Germany’s Fourth Wall

Germany'sFourth Wall GautamDasgupta WITH THE THUNDERING collapse of the Berlin Wall on the night of November 8, 1989, accompanied by the sound of chisels and pickaxes driven deep into the concrete fortifications of an ignominious barrier, a severed nation seemed on its way to a hopeful future. By the time I got to Germany in late May, 1990, much of the earlier euphoria had abated. Talk of reunification, both in the East and in the West, had taken on a darker, more ominous, tone. Artists and intellectuals in the East chose to address the inevitability that lay ahead of them in terms of annexation. The other half, an economic titan with a high standard of living, was becoming wary of the sacrifices it might have to endure on behalf of its disenfranchised cousins. Despite such fears and misperceptions, it was nonetheless a foregone conclusion that the new Germany of the future would, in principle, resemble the old West Germany. The death knell for East Germany had been sounded and there was to be no turning back to the days of socialism and state-controlled bureaucracy. The verdict was in, and it was incontrovertible-the West, to all intents and purposes, had won, and on most fronts. The one field where the issue of superiority was irrelevant, and had been so since the division of Germany, was in the cultural domain. With regard to theatre, in particular, East Germany could boast of a vital culture, amply supported by the socialist state. Brecht's return to East Berlin and the founding of the Berliner Ensemble in the post-war years had resulted in an unprecedented degree of visibility and fame to a city entombed behind a wall of death. Before long, East Germany could boast of more theatres per capita than its wealthier western counterpart. Any doubts as 62 to inferior production values from the East were soon dispelled as it became increasingly difficult to differentiate stagings from the East and the West. The seriousness of artistic intent lavished upon the stage on both sides was undoubtedly a legacy left untarnished from the enviable past of German theatrical history. It was even generally accepted that East German actors, on the whole, were better trained. Despite the appearance of parity, there was no denying that theatre artists in the East had to work amidst formidable constraints. Many chose to defect over the years. Finding their visions compromised, many young directors moved across the border. Playwrights would compose their texts in the shadow of inscrutable censors. Those fortunate enough to have acquired literary fame could count on productions in the West. Against this backdrop, and poised between the opening of borders and imminent reunification, the West German cities of Berlin and Frankfurt mounted two theatre events that, in light of the changes taking place, assumed greater significance than what might have originally been intended . At Berlin, the Theatertreffen, a juried festival now in its twentyseventh year, kept to its mandate in presenting ten or so of the most prestigious productions from German-speaking nations. The practice of including East German productions, initiated in 1989, was maintained, the single entry being Thomas Langhoff's staging of George Tabori's Mein Kampf for the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. Although my schedule did not permit seeing the production, I could not fail but be touched by the choice of this play, with its obvious reference to Germany's past. Written by a Hungarian Jew, Tabori, after years of exilic wandering in England and America, had long since returned to the land of his executioners in the western half of Germany, that half which eastern demagoguery had always affirmed as the true spawning ground of Nazi beliefs. The systematic and specific erasure of East Germany's collusion in Germany's fascist past, so assiduously carried out by the socialist state, desperately needed to be checked, and I can only hope that by bringing this play to audiences in East Berlin some of the tragic omissions in the re-writing of history have been righted. The specter of racial hatred that haunts the post-war mind finds painful expression at a site not far from the Maxim Gorki...