Berliner Theatertreffen (review)

At the opening press conference for Berlin’s Theatertreffen, journalists asked aggressively for explanations as to why not one of the ten selected “noteworthy and representative” productions came from any of the so-called Neue Bundesländer, the parenthetical exception being the Berliner Ensemble’s Arturo Ui. The jury in its defense could only point out rather pathetically that the six presenting theatres were evenly divided between the former East and West Berlin.

Six years after the Wende, resentment at the West’s cultural annexation of the East is as pointed as ever. In the week before the start of the 1996 Theatertreffen, voters in Brandenburg unexpectedly rejected a proposed union with neighboring Berlin—the electorate clearly has had enough of merging. Until 1991, East Berlin had its own theatre festival, the Berliner Festtage; rather than being combined with the Theatertreffen, the East’s institution was, not untypically, simply shut down.

More’s the pity. This year’s Theatertreffen offered a remarkably conservative program, marked on the one hand by its emphasis on the classical repertory and on contemporary plays that use psychological realism to interpret traditional linear plots, and on the other hand by its unwillingness to integrate dance into its offerings and by the absence of mixed media, solo performance, or almost any pointedly topical political commentary.

Figure 1.

Klaus Mertens, Andre Jung, Martin Pawlowsky, Josef Ostendorf, Jean-Pierre Cornu, Graham F. Valentine, and Siggi Schwientek in the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg production of Stunde Null, written and directed by Christoph Marthaler, 1996 Berlin Theatertreffen. Photo: Matthias Horn.

Figure 3.

Charlotte’s baby arrives, as Lucianne looks on, in the Theater Neumarkt, Zurich production of Goethe’s Elective Affinities, adapted and directed by Stefan Bachmann, 1996 Berlin Theatertreffen. Photo: Dominic Buttner.

In contrast to the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s annual series, the Theatertreffen might as well be called “The Last Wave Festival.” Of ten productions, the only texts that could be classified as new were Christopher Marthaler’s Stunde Null (Zero Hour)—a creative assemblage of found material—and, more of a stretch, Stefan Bachmann’s adaptation of Goethe’s novel Elective Affinities. The next closest thing to a contemporary play was David Mouchtar-Samorai’s staging at the Schauspiel Bonn of Arthur Miller’s The American Clock, a cliché portrayal of the Great Depression; written in the mid-1970s, it just as plausibly could have been found in an old cabinet of discarded Group Theatre scripts.

Figure 2.

The Dusseldorf Schauspielhaus’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Karin Beier, 1996 Berlin Theatertreffen. Photo: Sonja Rothweiler.

Of course the festival would not want to depict itself as mummified, and the promotional material went to great lengths to create an aura of newness. Four directors made their Theatertreffen debut this year—Bachmann with his Zurich production of Elective Affinities; Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s staging from Hamburg’s Thalia Theater of Marivaux’s The Dispute; Elmar Goerden’s Stuttgart production of Karl Phillipp Moritz’s fragment, Blunt, oder der Gast (Blunt, or The Guest); and Gerhard Willert’s version of Ibsen’s The Master Builder. A fifth member of the “new generation,” thirty-year-old Karin Beier, returned for a second Theatertreffen appearance with a multinational cast of actors performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in nine languages. And attempts, however pathetic, were made to make the stale immediate: in a televised interview promoting The American Clock, Mouchtar-Samorai compared the Great Depression to the troubles of the current German economy—a gesture betraying as much ignorance of history and economics as propensity for self-pity.

Elsewhere, rebelliousness or unconventionality imbedded itself annoyingly within superficial trappings of the historical avant-garde. Beier’s midsummer night’s Babel from the Dusseldorf Schauspielhaus may be an extension of Peter Brook’s work and reflective of a larger interculturalist vogue; nevertheless, she reduces cultural friction to empty lazzi and obvious gags predicated on nothing other than the cast...