Contemporary theatre? Brecht, Peymann & Co. at the Berliner Ensemble

Abstract

Since Claus Peymann became the manager of the Berliner Ensemble (BE) in 2000, he has brought much-needed stability to the company, securing its subsidies, packaging its productions and selling them to a mainstream audience. But Peymann has also courted controversy through his performances in the media spotlight. Reviewers have seized upon the discrepancy between his grand claims for political theatre and his actual productions, which have taken few political or aesthetic risks.

Although Peymann's appointment was seen as a break with the BE's past, Brecht has remained the BE's most-performed playwright and continues to define its identity. Analysis of The Mother, Peymann's most ambitious Brecht production to date, reveals a surprisingly delicate balance between his scepticism towards Brecht's ideological solutions and his belief in the topical relevance of Brecht's anti-war arguments. But Peymann has yet to develop this approach into a coherent programme, or to turn his selective use of the BE's history into a more challenging examination of the company's role in the GDR.

What Peymann is offering at the BE is not so much contemporary theatre, as theatre practised by his own contemporaries. He is using the theatrical methods of the 1970s, and the marketing techniques of the post-reunification era, to respond – in part – to current events. Thus far, his legacy to the BE lies in his achievements as a manager; for his legacy as a director, historians are more likely to look to his productions in Stuttgart, Bochum and Vienna.

Notes

See Stefan Schnabel, ‘Deutschland begraben’, in Günther Heeg, Klopfzeichen aus dem Mausoleum: Brechtschulung am Berliner Ensemble, ed. by Stefan Schnabel (Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2000), pp. 7–13.

Laura Bradley, Brecht and Political Theatre: ‘The Mother’ on Stage (Oxford: Clarendon, 2006), pp. 130–31, p. 179.

Brechts Burg fällt: Aufstieg und Fall des Berliner Ensembles. Dir. Petra Brändle. SFB, 1999. Akademie der Künste am Robert-Koch-Platz, Audiovisuelle Sammlung, 33.8609.

Ibid.

See Roland Koberg, Claus Peymann: Aller Tage Abenteuer: Biografie (Berlin: Henschel, 1999), p. 120.

Werner Hecht, ‘Einzug der Gladiatoren in das Theater am Schiffbauerdamm’, Dreigroschenheft (2/2000), 5–15 (p. 8).

See Ulrike Ruppel, ‘Ich habe früh begriffen…’, B.Z., 20 September 2005, pp. 16–17; Andin Tegen, ‘Ich bin zu 100 Prozent schizophren’, Die Welt, 26 May 2006, p. 10.

See Peter Kümmel, ‘Kampfspiele im Treibsand’, Die Zeit, 3 March 2005, p. 43.

See Martin Linzer, ‘Ich war immer ein Opportunist…’: 12 Gespräche über Theater und das Leben in der DDR, Theater der Zeit Recherchen, 7 (Berlin: Theater der Zeit and Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, 2001), p. 298; Berlin: Kulturverführer, ed. by Rolf Hosfeld, 5th rev. edn (Hamburg: Helmut Metz, 2005), p. 8.

Statistics supplied by the BE's Press Department, 30 October 2006.

See http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/spielplan_okt.htm [accessed 26 October 2005].

See Peter Laudenbach, ‘Wir können auch anders’, brand eins Magazin (10/2003), 142–48 (pp. 145–46).

See anon., ‘Peymann verlängert Vertrag’, http://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/kultur/217774.html [accessed 9 January 2003].

See Detlef Friedrich, ‘Peymanns Neuerervorschlag’, Berliner Zeitung, 15 March 2002, p. 11.

Matthias Matussek, ‘Goldhamster mit Löwenpranke’, Der Spiegel, 10 April 2000, pp. 46–49 (pp. 46–47).

See Hosfeld, Berlin: Kulturverführer, p. 8.

See dpa, ‘Praktikum ade’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23 March 2005, p. 13.

See Franz Wille, ‘Auf die Plätze, fertig, halt!’, Theater heute (3/2000), 6–13 (p. 7).

See http://www.bundestag.de/bic/presse/2002/pz_020607.html [accessed 26 October 2005]; Reinhard Wengierek, ‘Rolf Hochhuth will Claus Peymann vom Berliner Ensemble entthronen’, Die Welt, 20 February 2006, p. 24.

Rola, ‘Was macht eigentlich… Claus Peymann?’, die tageszeitung (15 March 2002), p. 22.

See Hecht, ‘Einzug der Gladiatoren’, p. 5.

See Rüdiger Schaper, ‘Das Geisterhaus’, Der Tagesspiegel, 10 January 2000, p. 25.

http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/archiv.htm [accessed 26 October 2005].

Comments based on productions seen on 15–17 January 2003, 11 January 2004 and 5 June 2006. See Reinhard Wengierek, ‘Hop, hop, hop, wir machen Agitprop’, Die Welt, 8 September 2003, p. 29; Michael Bienert, ‘Tadelloser Stillstand’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 1 December 2005, p. 31.

See Patrick Wildermann, ‘Ungeheuer oben’, Der Tagesspiegel, 14 August 2006, p. 23.

See anon., ‘Brecht gut besucht’, Tagesspiegel Online, 4 September 2006, http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nachrichten/berliner-ensemble-brecht/72932.asp [accessed 26 October 2006].

See Volker Gransow, ‘Ungeheuer Oben: Brecht fünfzig Jahre danach’, KultuRation (2/2006), http://www.kulturation.de/k_text.php?uebergabe=105 [accessed 24 October 2006]; Dirk Pilz, ‘Irgendwie Brecht’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 15 August 2006, p. 37.

Peymann, quoted ibid.

http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/index_repertoire.htm [accessed 2 June 2006]; dpa, ‘Offene Rechnungen’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 June 2005, p. 13.

See Wolfgang Höbel and Joachim Kronsbein, ‘Wir leben im Übergang’, Der Spiegel, 8 January 2001, pp. 161–63 (p. 162).

Peymann in flyer for Nathan der Weise (own copy).

Performance seen on 20 September 2002; Heiner Müller, ‘Lessings Schlaf Traum Schrei’, in Herzstück (West Berlin: Rotbuch, 1983), pp. 34–37.

Claus Peymann, ‘Alles bleibt anders’, interview with Christine Dössel, Süddeutsche Zeitung. 31 July 2002, p. 13.

See Bradley, Brecht and Political Theatre, chapters 3 and 5.

Programme for Die Mutter, BE 2003 (own copy).

This and future comments are based on performances seen on 15, 16 and 17 January 2003.

See http://www.berliner-ensemble.de/index_repertoire.htm [accessed 24 February 2005].

2003 programme, p. 50.

See Peter von Becker, ‘Rosa Rot’, Der Tagesspiegel, 17 January 2003, p. 26; Irene Bazinger, ‘Wenn Rosas Fahnen’, FAZ, 17 January 2003, p. 31; Reinhard Wengierek, ‘Rote Fahne’, Die Welt, 17 January 2003, p. 27; Valeria Heintges, ‘Schwarzweiß-Malerei mit blutroten Flecken’, Sächsische Zeitung, 17 January 2003, p. 9.

2003 programme, [n.p.]; Bertolt Brecht, Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. by Werner Hecht et al., 30 vols (Frankfurt/Main and Berlin: Suhrkamp and Aufbau, 1988–2000), xi, pp. 163–64.

Overheard at the performance on 16 January 2003.

See programme for Die Mutter, Bochumer Schauspielhaus 1983, Schloss Wahn Theatersammlung, Cologne.

Peter Kümmel, ‘Nachtgespenster’, Die Zeit, 23 January 2003, p. 30.

See Stefan Peter, ‘Peymann inszeniert Die Mutter’, Bild, 17 January 2003, p. 3.

See Anon., ‘Versteigerung im Berliner Ensemble’, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, 17 April 2005, http://www.rbbonline.de/_/nachrichten/kultur/beitrag_drucken_jsp/key=news2474004.html [accessed 25 May 2006].