West German Scenography

West German ScenographyAuthor(s): Martin GraueSource: The Drama Review: TDR, Vol. 28, No. 2, International Scenography (Summer, 1984),pp. 77-101Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1145579 .

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In West Germany, the conservative turn in politics is slowly showing effects in the arts and the theatre. Some critics seem to have started a campaign to devalue the theatrical achievements of the last 20 years. Looking back, GOnter ROhle speaks of "an esthetics of the rubbish heap and second-hand boutiques" developing at the end of the '60s and gaining ground in the '70s. "Turning point" and "change" are among the catch phrases of the day.

In Germany, the major visual work of the last decades has been with the "classical" repertoire. A non-verbal theatre never really gained ground, and only a few contemporary authors like Strauss, Bernhard, Kroetz, Weiss, MOller, Dorst and a few others could break into the phalanx of the classics. Designers and directors created a sometimes highly personal theatrical imagery, subjecting the actors to their interpretive visions. An actor's performance was very often not based on the plot or the character's psychology but on the director's interpretation. The stage became a space for the free associations of political, social and spiritual consciousness when confronted with a text. Now there seems to be a turn toward a new emphasis on acting, toward a renunciation of a theatre of images. This negates the sensuousness the German stage has acquired and returns it to a supposedly more intellectual textual approach, advocating a "poorer" theatre and empty stages.

One important development during the last few years, however, has been the move of both directors and designers from drama to opera, offering their services to what some think is a more theatrical medium. At last year's Quadrennial for theatre design, costume

THE DRAMA REVIEW, Volume 28, Number 2, Summer, 1984, (T102) 0012-5962/84/020077-25 $4.00/0 ? 1984 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology



















Berloiz, Les Troyens, Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel, Frankfurt Opera, 1983 Berloiz, Les Troyens, Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel, Frankfurt Opera, 1983 Berloiz, Les Troyens, Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel, Frankfurt Opera, 1983 Berloiz, Les Troyens, Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel, Frankfurt Opera, 1983 Berloiz, Les Troyens, Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel, Frankfurt Opera, 1983

Les Troyens Les Troyens Les Troyens Les Troyens Les Troyens



WEST GERMANY 79 WEST GERMANY 79 WEST GERMANY 79 WEST GERMANY 79 WEST GERMANY 79

and architecture in Prague, for example, the German exhibit was awarded the golden quadriga for their designs for Janacek's operas staged in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt over the last years. Marco Arturo Marelli was awarded the gold medal for his design for Jenufa, directed by Alfred Kirchner in 1979.

The Frankfurt opera has become one of the leading opera houses in Germany. Productions there develop in close collaboration between director, dramaturg, musical director and stage designer. At the end of last year, the Frankfurt Opera staged Hector Berlioz' Les Troyens. It was only the third time this demanding work had ever been presented. Les Troyens, based on Virgil's Aeneid, consists of two parts: "The Conquest of Troy" and "The Trojans in Carthage." In the first, Cassandra, the tragic seer, is the heroine; in the second, Dido, queen of Carthage, assumes the role. Aeneas is the male protagonist in both parts. Both the director, Ruth Berghaus, and the dramaturg, Klaus Zehelein, placed special emphasis on mass movements. (In the first part, it is Cassandra against the masses; in the second, Dido.) They found reflections of Berlioz' own time, problems of history, mythology and the foundation and justification of political states.

Hans Dieter Schaal-who, with Max von Vequel, designed the sets-free associates on Part I: "Cut with a spade, courtyard, prisonyard, excavation, archeology, room in the body of the Trojan horse, room in one's head ... During the action, Troy, burning and

falling, closes down to a coffin-like pit. In the distance, the open space of a possible future development . . ." On the set, there is no trace of archaism, decoration or detail. For the first scenes, the stage is surrounded by high, slightly slanted, corrugated steel walls, antiquity cited only in tiny toy palaces and columns. Cassandra can pick up the small

















Les Troyens: The death chamber designed by Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel Les Troyens: The death chamber designed by Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel Les Troyens: The death chamber designed by Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel Les Troyens: The death chamber designed by Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel Les Troyens: The death chamber designed by Hans Dieter Schaal and Max von Vequel



80 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T102 80 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T102 80 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T102 80 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T102 80 THE DRAMA REVIEW/T102

Les Troyens: Schaal and von Vequel's design of Carthage as a sloping ship's deck Les Troyens: Schaal and von Vequel's design of Carthage as a sloping ship's deck Les Troyens: Schaal and von Vequel's design of Carthage as a sloping ship's deck Les Troyens: Schaal and von Vequel's design of Carthage as a sloping ship's deck Les Troyens: Schaal and von Vequel's design of Carthage as a sloping ship's deck

Trojan horse and hide it behind her red breastplate. The tragic seer, for whom Troy cannot be a home, lives in a little tent at the right front of the stage. She is unable to make herself heard by the Trojans, who have fallen into mass ecstasy upon learning that the Greeks seem to have left the battlefield.

In the next set, mass hysteria turns into mass suicide committed by the Trojan women. The death chamber, with black walls narrowing toward the deep back of the stage, creates dark associations with a recent past. There is still light at the end of the dark tunnel; a painted god has settled there now.

Referring to Part 1I, Schaal says, "Carthage is a place where the effort to create a home with the help of architecture is more advanced." The huge setting he designed, however, indicates the provisory character of this supposedly settled state. The wide revolving stage, with a diameter of 36 meters (wider than the auditorium of the Frankfurt Opera) depicts not a city but a sloping ship-deck architecture, a space on the border between land and sea, fanning out in the back into a number of bridges and paths. Revolving, the stage shows several smaller idyllic areas in this architectural landscape. In the first part, the colors were grey and black; now white dominates the stage. Only for the orchestral "Chasse Royal" do Dido and Aeneas climb through a bright green wood of living bodies on a steep wall. The huge set turns 180 degrees, and columns suggest a harbor where the Trojans are preparing to depart from Carthage. The ghosts of their forefathers creep out of large boxes asking them to leave and fulfill their historic mission.

Les Troyens was the first stage set for Hans Dieter Schaal, who is an architect. In




















1978 he published a book, Wege und Wegraume (Ways and Clearing Away) in which he describes his interest in the dialectic of progress and stagnation. He defines this dialectic as the center of interest for his work on Les Troyens.

Achim Freyer, painter and environmental artist, is among those who have turned from drama toward staging and designing opera. Once Meisterschuler (star pupil) of Bertolt Brecht, he was stage designer in Stuttgart with director Claus Peymann until 1979. With Wilfried Minks, Karl-Ernst Herrmann and Erich Wonder, he fought vehemently for the recognition of stage design as an autonomous art. His work always exhibited very personal, fantastic visions; his exuberant Faust I spectacle (1975) in Stuttgart was rightly subtitled by one critic "Achim Freyer-stage designer." He exhibited paintings in Berlin, had an environment in "Documenta 6" in Kassel in 1977 and was involved in the "Konfigurationen" exhibit at the 4th Quadrennial in Prague in 1979. Freyer now teaches stage design with his wife Ilona at the Berlin Academy of Arts. In his endeavor to find a symbiosis between visual and theatrical performance, he moved toward music theatre a few years ago, working for a while with composers of modern music like Mauricio Kagel and Dieter Schebel. He finally began directing and staging only opera. He staged Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride at the Munich opera in 1980; von Weber's Freischutz and minimalist composer Philipp Glass' short opera Satyagraha in Stuttgart; Gluck's Orfeo et Euridice in Berlin in 1982; and shortly before, in Hamburg, Mozart's Magic Flute (Zauberflite). He staged and designed all of them as scenic fairytales.









Die Zauberflote (Hamburg, 1982): The Queen of the Night and Sarastro as conceived by Achim Freyer Die Zauberflote (Hamburg, 1982): The Queen of the Night and Sarastro as conceived by Achim Freyer Die Zauberflote (Hamburg, 1982): The Queen of the Night and Sarastro as conceived by Achim Freyer Die Zauberflote (Hamburg, 1982): The Queen of the Night and Sarastro as conceived by Achim Freyer Die Zauberflote (Hamburg, 1982): The Queen of the Night and Sarastro as conceived by Achim Freyer




The Magic Flute begins in the theatre's foyers, where strange-looking fantasy animals mingle with the crowd. A singer with pale make-up in a white sailor's suit and a backpack practices voice. Soon he will go on an adventurous expedition as Tamino. Three boys who are good spirits in the story are also stagehands in this production. Cheerful and friendly, they carry attributes of the bricklayer's trade: helmet, hammer, trowel and square. Freyer uses elements from comic strips, pop art and children's television.

The stage is narrow and appears very much like a children's theatre. Papageno and Papagena look like characters from Sesame Street. The Queen of the Night and Sarastro, symbols of the matriarchal and patriarchal systems, are huge, larger-than-life figures; both are somewhat threatening to the naive, child-like Tamino. When Sarastro sings the famous aria about his holy realm, a blue curtain at the rear of the stage opens to show the huge Sarastro figure sitting on his throne. His man-high fist-which can hide a dancer-moves onto the front stage to finally conceal the anxious Pamina, an ambiguous image of protection and patriarchal claim to power.

Giuseppe Verdi wrote Aida 114 years ago to celebrate the opening of the Suez canal. In the 1981 Frankfurt Opera production, director Hans Neuenfels, dramaturg Klaus Zehelein, musical director Michael Gielen and designer Erich Wonder turned Aida into a severe critique of colonialism. Wonder designed narrow, private rooms. There is no space for monumentality. Egypt is cited only ironically: The Pharaoh is already a mummy, Disneyland Egyptian statues roll onto the set, and A'da, after one of her arias, is locked into a museum display case and carried away. In his beautiful Art Deco study Radames leans over his desk dreaming about love and success as a military leader. Then he literally digs up a













Die Zauberflote: Freyer's designs for Papageno and Papagena Die Zauberflote: Freyer's designs for Papageno and Papagena Die Zauberflote: Freyer's designs for Papageno and Papagena Die Zauberflote: Freyer's designs for Papageno and Papagena Die Zauberflote: Freyer's designs for Papageno and Papagena



Verdi, Aida, Erich Wonder, Frankfurt Opera, 1981 Verdi, Aida, Erich Wonder, Frankfurt Opera, 1981 Verdi, Aida, Erich Wonder, Frankfurt Opera, 1981 Verdi, Aida, Erich Wonder, Frankfurt Opera, 1981 Verdi, Aida, Erich Wonder, Frankfurt Opera, 1981

Aida: Deadly gas seeps into Erich Wonder's final setting Aida: Deadly gas seeps into Erich Wonder's final setting Aida: Deadly gas seeps into Erich Wonder's final setting Aida: Deadly gas seeps into Erich Wonder's final setting Aida: Deadly gas seeps into Erich Wonder's final setting




Faust I (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Erich Wonder's expressionistic gauze curtains form the background throughout the production Faust I (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Erich Wonder's expressionistic gauze curtains form the background throughout the production Faust I (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Erich Wonder's expressionistic gauze curtains form the background throughout the production Faust I (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Erich Wonder's expressionistic gauze curtains form the background throughout the production Faust I (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Erich Wonder's expressionistic gauze curtains form the background throughout the production

golden sword and the bust of ATda from under the floor. The triumphal festivities are presented as a satire of bourgeois self-celebration, an interpretation the Frankfurt team claims to have found quite clearly expressed in Verdi's music. The designer built a three- story opera gallery. From its boxes, the chorus of victorious Egyptians in rich 19th-century costumes enjoys the spectacle in front of them-the subjugation of the "barbarians," which is presented like a circus act. In the final scene, scene 8, ATda and Radames die in what looks like the now-destroyed study from the beginning of the opera, or perhaps another storage room in a museum of Egyptian art. Deadly gas is let into the chamber through a hole in the wall. Amneris has gone mad.

Erich Wonder is currently one of the most productive designers in Germany. His work is always unpredictable and changing. Faust I for the Cologne Schauspielhaus, directed by Jurgen Flimm, seems in some respects like an homage to cinema. In some instances, he quotes Friederich Murnau's Faust film from 1926, in others, George Lucas' Star Wars and the science-fiction genre. (Wonder mentions that he learned a lot about lighting from Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver. He prefers light thrown not onto the stage but used as a part of the set.) Two special-effects experts were engaged for this production, supervising lighting and fire effects for the conflict between heaven and hell. Faust's study is situated somewhere on top of the world, an expressionistic landscape painted on colorful gauze curtains. Wonder painted a whole series of these light curtains. Sometimes placed one behind another, they create deep, mysterious spaces. A city with church towers and skyscrapers seems to be falling to pieces. Ghostly lit trees come down from the skies,












Auftrag (Bochum Schauspielhaus): The long glass cage enclosed a black panther and served as a walkway in Wonder's setting Auftrag (Bochum Schauspielhaus): The long glass cage enclosed a black panther and served as a walkway in Wonder's setting Auftrag (Bochum Schauspielhaus): The long glass cage enclosed a black panther and served as a walkway in Wonder's setting Auftrag (Bochum Schauspielhaus): The long glass cage enclosed a black panther and served as a walkway in Wonder's setting Auftrag (Bochum Schauspielhaus): The long glass cage enclosed a black panther and served as a walkway in Wonder's setting

the gauzes allowing a variety of lighting effects and fast scene changes. Wonder also designed massive three-dimensional blocks (symbolizing the narrowness and closeness of this world), turning them into different locations with the lighting. In this cold, hostile atmosphere everyone wears oversized coats and shawls (created by designer Benedikt Ramm).

Wonder's environments and images for Heiner Muller's Auftrag (Mission) are perhaps his most successful attempt at an autonomous artistic vision while working with a literary text. Non-verbal theatre never gained much ground in Germany and basically remains an import; the texts of Heiner Muller, however, come closest to merely scenic approaches to the stage. It is no coincidence that Muller collaborated very closely with Robert Wilson on the second part of the Civil Wars, which opened at the Cologne Schauspielhaus. Moller believes that the arts have become only a means of self-expression for artists. He claims that society cannot be influenced or changed through art and that the needs of author, director, actor and public are drifting farther and farther apart. This radical, pessimistic view is also an ambiguous plea for the stage designer's autonomy.

Mission is, like other recent MOller texts, a strange mixture of recital, liturgy, masque, dramatic poetry and scenic prose-an artificial fragment with little dialogue. The plot is simple and non-essential. It takes up MOller's favorite topics of violence, destruction, war and death. Three men (Debuisson, Galloudec, Sasportas) are commissioned by the French Revolution to stage a revolt in Jamaica. Napoleon takes over France, and their mission becomes meaningless. Two of the men try to carry it out anyway; the third betrays them and comes to an agreement with the new rulers.

Wonder's images are free associations and personal comments. They contrast with the text or even reduce it to background noise-speech as material, as MOller says. Still,




















they seem dramaturgically linked to it. The spectators in the Bochum Schauspielhaus, which has become the main theatre for Muller's plays in West Germany, look through a triangular curtain to the stage. A glass tube, which turns out to be a long cage, cuts through the auditorium. A black panther walks up and down this tube a few times, leaving its animal smell with the spectators. At the beginning of the play, it rains in the background of the rather dark stage. Toward the end, it snows and turns the gravel covering the floor into wet mud. The play's fiery element is also apparent. Some wooden panels are burned, one which carries a typical MOller statement: "The revolution is the mask of death; death is the mask of revolution."

In one scene, Danton and Robespierre appear to Debuisson, dressed like twins with the same blue-and-black make-up, linked by a cable, both with wooden boards around their necks that look like instruments of torture. They provoke each other with slogans of revolutionary terror.

In another scene, a contemporary clerk is walking slowly up the glass cage, describing a nightmare he had: Riding up in the elevator of his office building, upon opening the door, he found himself on the road of a Peruvian village. In the last image, a concert piano swings in the air at the rear of the stage. It is snowing. The three revolutionaries sit at the front, Debuisson explaining the futility of his colleagues' revolutionary efforts. Muller directed the play, which he thought was unstageable.

In his designs for Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, once again directed by JOrgen Flimm, at the Cologne Schauspielhaus in 1980, Wonder created a highly stylized environment, trying to emphasize the fourth dimension (time). Earlier, he had created spaces that

















Auftrag: Danton and Robespierre as designed by Erich Wonder Auftrag: Danton and Robespierre as designed by Erich Wonder Auftrag: Danton and Robespierre as designed by Erich Wonder Auftrag: Danton and Robespierre as designed by Erich Wonder Auftrag: Danton and Robespierre as designed by Erich Wonder




Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Shauspielhaus, 1983 Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Shauspielhaus, 1983 Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Shauspielhaus, 1983 Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Shauspielhaus, 1983 Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Shauspielhaus, 1983

changed during performance; this time the change was continuous and irresistible. There was no indication of Russia. Wonder built a room in dark red and brown: a long bench parallel to the front of the stage, a table toward the front of the stage with a few chairs, and a sofa on the right, perpendicular to the front of the stage. Behind the back wall, another deep space with another bench slowly opens up. This back wall moves very slowly-three centimeters per second-allowing changing views of the empty back room. In Act II, the painted perspective of a rough sea is visible behind the wall, and a narrow slit of light moves slowly from right to left. In Act III, the opening passes the middle of the stage, widening the space even more.

Rolf Glittenberg is house designer at the Cologne Schauspielhaus. His wife, Marianne, designs most of the costumes. Although he is not particularly innovative in stage design, his wide, rather empty spaces'have been admired in recent years. For Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, which opened in December 1983, he created a simple setting: three towering wooden walls in a gentle light-pink color, with pink beams or ties on the floor parallel to the front of the stage. There is no glimpse of the outside world. There is no outside world; this is a space to exhibit people, in which nothing detracts from them. Ulrich Schreiber described the play in his critique (in the Frankfurter Rundschau) as a compulsive neurotic ritual, everyone playing their private games, at a time when communication has long broken down. The stylized empty stage seems like a cage for the characters, who have lost all contact with reality, locked up far away from cherry orchards and human society. There are a few scenic changes. The back wall opens a little to let in a stream of light. In Act II, a small captive balloon slowly flies to the sky-illusions and hopes dissolve. Three high doors open in the left wall only for the ball scene. The dancers, in black and white, perform their dance of death strictly along the ties. There is no breaking out. At the end, the estate's former owner sits alone by the left wall; her brother, Gaev, is across the stage at the right. They appear to be two lost people in a world where contact is no longer possible-neither with the surrounding world nor to each other.

For Witold Gombrowicz's Yvonne, the Princess of Burgundy, written in 1935 in the















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Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy (Cologne Schauspielhaus): Glittenberg's cold, elegant space for this production is typical of his designs

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Polish absurd and surreal tradition, Glittenberg designed another somewhat cold, elegant space. Yvonne is a parable about a society trying to keep up its hypocritical facade with great difficulty. The heroine, a sort of catalyst, unmasks the stiffness and brutality of this bourgeoisie. The walls of Glittenberg's palace are grey, cold and sterile. There is nothing to hold on to, no sense of home. Yet surreal associations are made: Behind the soundproof windows at the back of the room, there is a corridor; behind that, another glass corridor, and behind that one, still another.

In the mid-'70s, Bertolt Brecht was declared "dead" in West Germany by many critics and theatre people. Today, he seems to have returned to a rather dubious life, attracting audiences once again. Glittenberg's set for Brecht's first play, Baal, directed by Jurgen Flimm in Cologne (1981), was one of the first attempts to take Brecht seriously in recent years. Jurgen Flimm identifies Baal with the young Bertolt Brecht. Glittenberg builds a wide, very low and shallow stage, with walls of red cloth webs. With a few chairs and a mattress, the space can be turned from Baal's attic into a hall, a pub or a nightclub. On the right is a huge stage-high reel or drum for electrical cable, a mysterious, threatening theatrical sign. Even before the play begins, the bourgeoisie sit in the first row of the auditorium, ready to climb onto the set for the first scene. When Baal retreats to the woods, he leaves through the auditorium. When the back of the stage opens, it shows a












run-down, tiled, once-noble stairway, with mirrors on the walls, and a railing in the middle. Baal has become a city clochard, a bum. The stairs lead down to his pitiable end in some sort of noble pissoir.

In an opinion poll of 34 critics in the 1983 yearbook of Theater Heute, two stage sets by Axel Manthey, both designed for director JOrgen Gosch at the Cologne Schauspielhaus, met with the most approval. They were created for Moliere's Le Misanthrope and Shake- speare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Manthey, born in 1945, studied painting at the Art Academy in Berlin. After working for a few years as a stage designer in Tubingen and Stuttgart, he has been, since 1976, a freelance designer for theatre, ballet and, lately, opera. He seems to be returning to a tradition of abstract stage symbolism. Looking at his set for Georg BOchner's Woyzeck for the Cologne stage in 1982, his background as a painter is apparent. Associations with American pop art, abstraction, constructivism and the paintings of the so-called "Neuen Wilden," today's expressionism, are evident. Typical of his work are high, slanted walls, simple contours and clear, signal-like colors.

Manthey's stage and costume designs for A Midsummer Night's Dream are a clear example of his efforts to reduce stage design to the essential. The court of Athens, set diagonally at the front of the stage, is a high, long white wall with the black silhouette of a window and crescent. The forest is like half of a huge black tube, hardly distinguishable on the dark stage; the shining crescent is in its center, and a street leads up to it from the ground. There is no indication of romanticism, not even in the fairies' world. Oberon and Titania wear green garments, where black, grey and white are the primary colors. Their crowns are made of paper. Their wings, like those of the rather elderly fairies and the portly Puck, are made of cheap black velvet.

For Le Misanthrope, Manthey built a huge semi-circular stairway representing Celimens's salon. Entrances and exits are made from the orchestra pit, unseen. The curtain is closed only for two scenes, when the bottom steps are used like a platform. The stairway idea is not new, but this one proves most useful for Moliere's comedy. It is a symbol of social hierarchies, of people trying to climb the social ladder or to bridge the distance to other people. It is, of course, a highly theatrical space: Physical contact is constantly in jeopardy; the characters are always in danger of stumbling and falling - both physically and emotionally. The set's simplicity allows for very careful choreography.

















Brecht, Baal, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Schauspielhaus, 1981 Brecht, Baal, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Schauspielhaus, 1981 Brecht, Baal, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Schauspielhaus, 1981 Brecht, Baal, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Schauspielhaus, 1981 Brecht, Baal, Rolf Glittenberg, Cologne Schauspielhaus, 1981



Woyzeck (Cologne, 1982): Axel Manthey's background as a painter is apparent in this production Woyzeck (Cologne, 1982): Axel Manthey's background as a painter is apparent in this production Woyzeck (Cologne, 1982): Axel Manthey's background as a painter is apparent in this production Woyzeck (Cologne, 1982): Axel Manthey's background as a painter is apparent in this production Woyzeck (Cologne, 1982): Axel Manthey's background as a painter is apparent in this production

Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Axel Manthey, Cologne, 1983








Le Misanthrope (Cologne, 1983): Manthey employs a huge semi-circular stairway to represent Celimens's salon Le Misanthrope (Cologne, 1983): Manthey employs a huge semi-circular stairway to represent Celimens's salon Le Misanthrope (Cologne, 1983): Manthey employs a huge semi-circular stairway to represent Celimens's salon Le Misanthrope (Cologne, 1983): Manthey employs a huge semi-circular stairway to represent Celimens's salon Le Misanthrope (Cologne, 1983): Manthey employs a huge semi-circular stairway to represent Celimens's salon

In November 1982, Manthey designed Parsifal for the Frankfurt Opera. Ruth Berghaus directed, Michael Gielen was the musical director, and Klaus Zehelein was the dramaturg. This Parsifal was widely acclaimed by critics, and the designer's work was particularly praised. Manthey created his heightened expressionistic abstractions once again, evoking images full of uneasiness and insecurity. The world of the knights of the Grail is dark and brutal, their space gloomy and narrow. Bald-headed, wearing black coats and carrying suitcases, the knights appear as an unsympathetic, merciless community ready to leave the suffering Amfortas. Their temple, with slanted walls and low dark ceiling, resembles a grave.

The flower maidens' garden becomes the only bright, open space in this interpretation, an antidote to the knights' darkness. Here the narrow space opens. Yellow is the signal color. Manthey's huge, rectangular, painted-metal backdrop seems to hang halfway in the air, serving as both wall and carpet. The revolving stage turns 180 degrees to reveal a more threatening side of Klingsor's domain. Klingsor and Parsifal are on a triangular platform tilted in space--a tense, unsettling image. At the end, Parsifal stands in the middle of a neon ring (the Grail), dressed in bright-red leather clothing with a spear in one hand. In the other hand, a white dove flaps its wings nervously.

In 1981 Hans Neuenfels staged Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea at the Schiller Theater in Berlin, a production somewhat typical of his particular directing and design approach. Neuenfels, with Anne Viebrock, was responsible for the scenography. Viebrock also designed the costumes. Penthesilea tells of an episode during the Trojan War-the duel between the Scythian Amazon leader Penthesilea and the Greek military leader Achilles. Kleist took the inspiration for his tragedy from Greek mythology but changed it radically: Penthesilea and Achilles enter into a fatal love duel, at the end of which the















Wagner's Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera, 1982): Manthey evoked a dark and gloomy world for the knights of the Grail Wagner's Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera, 1982): Manthey evoked a dark and gloomy world for the knights of the Grail Wagner's Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera, 1982): Manthey evoked a dark and gloomy world for the knights of the Grail Wagner's Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera, 1982): Manthey evoked a dark and gloomy world for the knights of the Grail Wagner's Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera, 1982): Manthey evoked a dark and gloomy world for the knights of the Grail

Parsifal: The flower maidens' garden is the only time Manthey uses bright colors and open spaces in the production Parsifal: The flower maidens' garden is the only time Manthey uses bright colors and open spaces in the production Parsifal: The flower maidens' garden is the only time Manthey uses bright colors and open spaces in the production Parsifal: The flower maidens' garden is the only time Manthey uses bright colors and open spaces in the production Parsifal: The flower maidens' garden is the only time Manthey uses bright colors and open spaces in the production



Parsifal: Manthey's unsettling use of a triangular tilted platform indicates a threatening aspect of Klingsor's domain Parsifal: Manthey's unsettling use of a triangular tilted platform indicates a threatening aspect of Klingsor's domain Parsifal: Manthey's unsettling use of a triangular tilted platform indicates a threatening aspect of Klingsor's domain Parsifal: Manthey's unsettling use of a triangular tilted platform indicates a threatening aspect of Klingsor's domain Parsifal: Manthey's unsettling use of a triangular tilted platform indicates a threatening aspect of Klingsor's domain

Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, staged and designed by Hans Neuenfels at the Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1981 Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, staged and designed by Hans Neuenfels at the Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1981 Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, staged and designed by Hans Neuenfels at the Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1981 Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, staged and designed by Hans Neuenfels at the Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1981 Heinrich von Kleist's Penthesilea, staged and designed by Hans Neuenfels at the Schiller Theater, Berlin, 1981




Hamlet, designed by Klaus Michael Gruber, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1983 Hamlet, designed by Klaus Michael Gruber, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1983 Hamlet, designed by Klaus Michael Gruber, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1983 Hamlet, designed by Klaus Michael Gruber, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1983 Hamlet, designed by Klaus Michael Gruber, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1983

Hamlet: The semi-circular platform is raised, adding barricades to Gruber's design Hamlet: The semi-circular platform is raised, adding barricades to Gruber's design Hamlet: The semi-circular platform is raised, adding barricades to Gruber's design Hamlet: The semi-circular platform is raised, adding barricades to Gruber's design Hamlet: The semi-circular platform is raised, adding barricades to Gruber's design




Greek is torn to pieces by the Amazon and her dogs. Neuenfels sees this strange play as another of Kleist's personal, individual dreams about his own time. The director/designer evokes in scenography, furniture and costumes three historical epochs: Kleist's Prussia at the beginning of the 19th century; mythical Greece; and contemporary Germany. Indoors and out are represented in one space. The huge oak tree seems like a romantic symbol from a Caspar David Friedrich painting and a slightly ironic comment on the Amazon war camp.

In 1979, Wolf Vostell provided a media concept, stage set and costumes for Hansg0nther Heyme's staging of Hamlet at the Cologne theatre. In his first work for the stage, Vostell-- a prominent member of the fluxus movement, painter, sculptor, Happening and environmental artist from Berlin - confronted the Shakespearean text with a wealth of images and noises, often enigmatic and crude. Most of the play is staged on the forestage in front of a bleak, iron safety curtain lowered almost to the ground that carries 18 video monitors. On the left, the stuffed carcass of a horse hangs by its hind legs, red liquid dripping from its mouth into a beautiful chalice. A mobile video camera on a tripod is used by some of the characters; these images and prefabricated ones can be seen on the monitors. Everyone handles some sort of electronic equipment. The ghost is an old woman with a flashlight and a circle of aerials on her back. Polonius is killed by an electric shock. The gravedigger uses a pneumatic drill, and Ophelia gives away not flowers but little radios, Walkmans and calculators.

In this world of total audio-visual communication and surveillance, Hamlet is reduced to a poor schizophrenic wretch, hardly capable of speech and contact. Most of his lines are spoken by the director, who sits at a table with a microphone in the middle of the auditorium. For the final scene, the iron curtain is finally raised to show 60 monitors on little tables screening the day's news on the dark deep stage. A female Fortinbras in a glittering motorcycle suit and helmet steps into the beam of a powerful floodlight directed at the audience. There is no duel scene. The dead lie as in a morgue, on wheeled metal tables. Bleeding animal entrails are heaped on their bodies. For both Vostell and Heyme, contemporary Germany is the rotten state; the new age announced at the end will be an even darker one.

At the Berlin Schaubuhne last year, Klaus Michael GrOber created a completely different experience with Hamlet. Provocation, chaos and vitality had been replaced by elegance and beauty, calm and order. Productions at the Berlin Schaubuhne have always shown, beside the attention given to scenography itself, an intense concern with the stage- spectator relationship. Spectators could be placed inside the scenic arrangements; open spaces could alternate with proscenium stages. Now that the Schaubuhne has moved to Lehniner Platz, a new space can be created for each production. The building's floor consists of 76 moveable platforms that can be raised and lowered three meters, allowing almost every theatrical space imaginable. Two revolving soundproof metal curtains can transform the long empty space into three different theatres, one being the concrete apse of the building.

The space for this Hamlet is the whole naked concrete apse of the theatre's new home: nine meters high, 21 meters wide and 17 meters deep. On the floor, the French painter and stage designer Gilles Aillaud painted a Renaissance ornament based on Holbein's painting The Two Ambassadors (1533) that hangs in the National Gallery in London. Looking at the painting from the far right, what appears to be a shadow when seen from the front turns out to be a highly distorted skull. In front of this design is a narrow forestage (used for Hamlet's meeting with the ghost and the gravediggers' scene). The only props are a mirror next to the left entrance, Polonius' house, chairs and a row
























of torches for the "mousetrap," and the fencing table. Aillaud's only additions to the space are a few blue lightbulbs-stars-in the ceiling.

The stage is continually rather dark. Aisles of light cut through the darkness, connecting the doorways at the right and left. Squares of light are created at the middle doorway in the back for royal entrances or at the left doorway for scenes in Polonius' household. The actors, in their rich Renaissance costumes (left over from the 1976 Shakespeare's Memory production), stay carefully within the lit areas of this Danish "prison"; if they have to go through the darkness, they maintain contact with the concrete wall.

The few stage alterations happen slowly. In the apse, the forms of the elevator segments curve, following the wall. For the first court scene, and for the "mousetrap," the middle semi-circular platform is raised slightly. For the scene at sea where Hamlet meets Fortinbras' army, the full semi-circle along the apse wall is raised. The sound of the scissor-like supports lifting the platforms underlines the warlike music; lit from below, the supports look like barricades. The huge rolling metal curtain that divides two possible performing spaces is lowered twice: first, while the slowly moving ghost in his bright shining armor walks to the middle of the forestage for his conversation with Hamlet, and then again at the end of the production.

In December 1983, there were four productions running at the Schaubuhne. For Cami, a selection of sketches by the French writer of that name, Karl-Ernst Herrmann created a cafe atmosphere. The audience sits at little round coffee tables, each provided with a bottle of red wine (the type the author supposedly liked best). All four walls raise to show different stages and allow quick scene changes. The last sketch is played on four sides around the audience with all the walls raised.

For Jean Genet's The Blacks, the spectators pass first through the backstage and, for a while, watch the actors putting on their make-up. Then they pass through a red





















Karl-Ernst Herrmann's design for Aeschylus' Oresteia, part of the Antikenprojekt II, produced at Berlin's Schaubuhne, 1980 Karl-Ernst Herrmann's design for Aeschylus' Oresteia, part of the Antikenprojekt II, produced at Berlin's Schaubuhne, 1980 Karl-Ernst Herrmann's design for Aeschylus' Oresteia, part of the Antikenprojekt II, produced at Berlin's Schaubuhne, 1980 Karl-Ernst Herrmann's design for Aeschylus' Oresteia, part of the Antikenprojekt II, produced at Berlin's Schaubuhne, 1980 Karl-Ernst Herrmann's design for Aeschylus' Oresteia, part of the Antikenprojekt II, produced at Berlin's Schaubuhne, 1980



Oresteia: Herrmann's back wall opens to reveal the Areopague Oresteia: Herrmann's back wall opens to reveal the Areopague Oresteia: Herrmann's back wall opens to reveal the Areopague Oresteia: Herrmann's back wall opens to reveal the Areopague Oresteia: Herrmann's back wall opens to reveal the Areopague

velvet curtain to their seats, eight or nine rows of benches around the building's concrete apse. The black stage for this multi-levelled play is pushed into the semi-circle.

For Meredith Monk's and Ping Chong's The Games, a production they produced with Schaubuhne actors, there are no seats. The audience sits on low steps while they watch The Games performed in the deep apse.

So far, the Antikenprojekt II- Aeschylus' Oresteia- which opened in 1980, has been the most extensive Schaubuhne enterprise. The preparation and rehearsal time was nearly a year, and the theatre evening turned into an entire theatre day-similar to that of Aeschylus' time, when theatre performances lasted from morning to sunset. This performance lasted nine-and-a-half hours, including two one-hour breaks. The director, Peter Stein, and his designer, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, tried to find a balance between reviving antique performance traditions and modernizing the mythical-historical events. Herrmann's space is nearly empty. The seats have been removed. Four-hundred spectators sit on a grey carpet on low steps that suggest a Greek theatre arena. In front of them, five steps lead up to a rarely used narrow forestage in front of the palace of Argos, a simple black wall. Only twice, at the end of part I and of part II, the door in it opens fully and a cart-the ekkyklema of Greek tragedy- rolls over the edge of the forestage. First it exhibits the slain Agamemnon and Cassandra, then Clytemnestra and Aegisthos, the murderers who stand over them steeped in blood. This stage car, an escalator for Apollo, and Athene's entrance by means of a cable and winch from the rear of the auditorium are Herrmann's interpretation of Greek theatre machinery.

For most of the long day, the play is carried into the auditorium. Both actors and spectators are in darkness. The chorus of old men searches its way through the dark auditorium, telling their history of the mythical past to both themselves and the listeners. The meeting of Electra and Orestes takes place in the middle of the audience. The herald describes the sacking of Troy to both the chorus and the audience. At the end, the acquitted




















Orestes walks through the audience shaking hands with the spectators, thanking the people of Athens for their judgement and vowing friendship. In part III, a white wall represents the temple in Delphi. At the end of the evening, the wall is opened to present the Areopague. Only here does the environment become brighter. The final image is a theatrical tableau. The goddesses of wrath have been "tamed," and sit wrapped in purple cloth in narrow niches in front of the stage. Behind them, the jury continues its judiciary process.

Karl-Ernst Herrmann's stage sets have had a wide influence on designers all over Germany and are responsible to a great extent for the visual emphasis of German theatre. He creates spaces that seem familiar and utterly convincing as living spaces for their characters. His poetic realism often carries a utopian element; his use of natural materials, earth or trees, and his quotations of nature (either physically or on beautifully painted backdrops) allow associations of counter-worlds to the plays' darker ones. An example of Herrmann's realistic illusionism is his set for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy. The play is about theatrical reality and the reality of the theatre. Herrmann designed a huge theatre cart, a stage-on-a-stage, that is a hyper-realistic room in an Italian palazzo. There is a door in the back, a desk, a covered sofa and an iron stove. Light falls through a high window on the left. The faded frescoes on the walls show a Manneristic park landscape: high trees, a painted marble stairway, fragments of architecture, the statue of a fountain. The whole environment is a symbol of lost grandeur. The neon light and electric fan emphasize the sense of melancholy that accompany reminiscing.

For Luc Bondy's production of Botho Strauss' Kalldewey Farce in 1982, Herrmann built a proscenium arch with a golden frame and.red velvet curtains, and an orchestra pit













Herrmann's stage-on-a-stage for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy Herrmann's stage-on-a-stage for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy Herrmann's stage-on-a-stage for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy Herrmann's stage-on-a-stage for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy Herrmann's stage-on-a-stage for Eduardo De Filippo's The Art of Comedy




Strauss, Kalldewey Farce, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1982 Strauss, Kalldewey Farce, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1982 Strauss, Kalldewey Farce, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1982 Strauss, Kalldewey Farce, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1982 Strauss, Kalldewey Farce, Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Berlin, Schaubuhne, 1982

Kalidewey Farce Kalidewey Farce Kalidewey Farce Kalidewey Farce Kalidewey Farce




Kalidewey Farce: The corridor has deepened to a narrow window in Herrmann's third setting for the production Kalidewey Farce: The corridor has deepened to a narrow window in Herrmann's third setting for the production Kalidewey Farce: The corridor has deepened to a narrow window in Herrmann's third setting for the production Kalidewey Farce: The corridor has deepened to a narrow window in Herrmann's third setting for the production Kalidewey Farce: The corridor has deepened to a narrow window in Herrmann's third setting for the production

with music stands into the new Schaubuhne. The play is a German tragicomedy, on the borderline between banality and tragedy, about modern intellectual people. It is a modern version of the Orpheus myth and an essay on life as therapy.

The play starts with a couple from the orchestra gently saying farewell to each other in front of the red curtain. When the couple and the orchestra disappear into the ground, the curtain opens. The female musician we have just seen seeks help with her marital crisis from two lesbians in a bar. They follow her into her apartment, kill the man and put him into the washing machine.

In Act II, the four of them-the man is alive again-try some sort of group therapy to get rid of their aggressions and celebrate the woman's birthday. A fifth person, Kalldewey, listens to them, disappearing mysteriously from under the table when the four try to find out his identity. A door that had been locked opens again. An interlude follows. The couple, considerably aged, meet on an iceberg that has come up from the orchestra, again in front of the red curtain. They lift the curtain to look into their past. In Act III, the four find themselves in the care of an invisible psychiatrist. They play at group therapy, television shows, etc. At the end, the two lesbians separate. The man and woman find themselves once again at the front of the stage, this time sitting farther apart than at the beginning.

For the Hamburg premiere of Kalldewey Farce, Erich Wonder designed a unitary stage environment; Herrmann provided three different sets for the Schaubuhne production. All three have white sterile walls, narrow in perspective toward the rear, and the floor is



















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tilted toward the audience. They are all rather inhospitable and cold, underlining the emotional imbalance of the characters they exhibit. The diagonal space in Act I shows a cafe in the narrow left corner; in the deep right, the couples' living area. For Act II, Herrmann designs an attic that is less distorted than the two other spaces, indicating temporary calm. In the last set, the corridor becomes much deeper, narrowing toward an open window at the back showing the facade of another high building. This final environment includes the auditorium. The red curtains that covered the auditorium walls earlier have been removed. The white and red hospital walls and the neon light on the ceiling continue around and above the spectators.

Martin Graue is a writer living in West Berlin.

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