Contemporary German scenography: Surging images and spaces for action

Abstract

In my essay I explore the scenography of Achim Freyer, Bert Neumann, Anna Viebrock, and Olaf Altmann who have significantly shaped the performances of leading directors such as Frank Castorf, Jossi Wieler, Christoph Marthaler, and Michael Thalheimer. Their scenography offers a diversity of approaches ranging from experiments with real space to perceptual space, from simulations of film techniques to the virtual extension of the stage space through video technology, yet all are contributing to a broader movement on the German stage that pushes the boundaries of how scenography can contribute to performance. I examine how Freyer, Neumann, Viebrock, and Altmann conceive what Walter Benjamin has called Bildräume, or image spaces. Benjamin understood those as dynamic spaces, which cite or employ authentic spaces to evoke political views and cultural memories, and to invent constellations of shapes that define characters, create a space of action, prepare space as an event, and engage actors and audiences in unexpected interactions. I show that Freyer, Neumann, Viebrock, and Altmann have reshaped contemporary German scenography and created a performative framework by placing the past and present into a productive visual constellation. Generally, they have shaped two trends. First, since their scenography has remained predominantly within the parameters of German proscenium stages, each designer has conceived ideas to redefine the stage-auditorium relationship. Second, the work of the four scenographers has substantially altered the relationship between space and text.

Notes

Günther Rühle, ‘Die Erfindung der Bildersprache für das Theater’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 30 September 1972.

Ibid.

Internationally, Josef Svoboda was one of the first designers who also called himself a ‘scenographer’. See Jarka Burian, Josef Svoboda's Scenography for Richard Wagner's Operas (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983), pp. 4–5.

Rühle, ‘Bildersprache’.

W. J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 31.

Christopher Baugh, ‘Brecht and Stage Design: The Bühnenbildner and the Bühnenbauer’, in The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, ed. by Peter Thomson and Glendyr Sacks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 235–53 (p. 239).

See the overview of the Prague Quadrennial between 1967 and 1991 in A Mirror of World Theatre, ed. by Vladimír Adamczyk, Marie Bílková, and Vera Ptácková (Prague: Theatre Institute, 1995) and a summary of the German success at the PQ in Frank Hänig, ‘Die IX. PQ 99’, Bühnentechnische Rundschau, 4 (1999), 8–16 (p.16).

Stein's approach was significantly influenced by Brecht's work with designers such as Teo Otto and Karl von Appen on visualizing political and economic relationships.

See Heiner Müller, ‘Kunst ist die Krankheit mit der wir leben’, Heiner Müller, Gesammelte Irrtümer. Interviews und Gespräche (Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1986), pp. 55–60 (p. 55).

Jorge Riechmann, ‘Ein Tableau Vivant jenseits des Todes. Annäherung an BILDBESCHREIBUNG’, in Heiner Müller Material. Texte und Kommentare, ed. by Frank Hörnigk (Göttingen: Steidl, 1989), pp. 203–12 (p. 204).

Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater (Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1999), p. 14.

Wieland Schmied, ‘Peer Gynt und der Knopfgießer – Gedanken über den Maler Achim Freyer’, in Achim Freyer. Taggespinste Nachtgesichte. Malerei, ed. by Akademie der Künste (Berlin: Akademie der Künste, 1994), pp. 9–14 (p. 13).

See catalogue description from the 1977 Documenta as quoted in Günther Rühle, ‘Die Bilderwelt des Achim Freyer’, Theater. Bilanz und Chronik der Saison 1977 (continued as Jahrbuch der Zeitschrift Theater Heute) (Velber: Friedrich Verlag, 1977), pp. 62–69 (p. 63).

Freyer's conception of the active role of the audience is also an adaptation of Brecht's theory of a politically conscious spectator: see Herrmann Beil, ‘Magier und Luftgeist in einer Person – Gedanken eines gelegentlichen Mitarbeiters und Zuschauers’, in Achim Freyer, pp. 31–35 (p. 34).

See Neumann quoted in Richard Bethke, ‘Nur kein Gesamtkunstwerk. Der Bühnen-und Kostümgestalter Bert Neumann’, in Das Bild der Bühne, ed. by Volker Pfüller and Hans-Joachim Ruckhäberle (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 1998), pp. 58–67 (p. 59).

Ibid.

Ibid.

See ‘Imitation of Life’: Bert Neumann Bühnenbilder, ed. by Hannah Hurtzig (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2001), pp. 192–93.

Ibid., p. 196.

Ibid.

In effect, Neumann achieved a phenomenology of the postmodern house in these productions, using the bungalow as a cultural citation, an interplay between interior and exterior, and magnifying details through video images.

Castorf quoted in Carl Hegemann, ‘Vorwort’ in Kapitalismus und Depression, ed. by Carl Hegemann (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2000), pp. 6–8 (p. 7).

See Paul Virilio, ‘The Overexposed City’, in The Paul Virilio Reader, ed. by Steve Redhead (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 83–99.

See Anna Viebrock, ‘Damit die Zeit nicht stehenbleibt … ’, in Räumungen. Von der Unverschämtheit, Theater für ein Medium der Zukunft zu halten, ed. by Ralph Hammerthaler and Elisabeth Schweeger (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2000), pp. 63–67 (p. 63).

Stefanie Carp, ‘Geträumte Realräume. Die Bühnenbildnerin Anna Viebrock’, in Bild der Bühne, pp.118–27 (p. 118).

See Viebrock in Schweeger, Räumungen p. 65.

See Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater, p. 301; and see Hans-Thies Lehmann, ‘Spiel mit Rahmungen’, in Anna Viebrock, Bühnen/Räume. Damit die Zeit nicht stehen bleibt, ed. by Bettina Masuch (Berlin: Theater der Zeit, 2000), n.p.

See Viebrock, ‘Zeit’, in Masuch, Viebrock, n.p.

See ibid.

See Lehmann, Postdramatisches Theater, p. 301.

See Carp, ‘Geträumte Realräume’, p. 121.

See ibid., p. 120.