Das Kunstseidene Madchen, and: Stella, and: Trauer Muss Elektra Tragen (review)

Since the demise of East Germany in 1990 stripped state theatres of their privilege as subsidized institutions of critique in a repressive society, they have had to find new roles in the crowded scene in Berlin, capital of unified Germany. While the Volksbühne has earned attention through director Frank Castorf's outrageous deconstructions of classic texts (reviewed in Theatre Journal as part of the Theatertreffen), the Berliner Ensemble, Brecht's former home, on the other hand, has lost momentum under Claus Peymann, formerly innovative director in Bochum and Vienna. The Deutsches Theater, once led by pioneering directors Otto Brahm and Max Reinhardt, distinguished itself in the 1980s with the critical and often campy productions of Alexander Lang (such as Trilogie der Leidenschaft in 1986) but lapsed after unification into a polished, unadventurous routine. As the first two seasons under the artistic management of Bernd Wilms suggest, the theatre has largely, if not completely, recovered its role as producer of pointed but historically grounded stagings of German and other classics, while also developing the work of recent authors.

Although unfamiliar to English-speaking readers, Das kunstseidene Mädchen (The Fake Silk Girl; Stuttgart: Klett, 1979) by Irmgard Keun (1905-82) is well known in Germany as a fictional but historically accurate portrayal of the newly independent single women of the 1920s, documented also by Siegfried Kracauer in The Salaried Masses (1930; London: Verso, 1998). As with the clerks, secretaries, and theatre ushers observed by Kracauer and cited in the program, the protagonist of this one-woman adaptation (directed by Barbara Frey) belonged to the first generation of German women to seek economic, social, and sexual freedom in the big cities. As the title suggests and as Inka Friedrich's virtuoso performance, by turns crass and ironic, makes vividly clear, some women, like the süße Mädel (cute girls) of Arthur Schnitzler's plays, responded to the allure of metropolitan capitalism with the desire to acquire, by any means necessary, the fur coats and other accouterments of conspicuous consumption. Her progress in this world is marked by the change in costume (Bettina Mayer also designed the minimal acting and seating space on the small Kammerspiel stage) from the modest dress of the white-collar worker to the fur coat, stolen from a theatre patron, covering the (fake) silk underwear she wears initially to impress an apparently wealthy beau and later, as her prospects decline, to attract seedier patrons. Despite the moral implicit in this account, Friedrich's performance highlights with matter-of-factness as well as historical irony both the promise and the limitations of the new opportunities afforded women in the modern metropolis, while the presence of women as well as men in the production line-up suggests the ongoing work required to promote women in the theatre beyond the role of actress.

Mainstage productions also highlighted the critical representation of women, albeit by male authors. In this spirit, Stephan Kimming's revival of Goethe's Stella offered a somber but economical interpretation of the first, supposedly comic version (1776). That version, subtitled a Play for Lovers, ends not with a predictable confrontation between errant husband Fernando and his estranged wife Cäcilie and younger lover Stella or, as in the tragic ending of 1827, with Fernando's off-stage suicide by pistol and Stella's on-stage imminent death by heartbreak, but apparently with the two women coming together to do Fernando's bidding. Alexander Lang's 1986 production on the same stage, as part of the Trilogie der Leidenschaft, had treated this male fantasy as an opportunity for farce, in which rococo pink set, costume, and rouged cheeks served...