and so he became the star of the show. Elsewhere in the review Vera praises the acting of Khryss Adalia as the Witch in particular, which he calls ‘a daring stroke of casting.’ His readers knew what he meant. The Witches Kitchen scene was indeed the most electric of the play, as Vera writes,

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‘As witch, Adalia is an astonishingly sensuous creature with an endless pair of fish[net]-stockinged legs.’ A review also appeared in German in the Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung. There, Bernhard Hecker paid tribute to Bennewitz’s twenty-five years of directing in the Third World, many visits to the Philippines, his honorary membership in PETA, and to his insistence that Goethe’s Faust ‘ist ein Weltgedicht und eben keine deutsche Provinzposse.’ In his title, ‘Auerbachs Keller in Manila,’ Hecker takes a line similar to Noel Vera’s, seeing the staging of the scene as exemplary of Bennewitz’s attempt to be relevant to his host culture and audience. He also provides valuable information on the nature of that audience: ‘Die Tragödie wurde von dem überwiegend jungen, studentischen Publikum, das seiner Begeisterung in “Bravos,” aber auch wie bei einem Popkonzert, in “Jis” Ausdruck verlieh, als die Tragödie einer Liebe verstanden, die von der Gesellschaft noch nicht ertragen wird.’ Knowing this helps us to understand how and why various aspects of the staging struck home. A further instructive element stressed by Hecker, the only reviewer who did so, was PETA’s mandate to be socially and politically involved, to advocate for justice and fight for the rights of the weak and disadvantaged. In line with the politics of his homeland, Hecker cites their criticism of the Marcos regime and quotes Bennewitz as saying, ‘In den Philippinen findet Theater noch als soziales Phänomen statt.’ Thus the Gretchen story appealed both as a social commentary and as the depiction of disoriented and chaotic social types, groups, and circumstances. Aftermath Discussion of the Manila production of Faust continued for months afterward, as recorded in the flow of correspondence between Bennewitz and his Philippine colleagues. On 29 January 1995 he wrote to Rody Vera, ‘I don’t know whether you can imagine what it means to me. My life has come full circle with that PETA-Faust – the most moving and meaningful celebration and documentation of 25 years of international co-operation with PETA as the one and only REAL home throughout so many years of almost three generations.’ This is a remarkable statement in light of Bennewitz’s close connections with India and his many productions and friendships there. Perhaps the artistic and the public success of the production, combined with many others there before it, was evidence that his relationship with PETA and the Philippines was indeed the zenith of his interna-

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tional career. He writes further that he is anxious for reviews, promised by Melvin Lee, who served as director for Bennewitz after he returned to Germany, hopeful that the critics would be as appreciative of his work as the audiences, at least as far as he had experienced them at the beginning of the run. We have seen that, indeed, that was the case. He goes on to tell as well of his growing weakness from cancer, but never-failing drive to go on. Just over a week later he received Lee’s response, three pages of affectionate and adoring news (Letters, Melvin Lee, 7 Feb. 1995). As Vera had mentioned in amusement in connection with the video that no two PETA shows are the same, Lee wrote of the changes from night to night as actors developed their characters, a product of Bennewitz and Vera’s empowering directing, but with its perils nevertheless. Lee related, ‘During the run I kept mentioning to the actors during company calls that it would really help them if they go back to their notes so that they could retain the original intention of their character,’ adding, ‘some of them really grew from their roles,’ and assuring his reader, ‘Don’t worry, Fritz, whatever instruction or notion that I have given [was from] your original notes or intention. I am very conscious that I wasn’t giving my personal interpretation of the role. I wouldn’t dare bastardize your creation.’ His great respect for and deference to Bennewitz are evident. A further letter of 17 Febrary 1995 from Mena, with greetings from several cast and crew members and beginning ‘Our dearest Fritz,’ was full of warmth. No doubt to his delight, this one concentrated on the audience, whom it described as ‘most pleased, some ecstatic, others “very impressed” with what they saw, heard and felt. Most reviews have been favourable. But personally I care more for the audience. Artist-friends, quite a lot of them, came too. And they were VERY, VERY IMPRESSED!’ (Lettters, Mena, 17 Feb. 1995; uppercase emphasis in the original). Bennewitz had sent a letter of thanks to sponsor Dirk Angelroth of the Goethe Institute and received a long letter of congratulation in response (Letters, Angelroth, 22 Dec. 1994), as well as an unusual offer. Angelroth spent the first half of the letter bemoaning the fact that he was able to see so little of the director during his visit and that a social invitation, despite all good intentions, failed to materialize. So he made the unusual overture of suggesting they become ‘Dutzfreunde’ (i.e., use the familiar form of address in German) by mail. Interestingly, he goes on to lament the fact that a video had not yet emerged and that the Goethe Institute’s offer to do one was never realized. The source of the

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copy in the FBA is unclear. Angelroth reported on the reviews, adding useful local social insights. The last word should go to translator, friend, co-director, and collaborator Rody Vera, who announced that he had taken up the Goethe Institute’s offer and begun to learn German, impishly including a close paraphrase of that infamous quotation of the trumpeter in Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen, ‘er kann mich [a]– [A]– [l]–,’ whose source he slyly denies knowing (Goethes Werke, WA I, 8: 109, 24; Letters, Vera , 6 May 1995, 2). Vera knew that Bennewitz’s strong sense of humour would be in tune with his fun. He relates further that Angelroth was urging a co-production of Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell for the centennial of the Philippine Revolution, but that it didn’t seem likely, adding that ‘Philippine politics has just gone from bloody absurd to bloody surreal.’ In the FBA, among the materials on the Manila Faust, are four photographs of riots in the capital at the time, including battle-clad marines, anti-riot teams, militant mobs storming the Mendiola Bridge, fleeing farmers and workers, and corpses in their wake. Although it was not an overt critique of the government, Bennewitz’s Manila Faust had contained plenty of allusions to the civil unrest in the country, particularly in the Auerbach’s Cellar and Valentin scenes. It is worth mentioning that in this, perhaps without being aware of it, he was unwittingly following José Rizal’s example of using Faust in the Philippines to that end. There is also evidence in an undated newspaper clipping in the FBA that the Philippine composer and film-maker Lutgardo Labad, who was closely allied with PETA and called Gardy by most, planned to revive the piece in cooperation with PETA and Bennewitz, although there is no evidence that the plan went any further than that. Conclusion As much as things went wrong in Bombay in Bennewitz’s attempt to create intercultural theatre, so in Manila did they go right because the fundamental elements were different. Instead of the National Centre for the Performing Arts serving as local host, an institution representing post-colonial art of the elite, that role was filled in Manila by PETA, a grassroots organization committed to social justice for the underprivileged and to the cultivation of indigenous art forms. The strongest signal of this was the conviction on all sides from the start that Faust would be done in Tagalog, despite the facts that the audience could certainly have understood an English version, of which there were many at hand,

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and that no Tagalog translation existed when the project began. The history of colonization in the Philippines was also much more a living concept than it had been in Bombay, where that phase had ended officially in 1947, in the Philippines in 1992, only two years before the production, and even then had been replaced by ongoing problems of civil unrest and political instability. Beyond the fact that the Tagalog version was a throbbing reminder throughout the production that the Filipino point of view dominated over the original German or substitute English was that the control of all details of the production lay in PETA’s hands from the start, and its representative co-director Rody Vera, and that both he and Bennewitz empowered the actors themselves to take it over through internalizing and personalizing their roles. The Manila Faust became a Germano-Philippine hybrid. In contrast to the Bombay effort, references to indigenous Aboriginal culture were strong throughout, particularly in the native music and dance, and in the many scenes highlighting magic and the supernatural. Bennewitz even wrote in his theoretical accompaniment that it was magic now that would be in control. But it was just as strong in what could be called modern Philippine culture, the tension between the Filipinos’ extraordinary commitment to Roman Catholicism, but at the same time their refashioning of traditional Catholic dogma and practice to reflect their indigenous culture and religion and their intrinsic effervescence for an exuberant life of joy and pleasure. The latter was evidenced most dramatically and most ebulliently in their attraction as a group to sexual inuendos in all forms and variants. The Filipinos’ unique relationship with the Catholic Church and their belief is also embodied in the supremacy in the production of the Mephistopheles figure, who becomes their surrogate to criticize and satirize aspects of Catholic belief and its institutions without compromising their loyalty to it in the end. Also part of this strong representation of the Philippines’ modern native culture is the production’s repeated reference to the urban problems of Manila and the violence and poverty on the streets, which even went so far as to be blamed for Gretchen’s destruction at the end. Bennewitz’s lively correspondence with his Philippine colleagues in the aftermath of the production recalls his theoretical stance at the start: ‘any play of some stature is a very sensitive organism – dormant in the book and letter only – which meets in a given time at a given place with actors who are likewise sensitive organs of their respective historical, cultural, ethnic and other conditions and structures. In an intercultural encounter the director must initiate the mutual challenge of play and

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players, watch and guide the process of integration, repulsion and assimilation’ (Bennewitz, Interview Manila, 1994, 6, 7–8). Now it is fair to say that this time Fritz Bennewitz succeeded in doing just that, and his partners in the Philippines overwhelmingly agreed. Even more, it is truly remarkable how the socialist and materialist Bennewitz in the end even went so far as to allow one correspondent to twist his own words to avoid the director’s denial of God and leave the myth of His existence alone, as the Filipinos would have it. In the end, he made an ultimate concession to their cultural foundation, something which surely signalled an abiding commitment to intercultural communication.

10 From Loyalist to Intercultural Pioneer

Fritz Bennewitz’s direction of Goethe’s Faust seven times, four in his native country, three abroad, was by volume alone a singular accomplishment in German stage history. For most of his mature life Bennewitz was a citizen of a state well known for its restrictive control of movement, especially to Western countries, yet from 1970 until the reunification of Germany in 1989 he travelled and worked in his profession abroad at least once annually, and, more commonly, several times. Only a loyal party member could gain such freedom, and that he was. Yet his belief in socialism as it was being applied in the German Democratic Republic faded in the last two decades of his career. Bennewitz was a socialist idealist, he was not by nature politically minded; he was uninterested in mundane politics, not involved in the scurrilous activities of small-minded party officials and their agents, interested only in a utopian notion and in representing this notion through theatre. Shakespeare’s works for him were the link to European history, the history through which modern socialism was said to have developed in dialectical stages; Brecht’s were the great enactment of that history for his times, for Germany, and internationally. Ever since Bennewitz’s early years, directing scenes from Goethe’s Faust in prisoner-of-war camps where he was incarcerated, this work was his passion, the arch-German tragedy by the nation’s greatest author with a protagonist whose fundamental striving for social change he interpreted as the ultimate socialist role model. Yet he was also fascinated throughout his life by Goethe’s concept of ‘Weltliteratur,’ itself an expression of internationality and interculturalism for its author and for himself. When in the early 1970s Bennewitz became frustrated with the progress of his country towards both socialist and international ideals, and the restrictions that he, along

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with all GDR artists were experiencing, he found a more fulfilling role through the International Theatre Institute and his first travels to India, the Philippines, and soon after, more and more countries. The increasing opportunities to direct, interact, and have influence there structured the rest of his life. He could escape his country to follow his mission with an almost free hand. His mission was theatre for social change. All of his productions abroad had that ultimate purpose. Bennewitz’s four German stagings of Faust were a barometer of the political and social history of his homeland over three decades. His three GDR productions of Faust showed a developing perception of the socialism and political reality of that country, while his fourth, as a citizen of the united Federal Republic of Germany, exhibited with discordant tones his recognition of its ultimate bankruptcy and at the same time his rejection of its newly minted replacement. Having grown apart for more than four decades in social and political ideology and practice, artistic styles and goals, even to some extent in language, the two Germanies had become different cultural entities during Bennewitz’s lifetime, just as the GDR itself had moved through several phases of identity during its separate evolution throughout Bennewitz’s career. Hence, the author has maintained that even Benewitz’s three GDR Fausts can be considered interculturally, each reflecting a different historical, ideological, and cultural phase, and even more emphatically, that his fourth in the new country, did the same. This book argues that the phases of GDR socialism are captured most strikingly in one specific scene and speech of Bennewitz’s first three stagings of Faust, in Faust’s last words. Bennewitz’s first Weimar Faust of 1965/67 was the expression of a director at the height of his conviction that socialism, GDR socialism, was the model for a successful rebuilding of Germany. In 1967 the belief was trumpeted with thorough conviction in Faust’s final speech: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muß. Und so verbirgt, umrungen von Gefahr, Hier Kindheit, Mann und Greis sein tüchtig Jahr. Solch ein Gewimmel möcht ich sehn, Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.

(11575–80)

In that year Faust spoke these words with his eyes closed, sightless, which was consistent with his blinding by Sorge. It was an inner vision

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of the future. Yet, as we saw, this Faust then literally rose from the dead, opened his eyes, and spoke once more to conclude the play. The signal was clear. His vision was alive in the GDR then and there. His optimism even transcended his homeland’s borders through the production’s repeated televised broadcast addressing the entire country, and indeed an international audience to the west and several neighbouring socialist states to the east as well. By 1975, as Bennewitz’s position began to change, touches of irony crept in. This Faust delivered the same speech almost entirely with eyes closed at first, but with an arresting change at the last line, when he suddenly stared at the audience with riveting intensity. Was he now seeing the reality behind the vision, a land where it was now in doubt? That was left ambivalent. By 1982 the same speech and statement had the stunning function of drawing the entire play to a halt as the actors abandoned the illusion and stepped as one, with Faust, out of their roles, thereby reducing the tragedy’s conclusion to what Bennewitz himself called a ‘Posse.’ That was his final statement on the legitimacy of Faust’s vision for the GDR and Goethe’s Faust as a vehicle to communicate it, an act of daring for which Bennewitz will never be forgotten by Weimar audiences. Fritz Bennewitz’s first Faust abroad in New York in 1978, in which he cast the first black Gretchen in recorded theatre history, was a monumental step forward not just for intercultural theatre but for the staging of Goethe’s Faust in general. That he broke the racial barrier in his casting of Gretchen is itself an accomplishment of lasting intercultural significance. The full brilliance of that decision was only realized after the Gretchen actress Christine Campbell experienced a transformation of consciousness during private rehearsal, entered the role, and became the character herself, thereby welding the experience of an eighteenthcentury German woman to that of an immigrant black American, and indeed the entire history of black racial struggles in the United States as incorporated by Billie Holiday. This was a singular event in the theatre history of the United States and Faust performance internationally. Bennewitz’s Indian and Philippine stagings of Faust represent an important part of his intercultural work as well, yet coming in 1994, near the end of his life, they must be seen as late endorsements of this activity rather than pioneering, even if unique, works in that direction. In analysing them it became evident that the Indian production could not be claimed as an intercultural success, which both Bennewitz and co-director Vijaya Mehta later acknowledged, even though it was per-

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formed in Hindi with an all-Indian cast, a largely Indian technical crew, and many Indian crossovers in its interpretation and communication of Goethe’s work and the Faust legend. A major problem rested in the very nature of the Faust character whose fundamental philosophy of life and ambition to seize it stood in irreconcilable contrast to India’s dominant Hindu culture. If Goethe’s Faust was to be adapted successfully to India, then some basic premises about the protagonist would have to change. Other attempts to stage Goethe’s Faust in India, notably Krishna Kaimal’s in 1978 and Erin Mee’s in 1993 had shown that this was possible. Another problem with Bennewitz’s Bombay Faust was its unnatural transplantation to a Western-oriented theatre space and cultural organization. To keep this in perspective, however, we should remember that this Faust was not representative of Bennewitz’s work in general in India. It also bears repeating that Bennewitz pioneered the transfer of Indian theatre to Germany through his co-direction, with visiting colleagues, of the Indian Sanskrit classics Mudrarakshasa and Hayavadana in Weimar (1976, 1984) and Shakuntala in Leipzig (1980), using German casts. The Manila Faust, in the view of Bennewitz, his Philippine colleagues, and the audience alike, was a resounding intercultural success. What is more, his correspondence with Rody Vera, and every aspect of that production, leave no doubt that these partners explicitly intended to create intercultural theatre and, indeed, felt that they had succeeded in doing so. What Rustom Bharucha would later define as intraculturalism, ‘the intracultural dynamics between and across specific communities and regions within the boundaries of the nation-state’ (2000, 8), as opposed to intercultural relations across national boundaries, was something different, and Bennewitz’s experience in both India and the Philippines, in many areas in each case, was so extensive that he became part of the intracultural theatre scene there just as much as the natives. His black Gretchen in New York could also be termed an intracultural breakthrough for American theatre. That notwithstanding, the full force of Bennewitz’s contribution to intercultural theatre lay not in his stagings of Faust but in his Brecht and Shakespeare productions abroad, a field of activity that was so fruitful that it cries out for additional scholarly study. Concurrent with his increasing disillusionment at home in the early 1970s was his enthusiasm for achieving other goals through international theatre. His participation in the International Theatre Institute and its Third World Committee resulted in constant involvement abroad. He began direct-

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ing outside his homeland, first in 1968 in Rumania, then in 1970 with his first play in India, 1972 in Damascus (Iraq), and in 1973 the celebrated Kreidekreis (Ajab Nyaya Vartulacha) in Bombay, with co-director Vijaya Mehta, a staging so successful that it was brought back to Berlin, the first of his Indian productions to make that journey. The cultural transfer was suddenly working in both directions. Bennewitz wrote generously about this time and his ‘Erlebnis und Erfahrung des Volkstheaters bei der indischen Adaption des Kreidekreises ... in Cooperation mit Vijaya Mehta’ (Görne, Sig. 166a, 2). The notions of ‘Volkstheater’ and partnership with directors from other cultures remained central to Bennewitz’s future thinking, as opposed to what could be called the institutional theatre he was producing for the most part in Weimar. The Indian notion of ‘Volkstheater’ was rooted and performed in villages and rural settlements, far removed from the permanent, text-based theatre of the European style, and unlike the latter was typically a combination of performance forms (drama, dance, song), eternal themes, Hindu associations, and local social and political references. From this time on Bennewitz wrote frequently and at length in his letters about such intercultural activity, calling it just that. It was clearly and consciously on his personal and professional agenda and remained there for the next twenty years. He used the same play as his model in Manila, New York, and other cities abroad, and from then until the end of his life he travelled and directed abroad constantly, adapting plays to local mores and using native languages to an extent that was surely unparalleled by any of his contemporaries throughout the world, an irrefutable stamp of commitment to intercultural theatre. His receipt of the Philippine critics award for the best production of the year, for his 1977/78 Kreidekreis (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit) with Filipino colleagues in Manila, was a clear endorsement from his hosts of the success and distinction of his intercultural activity. His receipt in 1991 of the National Indian Arts Academy Prize (Natak Academy) in honour of his cooperative efforts with India to promote cultural interchange in the spirit of Mahatma Gandi’s concept of the joining of native and ‘foreign’cultures, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s definition of Indian culture as unity in diversity, was an unmistakable validation of his intercultural work as well. A less grand, but perhaps even more convincing body of evidence witnessing Bennewitz’s success abroad remains the extensive correspondence he left, much of which focuses on intercultural matters with actors and friends in other countries. The New York, Bombay, and Manila chapters of this book all cite examples, a small

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representation of the hundreds in the Fritz Bennewitz archive. Many of these correspondents are still happy to identify themselves today at theatre conferences and performances when approached. Such writing was not limited to private, subjective, epistolary description and reflection. Bennewitz left essays and interviews, unpublished and published, on the subject of intercultural theatre, which together convey his objective understanding of it. These have been cited in the foregoing chapters, particularly those on his persona and theory and productions abroad. They include the essays ‘Faust in New York ‘ (1978), ‘India Overview’ (n.d.), and ‘Conceptual Fragments (FAUST)’ (1994); the interviews ‘Theatererfahrungen in der Dritten Welt’ (Pietzsch 1983), ‘Theatre for the Masses’ (Lal 1983), ‘Interview NDR’ (1993), ‘Grenzüberschreitung mit Goethe’ (Hecker 1994), ‘Interview Manila’ (1994), ‘A Pact with a Classic’ (Galot 1994), and ‘Am wichtigsten ist der Dialog’ (Stephan 1995); and the reports ‘Bericht USA’ (1979) and ‘Internationale Co-operation auf dem Theater’ (1980). Today we must hold Bennewitz’s work not just against his own understanding of intercultural theatre, but also that of others. In many ways it paralleled directors from a variety of other countries, including Richard Schechner above all, but also their renowned contemporaries Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook, Jerzy Grotowski, Ariane Mnouchkine, and Robert Wilson. Bennewitz has not been included alongside them in standard academic studies of intercultural theory and practice, but he has well earned his place among their number. His work also invites comment in several linked areas of critical inquiry where scholars have been vigorously active, but almost exclusively without reference to him, as in theatre anthropology (Watson 2002), performance and theatre studies (Marranca and Dasgupta 1991; Pavis, Intercultural, 1996), cross- and intercultural studies (Esleben et al. 2008; Fitz et al. 2005), post-colonial studies (Ashcroft et al. 1994; Williams and Chrisman 1994), as well as international politics and global studies (Bharucha 1990; Conquergood, 1999, 2002). By way of exception, in her recent book on the politics of modern Indian theatre, Poetics, Plays and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre (2006), Vasuda Dalmia does grant Bennewitz a sprinkling of brief references. Most recently the term cosmopolitanism has been coined anew and become part of the discussion on world ethics by philosophers such as Kwame Anthony Appiah (2005, 2006). Bennewitz’s work deserves to be part of that discussion as well. Goethe specialists are actively involved in this debate, Goethe’s concept of ‘Weltliteratur’ being central to the recent biennial

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conference of the Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar (3–6 June 2009) where Andrea Albrecht’s contribution was particularly valuable for its challenge to researchers to locate Goethe within the current discourse on cosmopolitanism. At the time of writing, Christine Regus (2009) provides the most recent, extensively documented, book-length study of intercultural theatre and its recent forms. Given the range of definitions and understandings of the term interculturalism, its derivatives and extensions, and the ongoing discussions which keep it in flux, by what yardstick is one to measure the significance of Bennewitz’s contribution? We can reduce the discussion to a simple definition: Interculturalism is activity of any kind between people of different cultures whose success is judged reciprocally and positively by those involved as well as observers at arm’s length in the debate.

By this definition, Bennewitz’s productions in his homeland, in New York, India, the Philippines, and many other countries, demonstrate that his contribution to interculturalism through theatre was meaningful and, indeed, remarkable. This book hopes to be a first step towards recognizing that contribution and spurring the academic community to include it in future debate. That discussion will lead, inevitably, to an expansion of the parameters of this study past Faust to include Bennewitz’s many Brecht and Shakespeare productions in India, the Philippines, and other countries, each one a step forward in his intercultural development. It hence has the potential to spark fresh academic discussion about two of the world’s greatest playwrights within an international context.

Appendix 1 Fritz Bennewitz: Biographical Highlights

1926, 20 Jan. 1944 1945 1947 1944–46 1947 1947 1948 1949– 1950– 1955–60 1958

1960–

Born, Chemnitz Joined German navy as assistant in air defence in the heavy ‘Heimatflakbatterie’ 224/IV Captured and taken as prisoner of war Release to Gerstungen Engagement to Cornelia Brenner Prisoner of war in France; theatre activity Release and return to Germany Joined the SED party, retained membership until 1990 Study of Philosophy and Theatre Arts, Karl Marx University, Leipzig Study of Theaterwissenschaft, Deutsches Theaterinstitut, Weimar Engaged as chief dramatist (‘Oberspielleiter’), Landestheater Meiningen Directed Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper in Meiningen. First great success. Guest performances at Berlin Theatre Festival. Offered position at the Deutsches Theater Berlin by Helene Weigel; refused in favour of taking up a position in Weimar Engaged as director at Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar (until 1992)

The information is based on Bennewitz’s own notes and materials in the FBA as well as on the following published sources: Baumgartner and Hebig (1996), Rischbieter (1983), Sucher (1999), and Trilse-Finkelstein and Hammer (1995).

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1966 1967 1967 1967 1968 1969 1969– 1970 1971 1972–84 1975 1976

1977

1977 1978 1978

1984 1986 1986 1991

Appendix 1

Kunstpreis der DDR [GDR] for interpretations of Shakespeare and Brecht Deutscher Nationalpreis, III. Klasse für Kunst und Literatur Kunstpreis for interpretations of German classical works, especially Goethe’s Faust Deutscher Nationalpreis, III. Klasse für Kunst und Literatur Beginning of directing career abroad (Galileo in Jasi, Rumania) Außerordentliches Mitglied der Deutschen Akademie der Künste, Berlin Member of the International Theatre Institute (iTi) Beginning of directing career in India (Dreigroschenoper, Delhi) First visit to the Philippines as GDR delegate to Third World Theatre Conference, Manila Consultant on the iTi committee on the third world Directed all-Brecht festival in New York, sponsored by American International Theatre Institute Serious automobile accident resulting in loss of sight in right eye, disfigurement, and ongoing medical treatment for years Directed The Caucasian Chalk Circle in New York at the La MaMa ETC theatre, the first time an East German director had been invited to stage a production in the United States Invited lectures, University of Connecticut and other U.S. universities Appointed professor of theatre studies, University of Leipzig Philippine adaptation of Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit) awarded Philippine’s critics prize as best production of 1977/78 Awarded Stern der Völkerfreundschaft (in Silber) (GDR) Literatur- u. Kunstpreis der Stadt Weimar Awarded honorary title as ‘Aktivist der Sozialistischen Arbeit,’ Weimar Awarded National Indian Arts Academy Prize (Natak

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Academy) in honour of his communal efforts with India to promote cultural interchange 1992 Position as as theatre director at the DNT Weimar terminated 1995, 12 Sept. Died, Weimar

Appendix 2 Fritz Bennewitz’s Travels

1961 1967 1970 1971

1972

1973

England, Scotland Greece India (Agra, Hyderabad, Jaipur, New Delhi) India (Bangalore, Bombay, Hyderabad, Jayagaran, New Delhi, Madras, Poona, Sangi) Philippines (Manila) Benelux India (Bombay) Italy (Florence, Rome, Turin) Syria USSR (Vilnius) France (Paris) India (Bombay, Goa) Iran (Shiraz, Teheran) Nepal Syria USSR (Moscow)

The information is based on Bennewitz’s own lists and diaries housed in the FBA. There are some minor discrepancies in these, and hence likely in this appendix as well. His extensive travels were made possible mainly by his executive position as consultant on the Third World for the International Theatre Institute (iTi) and invitations to direct plays abroad. His transportation was thus usually paid, and his living expenses, by inclination, small. Only occasionally did Bennewitz receive a modest stipend from his hosts. Within each year, locations are listed alphabetically rather than in the order visited, as this is uncertain.

Fritz Bennewitz’s Travels

1974

1975

1976 1977

1978

1979

1980 1981

1982 1983 1984 1985

Italy (Parma) Lebanon Benelux India (Bombay, New Delhi, Poona, Trivandrum) Philippines (Mindanao) Rumania (Iasi) Syria Federal Republic of Germany (Berlin) India (Bombay, Cochin, New Delhi) Poland France (Rennes) Japan (Tokyo) Philippines (Manila) Singapore Sweden United States (Connecticut; New York City; Oxford, Ohio) India (Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Hyderabad, New Delhi) Philippines (Karachu, Manila) United States (Connecticut, Los Angeles, New York City, Princeton, San Francisco, Washington, DC) Venezuela (Caracas) Bulgaria India (Bangalore, Chandigar, New Delhi, Vishnhapattnam) Philippines (Bolinao, Boutao, Manila, Paopanjan, Sagada) United States (New York City, Princeton, Washington, DC) India (Bombay, Calcutta, New Delhi) Philippines (Manila, Mindanao, Sogoanjan) India Spain Sri Lanka Venezuela India (Bangalore) Sri Lanka India (Bhopal) India (Bagaro, Bhopal) Philippines Canada (Montreal, Niagara Falls) India Italy (Milan) Philippines

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276

Appendix 2

1986 India (Bhopal) Sri Lanka (Colombo, Peradeniya) 1987 Cuba India (Bhopal) Philippines (Mindanao) Singapore Sri Lanka (Colombo, Peradeniya) 1988 India (Padadik) Philippines (Manila) 1989 India (Bombay) Switzerland (Chur, Zurich) 1990 India (Bangalore, Bombay, Heggodu) Philippines Switzerland 1991 India 1993 Bangladesh (Dhaka) 1994 India (Bombay) Philippines (Manila) Undated CSSR Yugoslavia

Appendix 3 Plays Directed by Fritz Bennewitz

Overall 1955–1960, Meiningen Amphytron (Kleist) Dreigroschenoper (Brecht) Egmont (Goethe) Falstaff (Verdi) Hamlet (Shakespeare) Die jüdische Frau (Brecht) Der lange Weg (Arbusow) Leben des Galilei (Brecht) Die Lerche (Anouilh) Ljubow Jarowaja (Wsewolod Wischnewski) Lofter oder das verlorene Gesicht (Weißenborn) Lukullus (Brecht/Dessau) Die Mutter (Brecht) Panzerzug (V.V. Ivanov) Peter Petz (Tölke) Die Räuber (Schiller)

Bennewitz made many different lists of his productions, now housed in the FBA, which together can be seen as comprehensive, although they contain some contradictions, and some information is surely missing. These and other historical materials in the archive provide the basis for this appendix. The titles are listed in alphabetical order and as recorded in his notes.

278

Appendix 3

Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank [Otto Heinrich Frank] Thomas Münzer (Friedrich Wolf) Volpone (Ben Jonson) Was ihr wollt (Shakespeare) Die widerspenstige Zähmung (Widmann/Goetz) Wilhelm Tell (Schiller) Winterschlacht (Johannes R. Becher) 1959–1965 Briquettes (later titled Die Sorgen um die Macht, Peter Hax) Eduard II (Marlowe) Kreidekreis (Brecht) Lukullus (Brecht) Mahagonny (Brecht/Weill) Die Mutter (Brecht) Puntila (Brecht) Tage der Commune (Brecht) By Year (1960–1995) 1960 1961 1963 1964 1965

Hamlet (Shakespeare), Weimar Dreigroschenoper (Brecht) and Egmont (Goethe), Weimar Arturo Ui (Brecht), Weimar Wallenstein (Schiller), Weimar Richard III (Shakespeare) and Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti, Heidelberg 1965/67 Faust I and II, Weimar (also broadcast on television) 1966 Die Tage der Commune (Brecht) and Galileo (Brecht), Weimar 1967 Galileo, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Gastspiel 1968 Faust II, Weimar (broadcast on television); Hans Faust (Volker Braun); Galileo, Jasi, Rumania 1969 Galileo, Rumania 1970 Dreigroschenoper, in Hindi (Teen Take ka Swang) – in New Delhi in collaboration with the Indian National School of Drama; further performances in Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Poona 1972 Hamlet, Kreidekreis, Richard II, Weimar; Der zerbrochene Krug (Kleist), All-Arabian Theatre Festival with Weimar actors, Damascus; Kreidekreis, Bombay, with guest performances at the Berliner Festtage

Plays Directed by Fritz Bennewitz

1973

279

Kreidekreis, in Marathi (Ajab Nyaya Vartulacha), with Vijaya Mehta, and Sahitya Sangh, with Vijaya Mehta, Bombay; scenes from Kreidekreis, Puntila, Mutter, Dreigroschenoper, All-Arabian Theatre Festival, Damascus; Dreigroschenoper, Weimar 1974 Brecht ‘Collage,’ with Weimar ensemble, 20th International Theatre Festival, University of Parma 1975 Faust I and II, Weimar (also broadcast on television) 1976 Des Kanzlers Siegelring (Mudrarakshasa), Weimar. (During rehearsals, FB suffered serious injury from automobile accident; direction completed by Vijaya Mehta, Bhaskar Chandavarkar, and Guru Krishna Kutti) 1977/78 Kreidekreis in Tagalog (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit), as a musical-dance-comedy-drama, in Manila, Philippines, with Muslim emphasis (judged in 1978 by Philippine critics to be the year’s best production); Kreidekreis (adaptation into English, based on the ethnic minorities of New York in collaboration with the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company, New York, 1978); Dreigroschenoper, Leipzig; Faust I, New York 1979 Egmont, Weimar; Brecht on Trial (scenes from The Threepenny Opera, The Chalk Circle, Good Woman of Sezuan, Galilei, Arturo Ui, Mother Courage), in Hindi and Urdu, New Delhi; Puntila, in Hindi (Chopra kamaal-naukar Jamaal), New Delhi; Kreidekreis for children, New York 1980 Galilei, Calcutta, in Bengali; Puntila, in Hindi (Dewan Gazir kissa); Galilei, in Tagalog, Manila; Shakuntala, Leipzig (with Vijaya Mehta, Bhaskar Chandavarkar, Guru Krishna Kutti, and Rohini Bhatt) 1981 A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Hindi, New Delhi 1981/82 Faust I and II, Weimar (also broadcast on television) 1982 Puntila, in Kannada, Bangalore; The Chalk Circle, in Hindi (Insaaf ka Ghera), New Delhi 1983 Puntila adaptation (Shreeman Puttappanoo Aalu Somanoo), Bangalore; Galilei, Othello (Shakespeare), in Hindi, New Delhi; Othello, in Hindi, New Delhi; Kreidekreis, in Bundeli (Insaaf ka ghera), Bhopal 1984 Macbeth (Shakespeare), in Tagalog (translated by Rody Vera), Manila; Ein Sommernachtstraum, Mindanao (Philippines), Muslim version; Hajavadana (Die vertauschten Köpfe), Weimar (with Vijaya Mehta and Bhaskar Chandavarkar)

280

1985

1986

1987

1987

1988

1989

198? 1990

1991 1992 1993

1993 1994

1995

Appendix 3

Hamlet, Die Antigone (Brecht), Man Is Man (Brecht), in Hindi, New Delhi; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bararo Basant Hai), Bhopal; Galilei, in Cebuano, Cebu (Philippines) King Lear (Shakespeare), India; Haus Herzenstod (G.B. Shaw), Weimar; Mann ist Mann (Brecht), in Hindi, New Delhi; King Lear, in Hindi (Rangmandal), in Bhopal; The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in Kannada, Heggodu The Taming of the Shrew (To Sam Purus Na Mo Sam Naari), in Hindi-Sanskrit dialect, Bhopal; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sinahla version, SITA (State Institute for Theatre Arts), Dreigroschenoper, Sinhala version (Andi Rala Nadagama), Sri Lanka; Taming of the Shrew, Visayan Version (Usa Damko), University of Marawi ensemble, Marawi City (Philippines) Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti, in Tagalog (translator Mars Cavestany Jr), Manila; The Taming of the Shrew, Mother Courage, in Hindi, Bhopal; Kreidekreis, Ensemble Third Stage, Singapore Dreigroschenoper, in Sinhala (Andi Rale Nadagame), Colombo (Sri Lanka); Raja Lear, in Hindi, Calcutta; Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, Manila Dreigroschenoper, in Hindi (Paisa Phenk-Tamasha Dekh; (translated and adapted by Atul Tiwari), Bhopal; Good Woman of Sezuan, in Kannada, Heggodu; Der kaukasische Kreidekreis, Mindanao (Philippines) Wallenstein, Weimar Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), Der große Frieden (Volker Braun), in Hindi (Maha Shanti), New Delhi; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Kannada (Habbada Hanneradeneya Raatr), Heggodu Galilei, India Don Carlo (Opera, Verdi, in Italian), Weimar Mann ist Mann, in Bengali (translated by Asaduzzaman Noor), Dhaka (Bangladesh); Der Richter von Zalamea (Calderón de la Barca), Harzer Bergtheater, Thale Wallenstein, Meiningen Faust I, in Hindi, Bombay; Faust I (and II), in Tagalog (translated by Rody Vera), Manila; Ein Sommernachtstraum, Harzer Bergtheater, Thale; Wallenstein, Meiningen Faust I and II, Meiningen, interrupted by Bennewitz’s death and continued by Albert R. Pasch

Plays Directed by Fritz Bennewitz

281

Undated (Some Possible Overlap with the Productions Above) Die Antigone (Brecht), Chur, Switzerland Antonius und Cleopatra (Shakespeare), Weimar Arturo Ui (Brecht), Weimar As You Like It (Shakespeare) and The Caucasian Chalk Circle (for children), in Kannada, Heggodu Aufruhr in der Sycamore Street (Author unknown), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Bartholomäusmarkt (Ben Jonson), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Biberpelz (Gerhart Hauptmann), Berlin (also broadcast on television) Die Brücke von Lowetsch (Geogi Mishev), Weimar Bürger als Edelmann (Molière), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Bürger von Calais (opera, Wagner-Régeny), Berlin Staatsoper Celestina (de Rojas), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Der Diener zweier Herrn (Goldoni), Weimar Don Carlo (opera, Verdi), Weimar Don Carlos (Schiller), Erfurt Dreigroschenoper (Brecht), Leipzig Eduard II (Marlowe), Weimar Egmont (Goethe), Erfurt Elisabeth von England (Ferdinand Bruckner), Weimar Frau Flinz (Baierl), Weimar Galilei (Brecht), Weimar, Turin George Dandin (Molière), Weimar Good Woman of Sezuan (Brecht)), Calcutta Der große Frieden (Volker Braun), Leipzig Der Gute Mensch von Sezuan (Brecht), Weimar Guyana Johnny (opera, Alan Busch), Leipzig Hans Faust (Volker Braun), Weimar Haus Herzentod (Shaw), Weimar Die Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe (Brecht), Weimar Die Heiligen drei Affen (Czech-Kuckoff), Stralsund Heinrich IV (Shakespeare), Leipzig Heinrich V (Shakespeare), Weimar Der Held der westlichen Welt (Synge), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Herrn Krönleins Häuser (Rolf Schneider), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Hochzeit des Figaro (opera, Mozart), Weimar Musikhochschule

282

Appendix 3

Die Hunde bellen nicht mehr (Pederzani), Erfurt (also broadcast on television) Käthchen von Heilbronn (Kleist), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Der Kaufmann von Venedig (Shakespeare), Leipzig and Weimar Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (Brecht), Leipzig and Weimar Der kaukasische Kreidekreis für Kinder (Brecht), in Sinhala, Sri Lanka König Johann (Shakespeare), Weimar Die Lästerschule (Sheridan), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Leben des Galilei (Brecht), Berlin and Weimar Mademoiselle Löwenzorn (Ulrich Becher), Weimar Mahagonny (Brecht), Berlin Staatsoper Mass für Mass (Shakespeare), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Mother Courage (Brecht), Calcutta Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Brecht), Leipzig Onkel Wanja (Chekhov), Stralsund Othello (Shakespeare), Bhopal and Weimar Per Gynt (Ibsen), Weimar Der Prinz Friedrich von Homburg (Kleist), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Richard II (Shakespeare), Weimar Richard III (Shakespeare), Weimar Der Ritter von Mirakel (Lope de Vega), Weimar and Berlin Volksbühne Romeo und Julia (Shakespeare), Weimar Scenes from Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and The Cherry Orchard, in Kannada, Mysore, as well as Der Sturm (Shakespeare) Die Schule der Frauen (Molière), Berlin (also broadcast on television) Sommerfrische (Goldoni/Strehler), Heidelberg Ein Sommernachtstraum (Shakespeare), Weimar (also broadcast on television) Die Sorgen und die Macht (Hacks), Berlin Deutsches Theater Spiel von Liebe und Zufall (Marivaux), Weimar Der Sturm (Shakespeare), Weimar Der Tag ist noch nicht zu Ende (Richter), Weimar Tage der Commune (Brecht), Dresden and Weimar Volpone (Ben Jonson), Meiningen Was ihr wollt (Shakespeare), Weimar Was wir bringen (Goethe), Lauchstätt Wassa Schelesnowa (Gorki/Monk), Weimar Wie es euch gefällt (Shakespeare), Weimar Wintermärchen (Shakespeare), Weimar

Plays Directed by Fritz Bennewitz

283

Der zerbrochene Krug (Kleist), Weimar In India 1970–1994 (from the Comprehensive List Above) 1970

1973 1979

1980 1981 1982 1983

1984 1985

1986 1987 1988 1989

1990

1991 1994

Threepenny Opera, in Hindi (Teen Take ka Swang), New Delhi, in collaboration with the Indian National School of Drama; further performances in Bangalore, Bombay, Hyderabad, and Poona The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in Marathi (Ajab Nyaya Vartulacha), Bombay, with Vijaya Mehta Brecht on Trial (Scenes from The Threepenny Opera, Chalk Circle, Good Woman of Sezuan, Galilei, Arturo Ui, Mother Courage), in Hindi and Urdu, New Delhi; Puntila, in Hindi (Chopra kamaalnaukar Jamaal), New Delhi Galilei, in Bengali, Calcutta A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Hindi, New Delhi Puntila, in Kannada, Bangalore; The Caucasian Chalk Circle (for children), in Hindi (Insaaf ka Ghera), New Delhi Puntila adaptation (Shreeman Puttappanoo Aalu Somanoo), Bangalore; Galilei, Othello, in Hindi, New Delhi; The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in Bundeli (Insaaf ka ghera), Bhopal Hamlet, in Hindi, New Delhi Antigone, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Man Is Man, in Hindi, New Delhi; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bararo Basant Hai), in HindiSanskrit dialect, Bhopal Man Is Man, in Hindi, New Delhi; King Lear, in Hindi, Bhopal; The Caucasian Chalk Circle, in Kannada, Heggodu The Taming of the Shrew, Mother Courage, in Hindi, Bhopal Raja Lear, in Hindi, Calcutta Threepenny Opera, in Hindi (Paisa Phenk-Tamasha Dekh: translated and adapted by Atul Tiwari), Bhopal; Good Woman of Sezuan, in Kannada, Heggodu Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Der große Frieden, in Hindi (Maha Shanti), New Delhi; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Kannada, Heggodu Galilei, place unknown Faust I, in Hindi, Bombay Undated

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Habbada Hanneradeneya Raatr), place unknown

284

Appendix 3

As You Like It, New Delhi Caucasian Chalk Circle (for children) and As You Like It, in Kannada, Heggodu Good Woman of Sezuan, Calcutta Mother Courage, in Bengali, Calcutta Othello, Bhopal Scenes from Hamlet, A Midsummernight’s Dream, King Lear, and The Cherry Orchard, in Kannada, Mysore In the Philippines (from the Comprehensive List Above) 1977/79 Kreidekreis, in Tagalog (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit) as a musical-dance-comedy-drama, with Muslim emphasis, Manila; judged by Philippine critics to be the year’s best production 1980 Galilei, in Tagalog (Ang buhai ni Galileo), children’s version of The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Ang Hatol na Bilog na Guhit), Manila 1984 Macbeth, in Tagalog (translated by Rody Vera), Manila; A Midsummer Night`s Dream (Usa Ka Damgoo), in Visayan, Muslim version, with ensemble of the Mindanao State University, Mindanao 1985 Galilei, in Cebuano, Cebu 1987 Taming of the Shrew, in Visayan (Usa Damko), University of Marawi ensemble, Marawi City; Puntila and His Servant Matti, in Tagalog (Puntila at Matti; translated by Mars Cavestany Jr), Manila 1988 The Good Person of Sezuan, Manila 1989 The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mindanao 1994 Faust I (and II), in Tagalog (translated by Rody Vera), Manila Undated Kreidekreis für Kinder, Manila, Tagalog Der Untergang (Walter Jens), in Tagalog Ang Pagguho ng Troya The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Sining Kambayoka, Visayan In the United States (from the Comprehensive List Above) 1977 1978 1979

Adaptation of the Kreidekreis into English, New York Faust I, New York Kreidekreis (for children), New York

Appendix 4 Holdings of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive

The following is a summary of the holdings in the Fritz Bennewitz Archive (FBA) in Leipzig as of 25 May 2009 – a treasure trove for future researchers. The materials are not formally archived and catalogued throughout, yet most of them are ordered and marked, for relatively easy access. Other materials await sorting. Occasionally new items are added, gifts from friends and supporters of the archive and the FritzBennewitz-Verein who discover them in their private papers or elsewhere. Correspondence Bennewitz’s correspondence 1943–95, twenty-nine three-ring binders, the early volumes containing more than one year, the majority annual. Bennewitz’s India correspondence, nineteen binders, including letters from Bennewitz to and from his partner Waltraut Mertes and many others, including personal matters and commentaries on his directing there. Two binders of undated letters and postcards. Theatre Activity Weimar One binder with materials concerning his activity at the DNT Weimar 1952–82.

286

Appendix 4

One binder with articles mainly concerning his DNT and GDR activity 1962–89. One binder with materials on organizational matters in India and Bangladesh, contacts, finances, travels, and miscellany 1969–94. Bennewitz’s Productions One binder with published articles and typed reports by FB and others on his Brecht stagings 1965–86. Two binders with published articles, typescripts, and programs of his Egmont and Faust stagings 1965–94. One binder with published articles and typescripts of his Shakespeare stagings 1968–93. One binder with materials on the Die Dreigroschenoper, in Hindi/Urdu 1970, in Sinhali 1987, in Hindi 1989; Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, in Kannada 1989; Herr Puntila, in Hindi 1979, Kannada 1983; Der kaukasische Kreidekreis, in Marathi 1973; continued in next binder . One binder with materials on Der kaukasische Kreidekreis, in Hindi 1981, in Bundeli 1983; Galilei, in Bengali 1980, in Hindi 1983, in Hindi 1991; Mann ist Mann, in Hindi 1985, in Bangla 1993; festivals and symposia in which FB was involved. One binder with materials on Faust in Hindi 1994; Der große Frieden, in Hindi 1993; Hamlet, in Hindi 1984; King Lear, in Hindi, 1986 and 1988 (Calcutta); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Hindi 1981(Delhi), Kannada 1983, Hindi 1985 (Bhopal), Sinhala 1987; Othello, in Hindi 1983; The Taming of the Shrew, in Bundeli 1987; The Tempest, in Hindi 1990; Twelfth Night, in Hindi 1990. One binder with textbooks of plays directed by Bennewitz: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis, in Marathi (Khanolkar), Die Dreigroschenoper, in Hindi (Bhatiya and Sikari), Das Leben des Galilei, in Hindi (Sharma). Productions Directed by Vijaya Mehta One binder with Hayavadana 1984; Hayavadana guest performance in

Holdings of the Fritz Bennewitz Archive

287

Mumbai 1983; Mudra Rakschasa 1976; Shakuntala 1980; Naga-Mandala, n.d.; festivals. One binder plus two separate folders with play texts and director’s books: Mudra Rakschasa, Shakuntala, Naga-Mandala. Miscellaneous Binders One binder with material on productions of the Indian National School of Drama (Delhi) by E[phraim] Alkazi and Vijaya Mehta. One binder with material on Bennewitz’s Sangeet Natak Adademi Award. Two binders with materials on theatre, theatre in Bangladesh, play texts, theatre symposia. One binder with materials labelled Kurzgeschichten, Religion, Musik, Kunst, Soziales, Politik, Gesellschaft, Vermischtes. Media Some sixty posters and photo collages of productions, many mounted on boards or in clip frames, some hanging on shelves and walls. Some fifty record albums of music associated with theatre productions. Some forty-five audio cassettes and CDs of music associated with theatre productions. Some thirty-five videotapes and DVDs of some of the plays Bennewitz directed, including these of Faust: Faust I and II in Weimar 1965/67 and 1975; Faust I in Weimar 1981 (II was peformed but not videotaped) Faust I at LaMaMa, New York 1978 = excerpts performed at Princeton University 1979 Faust I in Bombay 1994 (excerpts and introductory material with Vijaya Mehta and Anna Winterberg) Faust I in Manila 1994 Faust I and II Meiningen 1995 (II directed by Albert R. Pasch).

288

Appendix 4

Nine videotapes entitled ‘Was bleibt,’ containing individuals’ memories of and tributes to Bennewitz at the time of his death in 1995. Accompanying these is one binder entitled ‘Dokumentation zum Video-Projekt: “Künstler, Freunde, Mitstreiter erinnern sich an Fritz Bennewitz,” realisiert von Sigrid und Dr Dietrich Schade. Mai 1995 bis Juli 2006.’ Books Bennewitz’s private library included several thousand volumes, most of which were originally housed in the archive. This collection has now been weeded. Works of fiction have been largely removed as well as other books which were not annotated by FB. Some central portions of his library as well as miscellaneous books of particular interest to him or with his marginal notes have been kept and number approximately 400–500 titles. Central portions include several editions of Brecht’s and Shakespeare’s works, long runs of both the east and west Shakespeare Yearbook, encyclopedias of theatre, and many volumes on Indian art, religion, and philosophy. Unsorted Materials Nine cardboard boxes with notebooks, theatre programs, empty cancelled, addressed envelopes, Bennewitz’s personal datebooks/diaries 1953–1995, used travel tickets and brochures, mementos, theatre programs, memorial volume ‘Fritz’ on the occasion of his death and memorial service (one binder), newspaper articles, letters, photographs and photo albums, play texts, and director’s books. Miscellaneous materials stacked on shelves: books, playbooks, playbills, programs, framed pictures, journals, exotic international mementos and pictures; numerous photos on the walls and shelves, of Bennewitz, one of Vijaya Mehta, and one of Brecht.

Bibliography Given the complexity of source material for this book, the Bibliography is divided into three parts: Archival and Other Unpublished Sources (289–96), Reviews (296–302), and All Other Published Sources (303–11).

Archival and Other Unpublished Sources (Typescript Unless Otherwise Indicated) Albrecht, Andrea. ‘Vom “wahren, weltbürgerlichen Sinn”: Goethe und die Kosmopolitismusdebatte seiner Zeit.’ Paper presented at the biennial conference of the Goethe-Gesellschaft, Weimar, 3–6 June 2009. Angelroth, Dirk. Goethe Institute announcement of the Manila production 1994. 1 p. FBA. [–] Invitation from the Goethe Institute Manila to attend an introduction by Bennewitz to the 1994 production of Faust. FBA. Baevsky, Sonja. Interview with Christine Campbell, Gretchen in Goethes Faust I. La MaMa-CETA-Production. March/April/May 1978. Conducted and recorded by Sonya Baevsky in April 1979. Audiocassette and typescript. 10 pp. FBA. – ‘Conversation with Christine Campbell.’ May/Aug. 1979. 10 pp. FBA. Bennewitz, Fritz. ‘Bericht zum Arbeitsaufenthalt in den USA vom 1. April bis 6. Mai 1979.’ 4 pp. FBA. – Bombay Scene Outline. 1 p. FBA. – ‘Commentary.’ 8 June 1986. 1 p. FBA. – ‘Conceptual Fragments (FAUST).’ 9 pp. Translated by Rolf Rohmer as ‘Fragmentarische Bemerkungen zum Konzept des Faust, von Fritz Bennewitz, Manila 1994.’ Both: FBA. – ‘Diskussionsgrundlage zur Faust-Konzeption des Deutschen Theaters.’ Dec. 1967. 13 pp. FBA. – and Dieter Görne. ‘Faust-Erbe und Gegenwart.’ Lehrerweiterbildung DNT 26 Feb. 1975. 7 pp. (See Faust in Weimar, 1975 production.) FBA. – [Faust in New York]. n.d. Typescript, 6 pp. and handwritten, 30 pp. FBA.

290

Bibliography

– [History of Weimar and GDR Theatre]. Undated autobiography written in response to request by Marilyn Bechtel. 8 pp. FBA. – [India Overview]. An undated account of theatre cooperation between the GDR and India. n.d. 6 pp. FBA. – ‘Internationale Co-operation auf dem Theater: Bericht über Arbeitserfahrungen im Kulturaustausch DDR-INDIEN.’ [1980]. 3 pp. Pencil notation at top: ‘UNESCO EFFEKTIVITÄT.’ FBA. – [Interview Manila]. 25 Oct. 1994. 14 pp. Signatures at end: ‘Fritz Bennewitz’ and ‘Felix Miguel. Beeper 150–331971.’ FBA. – [Interview NDR]. Interview with the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR), and Allgemeiner Deutscher Rundfunk (ADR). 1993. 4 pp., with numerous handwritten notations by FB. FBA. – [Kathakali]. n.d. 2 pp. FBA. – [Last words]. [1995]. 1 p. FBA. – [Memorial service program]. 1 p. FBA. – [Notes and sketches to Faust I and II in Weimar]. Typescript, 11 pp.; handwritten, 20 pp. 1965/67. FBA. – [Notes to Faust 81/82 in Weimar]. 35 pp. FBA. – [Notes to Faust I in New York]. 1979. Typescript, 6 pp.; handwritten, 30 pp. FBA. – [Notes to Menchén on the New York 1978 production]. 20 Aug. 1979. 9 pp. – Princeton. Commentary on Faust I performance and discussion. Princeton Weekly. [1978].1 p. FBA. – Princeton. [Notes on the performancs of Faust I (excerpts) at Princeton University in 1978 and on discussions at Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown, and New York universities]. 10 and 11 pp. FBA. – Testament. [Bennewitz’s will]. n.d., 2 pp. FBA. – ‘Werkstattgespräch’ [re Faust in Weimar, 1965]. Interview with Dieter Görne. Typescript with annotations, 26 pp. FBA. Subsequently published in edited form (see Görne, ‘Unser Werkstattgespräch’). Bennewitz/Meiningen. The director’s conceptual notes to the production of 1995, in possession of co-director Albert R. Pasch. 1 p. Copy, DGJ. Bombay Faust 1994. Videotape of partial performance taken by Dietrich Schade and Ingrid Schade during rehearsal, preceded and followed by footage of theatre, location discussion with actors, comments by FB. Performance 1 hr., 10 min.; other material 1 hr. 9 min. FBA. Bräutigam, Alois. Letter to Otto Mann. [undated, ca. 1965–67]. 1 p. FBA. Columbia University, New York. Faust Video Presentation and Discussion. Transcript of a discussion on Fritz Bennewitz’s Faust I. 11 April 1979. 11 pp. FBA.

Bibliography

291

Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar. Faust [Programmheft]. Generalintendanz des Deutschen Nationaltheaters Weimar, ed. Thüringen: Weimar, 1966/67. FBA. ‘Dr Faust in Kathakali.’ Theatre program of a performance on 22 Oct. 1983 in New Delhi. 4 pp. FBA. Engel, Wolfgang. Interview with David G. John. Leipzig, 21 April 1999. Edited summary printed as part of chapter 2 of this book. DGJ. Faust 65/67 DRA. Videotape of Faust I/II performed at the DNT, directed by Fritz Bennewitz, 1965/67, and produced for GDR national television, directed by Peter Deutsch. Recorded 21 Jan. 1968 and 12 April 1968 by the Deutscher Fernsehfunk Weimar. DRA Babelsberg. Four cassettes, AC 501922. Total time 6 hrs., 28 min. B/w. FBA. Faust 75 DRA. Videotape of Faust I/II performed at the DNT, directed by Fritz Bennewitz, 1975, and produced for GDR national television, directed by Margot Thyret. Recorded by Deutscher Fernsehfunk Weimar. DRA Babelsberg. Recorded at various times from 5 Oct. 1975 to 9 Oct. 1976. Six cassettes. AC 5023-58. Total time 8 hrs., 15 min. Colour. FBA. Faust 81 FBA. Videotape of Faust I performed at the DNT, directed by Fritz Bennewitz, 1981. Weimar-Kopie. Kopieranstalt und Videofilmstudio Thüringen. Lutz Trutschel Bild- und Filmreporter. 3 hrs. Colour. (There is no video record of Part II.) FBA. Faust 95 FBA. Videotape of Faust I/II performed at the Meininger Theater, directed by Fritz Bennewitz and Albert R. Pasch, 1995. Total time 6 hrs., 1 min. Producer unknown. Colour. FBA. Faust I 78. [Introduction, scenes, excerpts, discussion]. Princeton University, Murray Theatre. Sonja Baevsky camera and ed. 23 Oct. 1978. Scenes 1 hr., 44 min.; discussion 56 min. B/w. FBA. Faust II – auf DDR-Bühnen. Fernsehen der DDR. Sendung von 27 Dec. 1982. Gabriele Conrad and Hans-Jürgen Leikauf, eds. DRA Babelsberg. AC 14881. 40 min. Colour. FBA. Faust in Weimar. Strichbücher / Director’s books. Faust productions directed by Fritz Bennewitz at the DNT, 1965/67, 1975, and 1981/82. Leipzig: Reclam. FBA (without signatures); AdK, Sig. 3a, 460 1/2, 880/30, 888/74, BT 392 and 410; and THW, Sig. 888/-, 888/2, 888/7, 888/R9, 888/11, 888/12. The AdK and THW copies probably all came from the archive of the DNT, moved after the reunification. The AdK copies are Bennewitz’s own director’s books; those in the THW were likely used by other members of the directing crew and cast. There was no obligation for people to hand in their books to the archive, so the set is incomplete. Some might also have been lost during the move, or just discarded. The cuts and insertions, but not the

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Lee, Melvin. (From Manila), 7 Feb. 1995, 3 pp. Maike. (From Naumburg), n.d., 1 p. Margrit. 19 Feb. 1945, 3 pp. Mehta, Vijaya. (From Bombay) 1993: 22 March, 1 p.; 4 June, 2 pp.; 11 June, 1 p.; 3 Aug., 1 p. 1994: 25 Jan., 1 p.; 7 March, 1 p.; 17 Nov., 1p. Mena [PETA]. (From Manila), 17 Feb. 1995, 6 pp. Unknown sender to ‘Seekadett Fritz Bennewitz,’ 1943, 2 pp. Vera, Rody. 1993: 24 Nov., 1 p.; 1 Dec., 1 p. 1994: 6 Jan., 1 p.; 11 March, 2 pp.; 20 June, 1 p.; 28 July, 2 pp.; n.d. [autumn], 1 p. 1995: 6 May, 2 pp. Winterberg, Anna. 1994: 8 April, 2 pp.; 8 Aug., 1 p. Reviews of Bennewitz’s Productions of Faust Bombay Reviews Bombay Daily. Untitled. n.a. 30 Jan. 1994. Da Cruz, Maria. ‘Faust Bite.’ [preview]. Mid Day, 19 Jan. 1994. Devi, Hima. ‘Naseeruddin Shah Excels in “Faust.”’ Bombay Daily, 11 Feb. 1994. Ghalot, Deepa. ‘Fine Introduction to Goethe’s Work.’ Times of India, 14 April 1994. (Translated by Bennewitz as ‘Augezeichnete Einführung in Goethes Werk.’ FBA). Hecker, Bernhard. ‘Der erste “Faust” in Indien.’ Thüringer Allgemeine Zeitung (TAZ), date unknown. Lauscher, Antje. ‘Mit “Faust” um die Welt.’ [Preview]. Thüringische Landeszeitung (TLZ) (Weimar), 13 Nov. 1993. Nadkarni, Dnyanehwar. ‘Excellent Performance: A Full-Blooded Production.’ Screen, 11 Feb. 1994. (Translated by Bennewitz as ‘Hervorragende Dartsellungen, eine blutvolle Inszenierung.’ Typescript. FBA). Petonji, Meher. ‘A Plethora of Images.’ Independent, 26 Feb. 1994. (Translated by Bennewitz as ‘Eine Füllhorn von Bildern.’ Typescript. FBA). Schade, Dietrich. ‘Erzengel Raphael sprach beim Prolog im Himmel Hindi.’ Neues Deutschland (Berlin), 25 Jan. 1994. Seuß, Siggi. ‘Vom Fremden, das in der Fremde nicht fremd bleibt.’ Neue Presse, 12 Feb. 1994. – ‘Faust in Bollywood.’ Das Deutsche Allgemeine Sonntagsblatt, 4 March 94. (A shortened version of the review in the Neue Presse, 12 Feb. 1994). Thakore, Dolly. ‘Flying Solo.’ Bombay Daily, 8 May 1994. (Translated by Bennewitz as ‘Theatralische Höhen.’ Typescript. FBA). Thüringer Landeszeitung. ‘Bennewitz inszeniert Goethes Faust im indischen Bombay.’ n.a., n.d.

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Waingankar, Prabhakar. ‘Tale of Temptation.’ Free Press Journal, 24 April 1994. Manila Reviews Fallarme, C. Flores. ‘Between Mephisto and Vulnerable Faust.’ Philippine Daily Inquirer. Lifestyle, 5 Dec. 1994. Hecker, Bernhard. ‘Auerbachs Keller in Manila.’ TAZ, 20 Dec. 1994. Manila Bulletin. ‘Mario O’Hara Returns to PETA in Drama “Faust.”’ 29 Oct. 1994. Philippine Star. ‘PETA Presents “Faust.”’ 24 Oct. 1994. Remoto, Danton. ‘Between Desire and Doom.’ Philippine Daily Inquirer, Lifestyle, 4 Dec. 1994. Vera, Noel. ‘O’Hara’s Mephisto Burns like Hellfire.’ Manila Chronicle, Lifestyle, 22 Jan. 1994. Yacat, Nilo. A. ‘Faust: A Different Kuya Bodjie.’ Manila Bulletin, Society Bulletin, 26 Nov. 1994. Meiningen Reviews Brückner, Klaus. ‘Gott ist tot, kein Ausweg, kein Trost: Fritz Bennewitz inzenierte “Faust – der Tragödie erster Teil” von Johann Wolfgang Goethe.’ Südthüringer Rundschau, 23 Nov. 1995. Franke, Daniel. ‘Auftauchend aus dem Meer des Irrtums: Fritz Bennewitz’ letzte Inszenierung von Goethes “Faust” hatte in Meiningen Premiere.’ Meininger Tageblatt, 30 Oct. 1995. Glaesner, Rudi. ‘Über Höhenflug und tiefsten Fall, Macht und Ohnmacht, Lust und Frust. “Faust I” in Meiningen – Größenwahnsinniger zwischen Extremen – Ins 20. Jahrhundert transferiert.’ Rhön- und Streubote (Mellrichstadt), 2 Nov. 1995. Goldberg, Henryk. ‘Der Probestein der Visionen. Ein Testament: Der letzte “Faust” von Fritz Bennewitz.’ TAZ, 28 Oct. 1995. Kuhn, Josef. ‘Der “andere Faust” – obszön beschädigt.’ Fränkische Volkszeitung (Schweinfurt-Würzburg), 2 Nov. 1995. Lenn. ‘Bennewitz’ letzter “Faust.”’ Die Deutsche Bühne (Dec. 1995:10). Möller, A. ‘Goethes Faust I in Meiningen: Osterspazierung mit Quickie-Sex.’ Bild Thüringen. Bild-Zeitung, Regionalseite Thüringen (Erfurt), n.d. Quilitzsch, Frank. ‘Heinrich auf der Halde: In Meiningen hatte Bennewitz’ letzter “Faust” Premiere – der Unvollendete.’ TLZ, 30 Oct. 1995. – ‘Wer “Faust I” sagt … Eine Herausforderung für Fritz Bennewitz.’ TLZ, 21 Nov. 1995.

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Schweizer, Karl. ‘In dunklem Drange … Goethes “Faust I” am Meininger Theater enttäuschend.’ Hanauer Anzeiger, 23 Dec. 1995. Seuß, Siggi. ‘Den Faust im Nacken. Fritz Bennewitz’ letzte Inszenierung: Faust I in Meiningen.’ Freies Wort (Suhl), 30 Oct. 1995. – ‘Der “Faust” war sein Leben: Fritz Bennewitz’ letzte Inszenierung “Faust I” wurde in Meiningen nach seinem Tod vollendet.’ Hessische Niedersächsische Allgemeine (Kassel), 30 Oct. 1995. – ‘Kein Fünkchen Hoffnung: Fritz Bennewitz’ letzte Inszenierung: Goethes “Faust I” in Meiningen.’ Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9 Nov. 1995. Stephan, Erika. ‘Faust jenseits aller Utopien. Meininger Premiere I: Die letzte Inszenierung von Fritz Bennewitz.’ TAZ, 30 Oct. 1995. Wolf, Silke. ‘Techno-Klänge in der Walpurgisnacht.’ Südthüringer Zeitung (Bad Salzungen), 30 Oct. 1995. New York Reviews Beradt, Charlotte. ‘Das farbige Gretchen ist ausgezeichnet: Fritz Bennewitz inszenierte Goethes “Faust” im winzigen “La Mama” [sic] – Theater.’ Frankfurter Rundschau, 27 June 1978. Gussow, Mel. ‘Goethe’s Faust Staged at La MaMa.’ New York Times, 11 May 1978, C16. Munk, Erika. ‘No Sympathy for This Devil.’ Village Voice, 22 May 1978. Rabkin, Gerald. ‘Goethe and Brecht at La MaMa.’ Soho Weekly News, 25 May 1978. ‘Unique Faust Showing Scheduled Here Monday.’ Princeton Packet. Princeton University, 18 Oct. 1978. Weimar 65/67 Reviews Braunseis, Hans. ‘Faust: bedeutend neu und frisch.’ Der Morgen (Berlin), 13 Oct. 1967. Das Volk (Erfurt). ‘“Faust II” erfolgreich inszeniert.’ 23 Jan. 1967. – Picture with brief caption. 25 Jan. 1967. – ‘Glückwünsche zur ‘Faust’-Inszenierung.’ 1 Feb. 1967. – ‘“Faust I” aus Weimar auf dem Bildschirm.’ 12 Jan. 1968. Eckelmann, A. ‘Faust aus Weimar.’ Leipziger Volkszeitung. Televisionen, 24 Jan. 1968. – ‘Eine gelungene Inszenierung: “Faust I” in Weimar auf dem Bildschirm.’ Bauernecho, 25 Jan. 1968.

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Index

7 October 1965, 71, 76, 92 7 October 1981, 135 27 October 1995, 164 250th Goethe-Jahr 1999, 173 Abitur, 19, 64 absolutistischer Zentralstaat, 63 absurdity, 114–15, 166, 169, 177 Abusch, Alexander, 104 acting, 28, 32, 38, 40, 43, 89, 111, 151, 193, 203, 208, 213, 219, 220, 230, 233, 239, 248, 258. See also Schauspieler actuality and relevance, 125 Adalia, Kryss, 251–2, 258–9 aesthetics, 6, 20, 24, 28, 35, 37–40, 72, 80, 83–4, 89, 96, 98, 101–2, 122, 127, 134, 137, 185, 239; climax, Faust’s, 96 ‘Aesthetics of Poverty’ (PETA), 239 Afro-American theatre history, 185 Agarwal, Anisha, 218 Ajab nyaya vartulacha (Kreidekreis), 268 Akademie der Künste (AdK), 11, 12, 13, 22, 62, 129n Albrecht, Andrea, 270 All-Arabian Theatre Festival, 107

Allende, Salvador, 106n Amaral, Marilyn, 184, 198, 202 ambivalence, 126, 159 American: audience, 190; colonizers, 232; history, 188; occupation of and influence in the Philippines, 232, 235, 252; people, 203; protest songs, 197; racial history, 185; press, 203; rock music, 220; South, 197; theatre, 267; theatregoers, 188. See also beauty Amerikaner, 61, 64 Angelroth, Dirk, 238, 245, 246, 260, 261 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 189 Anthroposophic Society, 78 ‘antifaschistischer Schutzwall,’ 72 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 269 Aquino, Corazon, 235 Arbeiter- und Bauernfakultät, 20 Arbeiter- und Bauernstadt, 86, 130 asceticism (Bennewitz’s), 32 Atomkraft, 136 audience, passim; in 1981/82, 149–52; and criticism of the state, 128, 148, 159; dialogue with, 3, 29; educated, 88; GDR, 41, 72, 76, 78,

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86, 117; and Faust’s final words, 100; Filipino, 245, 252–5, 258, 261, 267; Hindu, 219–20, 222–3, 225 229; Indian, 218, 227, 229; international, 266; La MaMa, 198, 200; Meiningen, 38, 164, 75; partnership with, 114; participation, 10; preparation, 76–8, 105–8, 133–5; Princeton, 198, 202; reactions, 38, 77, 113, 125, 133, 150, 152, 158, 251, 252; relationships between actors and, 210; and satire, 148; statistics, 17, 133; television, 102, 105, 113, 117; types of, 190 Auf freiem Grund …, 78, 85, 100, 265 Aufbau der sozialistischen Gesellschaft, 124 Aufklärung, 162 Auschwitz, 134 Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte, 155 Aust, Conrad, 218 austronesian languages, 234 auto accident (Bennewitz’s), 27, 185 ‘Ave Maria,’ 224 Ayers, Ted, 25 Babelsberg, 71, 78–9 Bacall, Lauren, 196 Bad Kreuzenach, 26 Baevsky, Sonya, 183n, 193–5, 198–203 bakunawa, god of the underworld, 250 Bangalore, 206, 208 Bangladesh, 19, 160, 215 Basco, Wena, 252 Bassermann, Albert, 189 Batibot, 247, 254 Batliboi, Banoo, 218 Baumann, Richard. 192

Baumgartner, Gabriele, 17 Bayerdörfer, Hans-Peter, 18 beauty, 83, 197; absolute, 95; abstract, 96; aesthetic power of, 84; and art, 114; Bennewitz’s commitment to aesthetics and, 96; classical, 80, 252; concept of, 98. See also aesthetics Becher, Johannes R., 22, 86 Beck, Christina, 151 Beckett, Samuel, 173 Beer, Roland, 209 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 26, 249 Befreier, Der, 86 Belvedere bei Weimar, 45 Bennewitz, Adolf Kurt, 18 Bennewitz (Häckert), Marie Johanne, 19 Bennewitz as honorary member of PETA, 236 Beradt, Charlotte, 203 Berlin, 11, 12, 20, 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 32, 40, 74, 75, 89, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 154, 163, 196, 207, 268. See also Akademie der Künste; Deutschen Theater Berlin Berlin Theatre Festival, 21 Berlin Wall, 72, 100, 129 Berliner Ensemble, 4, 5, 22, 52 Berliner Festtage, 89, 107, 207 Berliner Festwochen, 40 Berufsverbot, 61 Bhabba, Jamshed J., 214, 229 Bhagavad Gita, 209 Bhajwala, Dodo, 218 Bharatamuni, Bharata the Sage, 210 Bharucha, Rustom, 36, 187, 228, 267, 269 Bh·mi devμ, 222 Biedermeyer, 140 Biene, 39, 46

Index Biermann, Wolf, 129 ‘Bitterfelder Weg,’ 72, 100 black: actress, 198; Americans, 196, 266; history, 195; hole, 138–9, 142–3, 146, 159, 166; humour, 161; market, 104; pride, 200; Shakespeare, 199 blonde, blue-eyed girl, 204 Bodenreform, 86, 104, 130 Boestel, Klaus-Martin, 110 Bollywood, 212 bombardment of Berlin, 31 Bombay, 7, 13, 21, 25, 107, 160, 164, 205–31, 234, 238–42, 247, 249, 255, 261–2, 267–8 Bombay Daily, 226 Bortfeld, Hans-Robert, 74 Bowery, 188 Boyle, Nicholas, 23 Brahmanas, 220 Braun, Volker, 4, 206 Bräutigam, Alois, 90 Brecht, Bertolt, 5, 7, 10, 20, 26–7, 37–8, 40–1, 74, 81–2, 92–4, 96, 105, 122, 125, 131, 136, 159, 162, 166–7, 176, 188, 190, 240, 255, 264, 267, 270; Dreigroschenoper, 40, 52, 57, 107, 160, 164, 185, 206; Galilei, 35, 52, 101, 237; Der gute Mensch von Sezuan 160, 207, 237; Die heilige Johanna, 35; Kreidekreis, 22, 34, 107, 128, 185–7, 237, 268; Mann ist Mann, 160, 215; Mutter 107; Puntila, 107, 208, 237; Die Tage der Commune, 52, 57 Brenner, Cornelia, 19, 29 Brezhnev, Leonid, 125–6 British colonial influence, 210 Bronx, 34, 188, 200 Brook, Peter, 184

315

Brooklyn, 34 Brückner, Klaus, 174 Bruegels, Peter, the Elder, 50, 102, 108–10, 114–16, 119, 147 Bruyn, Günter de, 61 Buchenwald, 82 Buddhists, 234 Bühnenbild, 35, 50, 55, 81, 109, 120–1, 123, 166 building boom, 104, 163 Bundesrepublik Deutschland (BRD), 59, 64. See also Federal Republic of Germany (FGR) bürgerlich, 49, 53, 59, 75, 97, 99–100, 172 Bürgerlichkeit, 172 Burkhardt, Ulrich, 161 Busch, Sigrid, 135, 156–7 Byron, Lord, 99 Campbell, Christine, 111, 183–4, 187, 189–200, 202–4, 244, 254, 266 cancer, 21, 160, 260 capacity for work (Bennewitz’s), 32 capitalism, 163, 172 Carribbean, 195 Castro, Fidel, 29 Catholic dogma, 262 Caucasian Chalk Circle, 21, 184, 207. See also Brecht, Kreidekreis Cebu, 35, 237 censorship, 3–5, 72, 90, 114, 118, 130, 175 Central Party School, 20, 37 Chandavarkar, Bhaskar, 218 Chaplin, Charlie, 196 Chemnitz, 18–19, 30–1, 57, 206 Chile, 106 chorus, 110, 115–17, 134–5, 140, 148– 50, 158–9, 168, 184, 190, 210, 225

316

Index

Chorus Mysticus, 87, 90, 100, 117 Christian elements, 19, 83–5, 87, 92, 94, 127, 130, 141, 162, 169, 171, 193, 219–23, 225, 232 church, 25, 83, 96, 128, 170, 173, 194, 197, 223, 227, 233, 236, 246, 250, 252–3, 255, 262. See also Kirche; Roman Catholic Church CIA (Central Intelligence Agency, USA), 106n Cioran, Emile, 173 citizen of the world (Bennewitz), 27–8. See also Weltbürger Clara Zetkin School, 151 classical: heritage, 74, 150; role, 195 classicism, 24, 98, 104, 110, 132 Cloisters, 193, 194, 204 clown, 113–14, 137, 166, 250 collectives, 86, 105, 113 colonization of Philippines, 232 Columbia University, 183n, 202 communist theorists, 92 Communist Party of the Philippines, 235 Comprehensive Employment Training Act (CETA), 183, 184, 190 ‘Conceptual Fragments’ (Bennewitz), 232n, 242–3, 269 Corngold, Stanley, 202 critical reception (of Bennewitz’s Faust and other productions) in: GDR 1965/67, 89–90; GDR 1975, 118–24; GDR 1981/82, 149–57; Meiningen 1995, 173–8; New York and Princeton (La MaMa) 200–4; India 225–7; Philippines 253–9. See also press; theatre critics cross-cultural experiment, 230 crucifixion, 112, 142, 146 cultural exchange, 22, 207

cynicism, 6, 142, 150, 163, 166. See also Zynismus Czechoslovakia, 60–1, 73, 103 Da Cruz, Maria, 226 Dalmia, Vasuda, 269 Danish workers, 94 Daoists, 234 DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik), 4, 17–18, 21–2, 35, 37, 45–6, 49, 51–2, 54, 59–63, 65, 72–3, 86, 93, 124, 129–30, 176; Kulturpolitik, 42, 60; -Theater, 66–7, 132; Verhältnisse, 99, 125. See also GDR (German Democratic Republic) dead end, 149 Dehler, Wolfgang, 52, 54, 80 Deismus, 94 deletions (textual), 152, 174, 178, 217 Denning, Michael, 196 Deutsch, Peter, 90 Deutsche Demokratische Republik. See DDR Deutschen Theater (Berlin), 49, 51, 54, 60 deutscher Nationalcharakter, 230 Deusches Nationaltheater Weimar (DNT), 4–6, 12, 23, 35, 80, 82, 97, 104, 108, 113, 127, 133, 149, 151, 156, 227; Kampfgruppe, 20 Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv Babelsberg (DRA), 71n, 78, 103n, 129n Deutsches Theaterinstitut, 20 Devi, Hima, 226–7 Devrient, Otto, 73 Dhaka, 19, 160 dialectics, 4, 32, 43, 54, 91–9, 100, 108, 124–5, 157, 190, 202, 264 diaries (Bennewitz’s), 29

Index Dickschädel, 31–2 dies irae, 85, 115, 142, 172 Diesko, Fred, 54, 80 Diktatur, 61–2, 67 directorial hubris, 92 director’s introduction, 81–3, 112–13 disillusionment, 104, 267 disjuncture, 115, 127, 137–8, 144, 147, 158, 166, 187, 220 disk (stage design), 73, 81, 109, 116, 126 Diskussionsgrundlage, 87, 91, 93 DNT. See Deutsches Nationaltheater Doctor Faustus, 247, 254 dogma, 37–43, 58, 82, 157, 176, 233–4, 262 Donnell Library, 202 double life, 27, 34 dramaturge, 7, 12, 44, 56, 105, 136, 154, 156–7 Drehmaschinenwerk, 111 Dresden, 4–5, 7, 22–3, 44, 52, 56, 58, 62–4, 66–7, 118 Dresen, Adolf, 5, 49, 54, 57, 60–1, 102–5, 112, 125, 163 Dressler, Piet, 129n Dub ek, Alexander, 103 Duchess Anna Amalia, 23 Duke Carl August, 23 Düren, Fred, 60 Dürer, Albrecht, 115 Earth Spirit, 249. See also Erdgeist East Berlin, 89 Easter bells, 95, 138 Eastern Europe, 104 economy, 97, 100, 104, 129–30 Ehrlich, Lothar, 74, 156 Eichler, Rolf-Dieter, 89, 123 Eichmann, Adolf, 133

317

eighteenth century, 75, 85, 112, 196, 200, 204 Einstein, Alfred, 35 Eisler, Hanns, 3, 54 empowerment, 113, 236 enactment of history, 264 Engel, Wolfgang, 5, 7, 37, 56, 59–67 (interview), 77, 132 Engels, Friedrich, 37, 39, 93, 159 Enthumanisierung, 97 environment, 24, 86, 130, 173, 193–4, 236. See also Umwelt Erbe (classical), 6, 18, 23, 105–6, 125, 151, 156–8 Erdgeist, 85, 94, 115, 138, 143, 167–8, 191, 222. See also Earth Spirit Erck, A., 17, 38–9, 164, 179 Es lebe die Freiheit, 140 Euphorion, 98–9 European Enlightenment, 35 Eurythmie, 79 F@ust 3.0, 173 Fabel der Inszenierung, 41, 48 Fachschule für Staatswissenschaft, 151 factory workers, 133 Fähigkeit des Menschen zur Gestaltung, 125 Fallarme, C. Flores, 255 Faroodi, Dilshad, 218 Farrelly, Daniel, 18 Fascism, 82 Faust III, 54, 72 Faust’s last speech, 81, 85–8, 100, 112, 117–18 Faust’s vision, 83, 266 Faust-Erbe, 106 FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend), 20, 73, 104, 130

318

Index

Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), 23, 72–3, 104–5, 207, 265. See also Bundesrepublik Deutschland Fehlschlag, 55, 155 Feldausgabe, 26, 59 Ferdon, John, 184, 189–90 Festival of India, 21, 207 Feudalgesellschaft, 53 Fiedler, Elke, 32–3, 161–2, 168, 171–3 Filipino: actors, 22; Catholicism, 233, 250; children’s television, 254; colleagues, 240, 268; language (see also Tagalog), 234, 236; theatre, 233, 240. See also audience, Filipino first black Gretchen, 183, 185, 199, 204, 266 first black president, 203 Flynn, Errol, 196 Fort Santiago, 236, 238, 242–3, 248, 256, 258 Forum Berlin, 91, 97, 124 fragmentation of the text, 143–4, 154 Francisco, Karen, 232n, 249n Franke, Daniel, 166, 169, 177 Frankfurt am Main, 23, 98, 161, 172, 203 Freda, Mathias, 119 Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, 20 freier Grund, notion of, 86 freies Volk, 82; notion of, 86 FRG. See Federal Republic of Germany Friendship Society DDR-India, 21 Fritz-Bennewitz-Verein, 11, 22, 80 Fritz Bennewitz Archive (FBA), 9, 11, 13, 19, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 40, 71n, 78n, 103n, 139n, 160n, 163, 183n, 189, 205n, 211, 213, 216, 232n, 255, 261

Funke, Christoph, 25–6, 120–3, 145, 149, 154–5 Fura dels Baus, 173 gamelan ensemble, 250 GDR (German Democratic Republic), passim; citizens, 72, 82, 105, 125, 128, 134; collapse of, 12, 159–60; Verband der Theaterschaffenden, 156. See also DDR George II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, 164 Georgetown University, 9, 163, 202 Georgioni’s Venus, 170, 172 gerettet, 83–4, 143, 146, 152, 174 German classicism, 24, 104, 120 German Shakespeare Society, 21 German-Soviet friendship, 20, 73 Germano-Philippine hybrid, 262 Gersch, Wolfgang, 121 Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft, 20 Gesetze der Natur, 154 Gesetze der Schönheit, 46 Ghalot, Deepa, 218, 226 ghetto, 111 Glaesner, Rudi, 177 glasnost, 159 Glass, Philip, 184 glaubst du an Gott?, 142, 171 global, 28, 34, 36, 81, 137, 184, 218, 230, 269 Görne, Dieter, 7, 12, 18, 42, 44–5, 52–9 (interview), 73, 75, 76, 77, 91, 93, 95, 97, 104, 105, 106, 112, 118, 124, 125, 126, 127, 135, 154, 155, 157, 205, 206 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, passim; Der Groß-Cophta, 212; Dichtung und Wahrheit, 98, 212; Faust, passim;

Index Indische Legenden, 212; Urfaust, 5, 54, 74, 105, 131; Zum ShakespeareTag, 95 Goetheanum, 78 Goethe Institute, 214, 219, 232n, 235–6, 238, 244–6, 260–1 Goethe Museum, Weimar, 156 Goethe-Gesellschaft, Weimar, 270 Goldberg, Henryk, 175 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 159 Gorki, Maxim, 82 Gounod, Charles, 188, 238 gramophone, 138, 220, 222 Grand Opera House, Manila, 238 Gretchen illuminated, 143, 146 Gretchentragödie, 95, 140 Gretchens Stube, 85, 141, 162, 171 große Frieden, Der, (Maha Shanti), 160, 207 Grotowski, Jerzy, 10, 184, 269 Grund und Boden, 75 Gründgens, Gustav, 74, 177, 189, 221 guilt, 32, 82, 95, 134, 171 Günther, Jens-Uwe, 11, 80, 108 Gussow, Mel, 203 Gysi, Gregor, 21 Gysi, Irene, 21 Gysi, Klaus, 104 Halle, 18, 23, 56, 118–19 Hamburg, 23, 74, 177 Hamlet’s speech, 40–2, 94 Hammer, Klaus, 17, 154–5 Hanover World’s Fair, 78 Hans Otto Theaterhochschule, 20, 33, 37, 44, 46, 156 Harlem, 111, 193, 196, 200, 204 harlequin, 113 Harmonie, 53, 109, 121 Hartmann, Monika, 18

319

Hatch, James V., 184 Haus Stadt Weimar, 186 Havemann, Franz, 50, 81, 105, 109– 10, 114, 120–3, 135–6, 143–4, 153–4 Hax, Peter, 20 Hayavadana, 21, 207, 267 heathen rituals, 250 Hecker, Bernhard, 227–8, 259, 269 Heine, Heinrich, 136 159 Heine, Manfred, 26, 54–5, 110, 120 Heintze, Detlev, 135 Heinz, Wolfgang, 5, 54, 102, 104–5, 131, 163 Heiterkeit, 72, 97, 100–1 Heitzenröther, Horst, 153 Helena, 53, 83–4, 96, 98, 115–16, 134, 136, 140, 153, 170, 242, 252 Hellman, Lillian, 196 Henderson, Mary C., 184 Hendrix, Jimi, 137 Herder, Johann, 23 Heroenkult, 106 Hexeneinmaleins, 140, 224 Hexenküche, 84–5, 95, 115, 140, 148, 158, 169, 177, 224 Hiddensee, 22, 29 ‘Hier bin ich Mensch,’ 51, 147 Hindu, 9, 211, 219–23, 225, 229–31, 238, 267–8; apsaras, 220; disposition, 258; temple bells, 223. See also audience, Hindu Hiroshima, 35, 162, 172 historical and social change, 32 historical development, 41, 104 historical periods, 144, 200 Hitlerjugend, 19 Hochschule für Architektur, 151 höchsten Augenblick, 86, 117 Hof- und Nationaltheater, 75 Holiday, Billie, 195–7, 203–4, 226

320

Index

Holy Roman Empire, 224 Homer, 134, 136, 159 homosexual, 19, 170, 252 Honecker, Erich, 36, 73, 104, 126, 129–30, 159, 163 honesty, 32, 228 housing shortage, 73 Hughes, Langston, 196 human rights, 22, 35–6, 236 humanism, 4, 93, 97, 119 Hyperion-Verlag, 19, 26 idealism, 31–2, 36, 172–3 Iffland ring, 189 Iliad, 136 Imperialismus, 158 improvisation, 43 India, 214–16, 218–31, 235, 237, 259, 265–70; independence of, 210 Indian: actors, 22, 205n, 207–9, 213, 267; adaptation of Kreidekreis, 107; folk drama, 210–11, 225; folk tradition, 230; folklore, 218; instruments, 223; languages, 211, 216, 229; Indian notion of ‘Volkstheater,’ 268; Sanskrit classics, 21, 210, 267; theatre, 15, 22, 108, 185, 206–7, 218, 220, 225, 229, 269; Vedic religions, 222. See also audience, Indian; Brecht, Kreidekreis Indian Academy of Arts, 22 Indian National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai (NCPA), 25, 205n, 212, 214, 218, 219, 228, 229, 235, 239, 240, 261 individual responsibility, 32 industrial decay, 143 Industrialisierung, 48 informants, 28, 34, 72, 130. See also inoffizielle Mitarbeiter

injustice, 128, 175 inoffizielle Mitarbeiter (IM), 28. See also informants Instinkt, 39, 46 Institute for Microbiology, 151 Intendant, 3, 7, 19, 44, 61–3, 66, 90, 133, 160 International Theatre Institute (iTi), 21, 27, 35, 107, 184, 207, 237, 265, 267 internationalization, 107 intertextual references, 92, 134 intimacy with opposite sex, 29 Iqbal, Allama Sir Muhammad, 211–12 iron curtain, 73, 104 irony, 38, 50, 75, 77, 83, 85, 97, 106, 113–14, 118, 126–8, 131–34, 143–4, 146–8, 167, 170, 174, 176–7, 196, 210, 214, 223, 228, 238, 252, 266 iTi. See International Theatre Institute Jackson, Mahalia, 26 Jaffrey, Bharati, 218 Jahrmarktsmusik, 224 Jain, Saskya, 219n2 Jaipur, 213 Jefferson Market Library, 202 Jews, 233 Johannes R. Becher Medaille, 22 Josephson, Barney, 196 Julia (in Romeo and Juliet), 95 Jung, Carl Gustav, 173 Junker, 86 Kalinangan Award, 22 Kamail, Krishna, 211 Kannada, 208 Kantor, Tadeus, 184 Kanzlers Siegelring, 185, 279

Index kapatiran, 236 kapitalistisch, 99–100, 126 Kapur, Panjay, 212, 223 Karl-Marx-Stadt, 23, 57, 129 Karl Marx University, Leipzig, 20 Karnad, Girish, 212, 207 Karthika Thirunal Theatre, Kerala, 211 Kathakali, 211 Kaufmann, Walter, 183, 189–91, 193– 4, 201–3, 241 Kayser, Karl, 53, 74, 77, 102, 104, 125 Kerndl, Rainer, 89, 153 Khanolkar, C.T., 207 kharma, 225, 230 kindness, 27, 32, 226 Kirche, 99, 134. See also Roman Catholic Church Klassenbewußtsein, 157 Klassenkampf, 39, 46 klassisches Erbe. See classical heritage Kleist, Heinrich von: Käthchen von Heilbronn, 57; Der zerbrochene Krug, 107 Kochin, 211 Kohl, Helmut, 164 Kollektiv, 98. See also collectives Kommunist, 59, 63. See also communist Kommunistisches Manifest, 46, 61, 72, 74, 93, 100 König in Thule, 141, 170, 252 ‘Kre,’ 78, 90, 121–2 Krieg und Frieden, 154 Kriegsgefangener, 19. See also prisoner of war kroatische Faust, Der (Hrvatski Faust, jnajder), 165 Kühn, Ulrich, 18

321

Kuhn, Josef, 176–7 Kuhrt, Rolf, 136, 146 Ku Klux Klan, 194, 197–8 kulintang, 249 Kulturbund Salfeld, 151 ‘Kumpel, greif zur Feder,’ 72 Kunst der Beobachtung, 40 Kunst des Zusammenlebens, 41 Kunstpreis der DDR, 22 Kuya Bodjie, 253–4 La MaMa, 78, 183–7, 190–2, 196, 198, 200–4 Lady in Satin (Holiday), 195 Lal, Ananda, 21, 207, 210, 269 Lana, Jun, 245 land: reclamation, 99; speculation, 164 Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft Vorwärts, 151 Lang, Alexander, 57 Lang, Otto, 31, 33, 74 Lee, Melvin, 239, 260 Legarda, Isabel A., 236 Leipzig, 4, 7, 18, 21–3, 32, 45, 59, 61, 74, 78n, 111, 185, 207, 250, 267; Schauspiel (now Centraltheater Leipzig), 4, 7, 44; trade fairs, 104. See also Fritz Bennewitz Archive; Hans Otto Theaterhochschule Leistung des Menschen, 82 Leitmotiv, 110 Lenn, 173 Leon, James, 184, 191, 201–2 lewdness, 253. See also perversity Liedermacher, 130 literary piracy, 88 Literatur- und Kunstpreis, 22 longest-running Faust production, 155

322

Index

Lower East Side (Manhattan), 34, 183, 190 loyalists, 74 lustige Person, 113 lynching, 197 MacIntyre, C.F., 183n, 190, 216, 240, 248 Mackintosh, Cameron, 240 magical associations, 81 magical thinking, 243 Mahabharata, 209–11, 225 Maha Shanti, 160, 207. See also Der große Frieden Mahal, Günther, 18 Mahl, Bernd, 18, 73, 104, 131 Maike of Naumburg, 32 Malay culture, 232 Malayalam, 211, 293 man as his own creator, 187. See also Schöpfer Manhattan, 34, 183–4, 190, 193, 196, 200. See also Lower East Side; New York Manila, 7, 13, 21, 160, 164, 170, 185, 207, 215, 224, 232–63, 267–9 Mannheim, 23, 75 maracas, 169, 250 Marat, Jean-Paul, 136 Marathi, 21, 205n, 216, 218, 229 Marawi University, 237 Marcos, Ferdinand, 235, 249, 253, 259 Margaret, Saint, 193 Margrit, 31–2 Marlebach internment camp, 19 Marlowe, Christopher, 188, 211, 218 Marx, Karl, aesthetic and political writings, 24, 32–3, 37, 39, 45–6, 57, 72–4, 83–4, 92–8, 127, 129n, 136, 157, 159

Mater Gloriosa, 84, 118 materialism, 93, 96, 243, 263 Max Mueller Bhavan (India), 214. See also Goethe Institute McFerrin, Bobby, 24 Mecklenburg, 4–5, 87, 131 Mee, Erin B., 211, 230 Meeropol, Abel, 196 Mehta, Vijaya, 25, 107, 207, 212–14, 217, 219, 226, 228–30, 266, 268 Meier, Manfred, 122 Meiningen, 6–7, 13, 17, 20–1, 32, 38, 40, 44, 4, 51–2, 57, 160–79, 215–16, 241; Hoftheater, 164; Theater, 20. See also audience, Meiningen Menchén, Georg, 78, 81, 94, 100, 119, 152, 155–6, 186–9, 204 Menschenkenntnisse, 41 Mertes, Waltraut, 19, 25–7, 215 metaphorical vision, 88 Mielke, Erich, 36 Miguel, Felix, 244 militarism, 103 millennium, Weimar, 105 Miller, Michael R., 202–3 mime, 113–14, 145, 242 Mindanao, 237 Minetti, Daniel, 67 Minetti, Hans Peter, 67 Ministry of Culture (DDR), 21, 29, 103, 150 Mnouchkine, Ariane, 269 Möller, A., 174 Monk, Egon, 5, 54, 74, 105 moral and political tool, 127 More, Thomas, 134, 136 Mother Earth, 222 Mozart, Wolfgang, 135, 145, 148 Mudrarakshasa, 21, 185, 207, 267 Müller, Heiner, 166

Index

323

Müller, Volker, 158 multiracial cast, 128, 184, 198, 199, 200 Mumbai, 205n, 211, 213 Munich, 23, 75, 214 Munk, Erika, 203 murder, 85, 117, 172–3, 252 Muslim, 185, 224, 233, 235, 237 ‘My peace is gone,’ 191, 194

183–204, 207, 244, 266–70. See also Lower East Side; Manhattan New York Times, 199, 203 Nonnewitz, Wilfried, 123 Nörel, Manfred, 90 Nostradamus, 138 NSDAP. See Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei nudity, 252

Nadkarni, Dnyanehwar, 226–7 Naivität, 125 Nariman Point, 218 NCPA. See National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai National Research Centre, Weimar, 44 National School of Drama, New Delhi (NSD), 206, 212–13, 226 national television broadcast, 71. See also television Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten Weimar (NFG), 150 Nationalgedenkstätte, 23 Nationsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or Nazi), 19; armee, 62; reich, 65 National-Literatur, 28 Nationalpreis, 22, 61–2 Nationaltheater, 75–6 nature, dying, 143 Natyashastra, 210 Nazi. See Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei NCPA. See Indian National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai New Delhi, 20, 36, 160, 206, 211, 213 New York, 7, 9, 13, 34, 36, 42, 78, 107, 111, 115, 128, 147, 155, 164,

O’Hara, Mario, 242 Öffnung: der Grenze, 62; der Mauer, 62 off-off-Broadway, 186 Ojha (Shaman), 223 Oktoberrevolution, 90 Opfer, 65, 125, 170. See also victim opportunism, 62 Optik der Bilder, 50 optimistische Tragödie, 144 orchestra, 6, 79, 110, 140, 190 Ostdeutschland, 56. See also DDR; GDR Osterspaziergang, 51, 137, 147, 171 pact scene, 48, 139, 168, 176, 250 Paleczny, Lulu, 232n Panikkar, Kavalam Narayana, 211 Panzer, Kristian, 218 parody, 51, 135, 138, 145, 147–8, 177, 224, 258 Partei Deutscher Sozialisten, 36 Parteimitgliedschaft, 59 Parteitag, 34, 90 party: line, 4, 74, 76, 90–101, 118, 124– 8, 157–8; officials, 264; politics, 24 Pasch, Albert R., 160n, 161–3, 171–3, 178 Pascua, Bodgie, 240, 242, 247–9, 251, 253, 257–8

324

Index

Pätzold, Helga, 150 Pawel, Sybille, 89 perestroika, 159 performance consciousness, 192–200 performance theory, 8–10 perversity, 97, 197, 251, 253. See also lewdness PETA. See Philippine Educational Theatre Association Petonji, Meher, 226–7 Philippine: Aboriginal cultures, 232; folklore and culture, 235; government, 251; nationalism, 235; politics, 261; theatre history, 232 Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA), 232n, 234, 236, 245–8, 253, 256, 259–62 Philippine National Library, Manila, 232 Philippines and International Theatre Institute, 237 Pink Floyd, 137 Pinochet, Augusto, 106n political: bias, 38, 92; rhetoric, 42 politics, 5–7, 21, 24–5, 33–40, 42, 60–1, 71, 77, 80, 97, 100, 103, 120, 124, 134, 185, 211, 225, 229, 261, 264, 269 Politics of Cultural Practice, The, 36 Pollow, Helmut, 18, 118 Pope, 170, 177, 239 Porträt (of Bennewitz), 52 Portugal, 106, 106n post-colonial, 213 post-production, 76, 118, 238 postscript, 149 Prague Spring, 103 Prelude, 217, 220, 248, 251. See also Vorspiel pre-performance education, 106

Princeton University, 183n, 191–2, 198, 201–3; Murray Theatre, 202 Princeton Weekly, 202 Prinzip der Beschreibung, 47 prisoner of war, 19, 26, 31, 164 Privateigentum, 93 Priviligierter, 47 propaganda, 4, 72–3, 82, 102 protest, 99, 104, 129, 197, 233 Protestants, 233 Provinz, 123, 259 provocation, 38, 51, 168 public: discussion, 76, 156, 225; silence, 128 punk, 130, 258 Puranas, 208–9, 211, 225 Quilitsch, Frank, 25, 27, 132, 149, 231 Quinn, Michael, 10, 212 Rabkin, Gerald, 203 race, 185–7, 194, 196, 199–200, 203–4 racial barrier, 266 Raffael, Triumph of Galatea, 80, 116, 137 Rahaus, Ingrid, 114, 136, 153 Rainas, M.K., 207 Rajhans, Ramesh, 218 Ramayana, 208–10, 225 Ramos, Fidel, 235 Rathod, Met Rajesh, 218 Ratnam, Mani, 226 realism, 6, 41, 56, 147 reality TV, 113 rebel, 4, 24, 51, 74, 109, 131, 197, 222, 235 Reclam, 78, 99, 145, 149, 163 Reddy, Chenna, 207 Regus, Christine, 270 rehearsal, 9–10, 28, 32, 38, 133, 146,

Index 148, 161, 171, 183n, 189–90, 192–3, 195, 206n, 208, 214–16, 227–8, 238, 240, 243–4, 247, 266 Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, 170 Reinert, Gertrud, 151 Reinhaltung der Gewässer, 130 Reinhard, Karl, 136 Reinhard, Max, 188 religion, 83–4, 87, 99, 108, 120, 171, 174, 193–4, 199, 200, 204, 212, 221– 3, 225, 233–4, 237, 246–7, 249, 252, 254–5, 262. See also Kirche; Roman Catholic Church Remoto, Danton, 254 reports to superiors, 27–8, 210–11, 228, 269 resurrection, 87, 138 reunification, 5–7, 11–12, 20–1, 35–6, 44, 75, 123–4, 130, 132, 152, 159–60, 172, 207, 264 Revolutionärin der Liebe, 50, 95, 111 Richter, Hans Michael, 74 Richter von Zalamea, Der, 160, 215 right eye, 27 Rischbieter, Hennig, 18 ritualistic: actions and dances, 233, 251; performances, 251 Rizal, José Protasio, 238, 261 Robeson, Paul, 196 Rockefeller, Nelson, 196 Rohmer, Rolf, 11, 19, 21, 25–6, 28, 156, 216 Roman Catholic Church, 233, 237, 246, 262 romanticism, 98–9 Rother, Hans-Jörg, 91, 97, 99 Rügen, 29 Rugmangatha Charitam, 211 Russian, 61, 64, 86, 90, 125

325

Saaralpen internment camp, 19 Saarbrücken, 66, 131 Sachsenhausen, 172 jaitàna, 221 Salaam, 224 San Francisco, 188 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, 22, 207 Sanskrit classics, 21, 267 Sankt Arnold internment camp, 19 Santos-Cabagnon, Gloriosa, 236, 246 Saxony, 87 scepticism, 6, 59, 73, 97, 122, 125, 152, 175 Schade, Dietrich and Sigrid, 25, 206n, 219n Schauspiel Leipzig, 4, 7, 44 Schauspieler, 33, 38, 40–2, 47, 51, 60, 62, 64, 66–7, 120–3, 131, 133, 135, 145, 148, 152, 155, 176, 209, 216. See also acting Schiller, Friedrich, 23, 82, 105, 151, 242, 261; Wallenstein, 160, 215–16, 242; William Tell, 261 Schizophrenie, 62 Schmidt, Helmut, 130 Schmidt, Horst, 151 Schmidt, Wolfgang, 78, 90 Schneider, Reinhold, 164 Schneider, Thomas, 135 Schönemann, Horst, 56 Schöpfer [der Geschichte], 82, 92, 94–5, 99, 120, 125, 162 schoolchildren, 76, 127, 133, 151 schoolteachers, 130, 150–1 Schroth, Christoph, 5, 35, 49, 61, 130n, 131, 155–6 Schubert, Wolfgang, 150 Schutz des Bodens, 130 Schweizer, Karl, 174

326

Index

Schwerin, 4–5, 23, 49, 61, 63–4, 129n, 131, 155–6 sea cadet, 19, 29, 31 Second World War, 31, 37, 74, 80, 232 SED. See Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands Seidel, Dagmar, 50 Selbstmord, 60. See also suicide Selbstzensur, 65, 72 self-assertion, 117 self-censorship, 65, 72 self-creators, 82 self-criticism, 32 Sendungsbewusstsein, 48 Seuß, Siggi, 173–4, 212 sexual allusions, 250–1 Shah, Naseeruddin, 212–13, 215–17, 220–1, 226–7, 251 Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, 30, 40–2 50, 94; Richard III, 52, 57, 133, 148; Midsummer Night’s Dream, 160, 161, 216, 237; Twelfth Night, 160; Winter’s Tale, 52, 57 Shakuntala, 21, 207, 212, 222, 267 shaman figure, 85, 223, 233 Sharma, Anandita, 212, 219n2 Sharma, Bholanath, 212 Shekhawat, Bhairon Singe, 207 Shepard, Sam, 184 Sindermann, Horst, 36 sketch, 75, 80, 109, 164, 205n, 232n, 242 Skidmore, James M., 196 skin colour, 198–9 jnajder, Slobodan, 165 social justice, 39, 184, 234, 261 social order, 25, 32, 72, 86, 97, 212 socialism, 4–6, 18–20, 22, 24, 32–7, 42–159 passim, 161, 163, 169, 172–3, 175, 178, 188, 191, 214, 229,

243–4, 264–6. See also Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands socialist: hero, 77, 87, 173, 244; ideal, 264; ideology, 89; mission, 18; principles, 43; system, 24, 37 Soviet Union, 78, 191 Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), 4, 20, 24, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 71, 90, 97, 118, 126 Spanish colonizers, 232 spiritual elements, 19, 83–4, 87, 94, 128, 233, 248 Spitzel, 50, 63, 65, 72, 147. See also informant; spy Spitzweg, Karl, 140 split personality, 27, 185 spy, 28 Staatsschauspiel Dresden, 4, 7, 44 Staatssicherheitsdienst. See Stasi Stadttheater, 66 ständige Vertretung, 64, 104 Stasi, 62–72, 129; akte, 65 Studentenburschenschaft, 140 Steenbeck, Max, 136 Stein, Charlotte von, 23 Stein, Peter, 7, 78 Stephan, Erika, 7, 17, 34, 39, 41, 45–52 (interview), 72, 89, 110, 122, 132, 147, 155, 163, 176, 178 stereotypes, 135, 150 Stewart, Ellen, 184, 201 Stocking, Robert, 198 ‘Strange Fruit’ (Holiday), 196–7, 203 Strange Justice of the Circle, 207 Strich, 10, 12, 55–6, 78–9, 96, 112, 120, 129n, 134–5, 163. See also deletions striving, 41, 86, 107, 175, 198, 225, 230, 241, 243, 246, 255, 257, 264 Sturz der gefallenen Engel, 50, 108–9

Index subjunctive conditionality, 86 sublimity of classicism, 135 subtle collaboration, 148 subversive message, 114 Sucher, Bernd, 17, 79 suffering, 27, 31, 115, 147, 160, 172, 240 suicide, 5, 77, 94, 96, 103. See also Selbstmord supremacy of the text, 145 surveillance, 28, 104, 130, 138 Suvarna, B.J., 208 symbol, 173 Tabuthema, 60 Tag der Republik, 71 Tagalog, 7, 185, 232n, 234–5, 237–9, 246–7, 252, 254, 261–2 Tanvirs, Habib, 207 Tata Theatre, 214, 218, 226, 228–9, 242, 254 Teatro Variedades, Manila, 238 television, 21, 71, 78, 82, 87, 90–1, 102, 105, 113, 115, 117, 131, 169, 191, 198, 212, 215, 221, 247–9, 254. See also audience, television testimonial, 18, 25, 32, 99, 209, 213 Textbuch, 78, 105 Thakore, Dolly, 226 Thalheimer, Michael, 173 Theaterhochschule Leipzig. See Hans Otto Theaterhochschule Theatertage der Pädagogen, 150–1 theatre critics, 7, 10, 17, 24, 34, 44, 46, 74, 78, 81, 91, 96, 104, 112, 127, 129, 133, 136, 144, 162, 170, 183, 205n, 228, 237, 245, 260, 268. See also critical reception; press; names of individual critics and reviewers

327

theatre for social change, 265 Thesen, 76, 91, 93, 124–5, 157 Third World Committee, 237, 267 Thuringia, 89 Tisch, Harry, 36 Tiwari, Atul, 218 Tizian, Venus of Urbino, 80 Topacio, Soxie, 247 transcending time, 200 transformation of consciousness, 42, 192, 266 trans-temporal, 137 treatment of blacks, 197 Trilse-Finkenstein, Jochanan, 17 Trivandrum, 211 Tschechoslowakei, 60–1, 73, 103 Ulbricht, Walter, 49, 54, 71–5, 93, 100, 104, 125, 163 Umwelt, 35, 65, 92, 121, 154. See also environment Una Poenitentium, 84, 87, 117 United States, 5, 21, 34, 43, 103, 107, 157, 187–8, 200–1, 203, 233, 237, 266. See also American universality, 184, 199, 204, 219, 222–5, 230, 254 Unterdrückung, 66 Upanishads, 209 U.S. military base in Philippines, 232, 235 utopia, 136, 169, 178, 264 validation: GDR, 71; intercultural, 268 Vedic, 220, 222 Venkataraman, R., 207 Vera, Noel, 257 Vera, Rody, 232n, 234–43, 245–9, 254, 257–62, 267

328

Index

Veränderbarkeit des Menschen, 25, 47 Veränderbarkeit der Welt, 38 verbundenes Maul, 66–7, 125, 132 Vergnügen, 39, 61 101, 122, 158 Vernunft, 35 Verzweiflung, 49, 171, 175 victim, 49, 171, 175, 198. See also Opfer videotape, 8–9, 12–13, 25, 71n, 73, 77–82, 87, 103n, 105, 112, 114, 129n, 148, 150, 158, 161, 166n, 170, 178, 183, 190, 202–3, 205, 218–19, 224, 227–8, 230, 233, 239–40, 245, 248–9, 260 Vietnam, 35, 103, 106–7, 188 Vi◊àkhadatta, 185 vision of the GDR, 266 Volkmar, Gudrun, 80 Volksarmee, 64 Volksbühne, 22, 89 Volkseigenerbetrieb Sonderhausen, 151 Volksteufel, 51 Volkstheater, 107–8, 268 Volkstrauertag, 105 Volkstümlichkeit, 61, 72, 80, 85, 96, 111, 125 Vor Gericht, 165 Vorbildfigur, 49–50, 110 Vorgefühl, 83, 86, 100 Vorspiel, 78, 94, 110, 113–14, 137–8, 147, 149, 152, 162, 166, 176, 190, 212. See also Prelude Vorstudienanstalt für das Arbeiterund Bauernstudium (VOSTA), 19 Waidhausen internment camp, 19 Warsaw Pact, 103 Wayne, Philip, 189, 242, 248

Wegner, Bettina, 129 Weigel, Helene, 26 Weißhuhn, Herbert, 152, 155 Weltbürger, 25 Weltliteratur, 28, 96, 187, 264, 269 Welt-Theater, 92 Wende, 25, 56, 62, 64–5 Werkstattgespräch, 42, 71, 73, 88, 91, 93, 98, 124 West German, 13, 17, 56, 64, 74, 105, 118, 130, 134, 152, 161, 164, 174, 177; intellectuals, 11. See also Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Federal Republic of Germany Western Europe, 103 Western music, 130, 158, 218 Wieditz, Elke, 135 Wieland, Christoph, 23 Wiener Zauberpossentheater, 135, 145–6, 148 windmill of quixotic GDR, 125 Winterberg, Anna, 214, 219 Wischnewski, Klaus, 45 wit, 32, 177 witchcraft, 250 Wöhlert, Wolfgang, 18 Wolf, Silke, 175 Wolfram, Gerhard, 56, 62–3 World Association of Christians in Communication, 236 World Youth Day 1994, 239 Yacat, Nilo, 253 Zagermann, Christa, 161 Zakkai, Jamil, 184, 191, 202–3 Zart, Christiane, 162 Zentralkomitee der SED, 63–4 Ziaja, Helga, 110–12, 192, 244, 254 Zivilcourage, 61, 64

Index Zschiesche, Ellen, 150 ‘Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen,’ 60, 85, 88, 178 Zurich, 75

329

Zweifler, 54, 60 Zynismus, 6, 51, 168. See also cynicism

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GERMAN AND EUROPEAN STUDIES General Editor: Rebecca Wittmann

1 Emanuel Adler, Beverly Crawford, Federica Bicchi, and Rafaella Del Sarto, The Convergence of Civilizations: Constructing a Mediterranean Region 2 James Retallack, The German Right, 1860–1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination 3 Silvija Jestrovic, Theatre of Estrangement: Theory, Practice, Ideology 4 Susan Gross Solomon, ed., Doing Medicine Together: Germany and Russia between the Wars 5 Laurence McFalls, ed., Max Weber’s ‘Objectivity’ Revisited 6 Robin Ostow, ed., (Re)Visualizing National History: Museums and National Identities in Europe in the New Millennium 7 David Blackbourn and James Retallack, eds., Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place: German-Speaking Central Europe, 1860–1930 8 John Zilcosky, ed., Writing Travel: The Poetics and Politics of the Modern Journey 9 Angelica Fenner, Race under Reconstruction in German Cinema: Robert Stemmle’s Toxi 10 Martina Kessel and Patrick Merziger, eds., The Politics of Humour in the Twentieth Century: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Communities of Laughter 11 Jeffrey K. Wilson, The German Forest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871–1914 12 David G. John, Bennewitz, Goethe, Faust: German and Intercultural Stagings 13 Jennifer Ruth Hosek, Sun, Sex, and Socialism: Cuba in the German Imaginary