Die Kleinburgerhochzeit (review)

Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit. By Bertolt Brecht. Berliner Ensemble, Theater am Schiff-bauerdamm, Berlin. 21 June 2001.

It has been two years since the Berliner Ensemble began its massive reorganization, turning the artistic reins over to Claus Peymann in a self-conscious effort to distance itself from its long-held political and aesthetic agendas. Of course, "the house that Brecht built" will always be ghosted by the man whose enormous bronze statue adorns the front walkway; but sitting in the midst of pricey restaurants in the now trendy neighborhood that is its home, the Berliner Ensemble wisely understood that it was time for a change. The company's new motto succinctly captures its new mission: "Das BE—ein Theater für Zeitgenossen" ("The BE—a Theatre for Our Times").

The anxiety and anticipation as to how Peymann would refashion Germany's most visible theatre seem to have subsided as the director noted for promoting exciting and provocative new works has done just that, bringing into the repertory a number of new plays by Thomas Bernhard, Elfriede Jelinek, and others. More surprising is the mounting of three Shakespeare plays in the past two seasons—Hamlet, Measure for Measure, and Richard II—all in new translations by the writer/actor Thomas Brasch. And while Brecht has certainly not been accorded privilege of place, neither has he been completely ignored. Heiner Müller's staging of Arturo Ui, one of the most noteworthy and spectacular productions under the previous regime, has recently been revived, and Brecht's Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit (The Petty Bourgeois Wedding) was one of the first productions opened under Peymann's tenure, returning to the repertory this year.

As the sole representative of Brecht's work in Peymann's first season, this relatively slight one-act comedy might have seemed a choice bent almost too much on marking a break with Berliner Ensemble tradition. Yet under Philip Tiedemann's direction, this twenty-page farce becomes an hour-and-forty-five-minute comic juggernaut, a deeply satisfying entertainment as well as a disturbingly dark look at middle-class marriage. The play is more situation than plot, an exposé of the anxieties, jealousies, and hostilities that take place at a small wedding reception. Set in the dining room of the Bride and the Groom (all the characters are given such typical designations), it revolves around the comic conceit that all the furniture in the house has been designed and built by the newlyweds. As the evening wears on and tension turns into outright aggression, the furniture begins to disintegrate—cabinets refuse to open, chairs collapse, table legs are wrenched off—and the Bride and Groom are ultimately left alone in this symbolic ruins of intimate relations, the sickening smell of rotten glue permeating the atmosphere.

While Brecht's premise is amusing in its own right, much of the comic inventiveness of this production can be attributed to the wonderfully imaginative scenic design of Etienne Pluss. The production begins with a large, sepia-toned etching of a quail center stage, in front of which, and in stark contrast to, a steel statue of the words "DIE KLEINBÜRGERHOCHZEIT" stands. In a foreshadowing of the action to come, a pastoral air on the flute is suddenly, jarringly interrupted by each of the composite words of the title dropping one-by-one through the floor like clanging guillotines. Then, from below the stage, the dining room itself rises. Measuring some twenty-five feet wide but no more than five feet deep, it continues to ascend until the entire room, supported by stilts, is resting three feet above the stage floor, allowing us to look directly underneath it. The dining table spans almost the width of the room, leaving little space to move, and motivating a continual ballet of farcical miscues and mishaps—the passing of a large platter of cod becomes particularly uproarious in these cramped confines.

The combination of the oversized table and the stilts allows Tiedemann to frame three actions at any...