For a quarter of a century, from 1992 to 2017, the theatre work of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin, led by Frank Castorf, changed not only the Berlin’s but also the German and European theatre in a way, as it was seen never before.
Together with theatre makers like Christoph Marthaler, Johann Kresnik, Christoph Schlingensief and others, Castorf’s practical experiments have raised fundamental questions about the future of the theatre as a highly complex, multifaceted cultural production engaged in doing creative, transformative theatre art as well as in critical socio-political communication.
The productivity of the Volksbühne was evident in the fact that all these questions had been asked in numberless stagings and projects as well as in a wide programme of public discourses held in the theatre itself.
Paradoxically, or it might look like a dialectical leap, these theatrical experiments aiming at strategically changing the (former) sort of “conventional” theatre worked in a way well along the line or even within the practices of the traditional European Municipal theatre structure, directly using (incorporating creatively) many of its aspects, techniques etc.
Rather being an alternative to the traditional theatre, the experiments were more about “absorbing”/“accepting” and thereby overcoming it. Aesthetic innovations are equally important alongside new communication strategies and organizational structural transgressions. The consequences of these theatre strategies for the conceptual understanding of directing and the practical dimensions of staging work should be discussed in the lecture/speech.
Erhard Ertel was born in 1950 in East Germany. He graduated in Theatre Studies from Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany) in 1976 and in 1981 he defended a doctoral thesis on problems of semiotics of the performing arts. He taught Theatre Studies first at Humboldt University (1977–1999) and subsequently at Freie Universität Berlin (1999–2016), while collaborating with the University of Vienna (Austria) as a guest lecturer (1992–2014).
Erhard’s research interests include general theory of theatre / theatricality / performing arts, interrelations between theatre and audio-visual media, theatricality of sports and music, and theoretical and practical studies of audio-visual theatre documentation.
Over the years 1992–2017 he was involved with Frank Castorf’s Volksbühne in relation to conceptual, dramaturgical and audio-visual issues, making over 300 recordings of this scene’s performances.
People put themselves at risk here.
This is self-endangerment.
Here, it means do or die.
(Alexander Scheer, actor)
For a quarter of a century (namely from 1992 to 2017) lasting work of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin under the direction of Frank Castorf has had an impact on theatre in Berlin, Germany and Europe like no other theatre has had before.
Together with creative theatre people such as Christoph Marthaler, Johann Kresnik, Christoph Schlingensief and others, Castorf has carried out practical experiments which proposed questions about the future of theatre both as an aesthetic medium and as a socio-political communication space. It is paradox or rather dialectic that these theatrical experiments, aimed at strategic changes in theatre, did not take place in any kind of alternative public sphere, but rather within the traditional structures of European public theatre itself.
Did these theatre strategies have consequences for the conceptual understanding of directing and the practical dimensions of the staging process?
Curt Bernd Sucher opens his portrait of Castorf with the following statement: “There are only few directors who have developed such a distinctive style as Frank Castorf has. (...) If one could find a superlative of the adjective radical, Frank Castorf would have to be called the most radical director of the late 20th and 21st centuries” (Sucher 2018: 26).
The 20th century is generally regarded as the century of Regietheater, of directorial theatre, so what makes Castorf’s directorial work so radical? One thing needs to be clear from the beginning: What is to be described and analysed when we look at the term directorial work, is not theatre-directing, but theatre-work. What might look like a play on words seems to me to refer to the core of Frank Castorf’s theatre aesthetics.
The same applies for what is commonly referred to as “individual style”, which does not actually refer to a formal criterion, nor does it describe an aesthetic design principle. Rather than to an individual style, a kind of idiosyncratic aesthetic, one should discuss a certain kind of Eigen-Sinn (I use the term “Eigensinn” as it has been developed in: NEGT, Oskar – KLUGE, Alexander. Geschichte und Eigensinn. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Zweitausendeins, 1987), a certain kind of obstinacy of the theatrical work, a very specific capability for making sense of and for theatre work and theatrical communication.
This means: What is to be negotiated is not a style of staging, nor a method of directing, etc., but rather a way of social production and thus an aesthetic incision – possibly of theatre historical explosiveness.
However, the next decades will show if the Volksbühne makes history or if it becomes an episode from the past.
2.
Obviously, the success of the Volksbühne is essentially linked to the directors and actors who have worked there, but it would not have been possible without the whole of the other people working in different departments of the Volksbühne. It is the peculiarity of directors like Frank Castorf, Christoph Schlingensief, Christoph Marthaler or Johann Kresnik as well as of actors such as Henry Hübchen, Silvia Rieger, Kathrin Angerer, Hendrik Arnst, Sophie Rois, Corinna Harfouch, Bernhard Schütz, Herbert Fritsch, Birgit Minichmayr, Alexander Scheer and others what is responsible for the idiosyncrasy of the productions of the Volksbühne and their success. On the one hand, this idiosyncrasy is not to be separated from the individuals involved in the production process. On the other, it is not reproducable and not commensurable. An analysis of the specific way of working at the Volksbühne may help to understand the recent history of the Volksbühne and can stimulate further thinking.
This way of working is not commensurable; this means that the specific actor experience cannot be transferred into a canon of training. Thus, it is hardly surprising that in many interviews with Frank Castorf or his actors it is pointed out that breaking with traditional craftsmanship and acting attitude has been part of their theatre work from the beginning. Silvia Rieger refers to this aspect of disposal of conventions as a means of Making-Oneself-Free: “This kind of theatre making asked for a different way of acting than the usual […]. It developed out of the necessity of the situation and out of scorn towards anything conventional” (Raddatz 2016: 103). It seems important to add that it also resulted from the demands of the aesthetic philosophy of Castorf, later also of Marthaler, Schlingensief and others. Thus, the aforementioned Making-Oneself-Free also means a departure from a view of spectacles and performances which, intentionally or unintentionally, assumes a service character from them – which has not been overcome since Hegel’s blatant formulations.
Sophie Rois paradigmatically recognizes and practices this denial of serving, and the associated unleashing of productivity: “…Castorf takes no interest in disciplining an unruly actor” (Raddatz 2016: 127). The shift of the centre of productivity from the head of the director to the real work processes of the actors during rehearsals and performances is acknowledged and accepted by the actors. This becomes appearant, again, in a statement by Sophie Rois: “When working with Castorf, when the cast is set – the staging is basically prefigurated. He doesn’t come up with something at home, then comes to the theatre and gets the actor to do what he imagines. (...) There is not a certain expectation that the actor should do something specific, but his talent is to bring out the actors’ personalities in their own way and the different people who are on stage” (Raddatz 2016: 130–131). Also younger actresses such as Lilith Stangenberg share this experience: “Frank always observes very closely what a person radiates, how his or her voice sounds, and what characterizes and constitutes the individual, and from there he develops the scene. This actually means that no one can be replaced. (…) In theatre I am primarily interested in the individual person. (...) Their peculiarity is the most touching. But the acting schools train exactly that away. Everything that is special is polished...” (Raddatz 2016: 181–183).
Difference, however, considered as uniqueness, is what explains the enormous acceptance of the actor: “What is humanistic about the Volksbühne is that difference is really appreciated. There is a general acceptance and nobody tells you to behave differently or to be different from how you are. (...) The difference among each other is desired and is not only allowed, but appreciated” (Raddatz 2016: 206). In his theses-like way of talking, René Pollesch puts it like this: “Representation is the enemy. Also as a spectator position” (Raddatz 2016: 298).
Frank Castorf even extends the dismissal of theatre as service and introduces a culture of failure: “There are no mistakes in art. One has to want to make mistakes, in order to reach something extraordinary. If you get rid of your fear, one can get to something that is within and which has been buried by dressage. In any way, dressage, which claims this or that would be modern – this is what is the most horrible. All of that are just surfaces of style, which are not of any modernity, but just happen to be in fashion. That’s the difference between style and method. Brecht was always concerned with method, a way of working” (Castorf 2017: 23).
3.
In the practise of Castorf, a specific way of working understood as the extension of method into a collective practice is the ground for a comprehensive production philosophy that understands theatre less as a means of art than as an actual space for free productivity. This self-conception is constituted by a deeper relationship to society than traditional art scholarship can establish for the mimetic relations of aesthetic manifestations, so-called works of art. When Silvia Rieger states that “theatre is the only space of freedom, where you can take the time to articulate, to actually work on something, to negotiate”, then the so-called purposelessness of art is transcended into the realm of an actual higher purpose: the confrontation with and the transformation of society. Not only Frank Castorf’s production philosophy but also the concept of the Volksbühne in more general terms is committed to this mission. In this context everyone is working TOGETHER, both in individual productions as well as within the framework of the overall concept and all productions of the house. Contrary to ideas of collective work, as known from Autorentheater – authors’ theatre –, independent groups, etc., as a supposed expression of democracy, the kind of COOPERATION, which I am describing here, is not to be understood as cooperation in the simple sense, but as an independent form of COOPERATIVE-WORKING. This independent Cooperative-Working is characterised by a certain “self-contradiction”, as the dramaturge and in-house philosopher of many years Carl Hegemann put it, and by a common core: the responsibility that everyone assumes. “From there it was a paradox experimental arrangement: a strictly hierarchical organisation with a Stalin on top, but at the same time, a place where everyone does what he or she wants without any fear. Even more: It was expected that everyone did what he or she wanted while at the same time everyone took responsibility for it” (Castorf 2017: 223). This requires everyone to intensively engage in the production process far beyond the application of craftsmanship and a specialisation based on the division of labour, but above all through a consciousness formed by interest, commitment and responsibility. In this context it is interesting that traditional terminologies are abandoned. Usually, directorial work in the conventional sense can be relativized in the free use of other terms, which may be theatre-related – such as choreography or more general staging – terms that are used associatively – such as game master, moderator, arranger, lead dancer – or which are borrowed from other cultural practices and their work forms, for example sports, in which the so-called director like a coach trains, motivates and cheers for his actors, etc. For the context of the Volksbühne it was crucial to create something, which is hardly translatable and what Marthaler calls “der Abend”, a night, a social event, which is condensed to an experience in the communication of the participants. The horizon of experience in this regard should always be open, free of concepts determined by others, independent of binding interpretations, should not be comparable with or bare the character of any sort of service action. Christoph Marthaler calls this specific approach characteristic for the modernity and experimentality of the Volksbühne. It is an approach, which “other theatres would have abandoned immediately. At Volksbühne, all the departments worked together. It was never classified: This is theatre, this is music theatre and this is dance. At any time it was clear, that all of it belonged together. We created ‘Pariser Leben’ – a production which was only possible here – with the Klangforum Wien, with the dancers of Johann Kresnik, with singers, with actors from the Ensemble” (Castorf 2017: 174). But this was more than a trans-divisional work, but rather an expression of the aforedefined cooperation based on interest, engagement and responsibility.
Examples of this can be found throughout the entire staging history and working method of the Volksbühne. Already at an early stage, Johann Kresnik’s dance ensemble was involved in Castorf’s productions, and Castorf’s actors were involved in Kresnik choreographies. The composition of the cast in Christoph Schlingensief’s productions was always unrestricted. He worked with actors, dancers, amateurs, experts from various fields of knowledge and work, handicapped people, and also with himself as an actor on stage. In Marthaler’s productions, famous actors acted next to members of the homeless theatre ensemble Ratten 07, Castorf involved employees of other departments in his productions – people of the administration for instance – in projects such as Brecht’s Decision, where they performed the choir of the Volksbühne.
The greatest possible autonomy prevailed in the productions regarding the cooperation with the classical co-producers. Their work was integrated into the staging as an individual level of the production, which in a certain way nourished a multiplication on the level of the direction.
Autonomy and correspondence guided the collective action in the productions. Employees of the sound department were regarded as far more than highly qualified sound engineers, often they acted as music and sound producers, and actively intervened in rehearsals as well as in performances on stage – with musical or other acoustic commentaries, with musical-rhythmical guidance, etc.
An extreme expansion of the directing level has resulted above all from the excessive integration of audiovisual media (cameras, monitors, screens) into the staging work. First such experiments date back to the 1980s; they reached points of culmination with productions such as Bulgakow’s Master and Margarita (2002) or Dostojewski’s Idiot (2002) and have been further developed throughout the whole Dostojewski-series and other productions. The autonomy of the camera and sound staff as well as of the video live editors is as great that an interaction with the actors is necessary here as well as on the directorial level. Thus, an intervention in the classical sense into the production of actions and images by the director Castorf is no longer possible. Autonomy and obstinacy have become the status-quo of production.
Obstinacy, understood as an independent search for meaning and giving meaning, and the aesthetic idiosyncrasy of the Volksbühne productions, paradigmatically seen in Castorf’s work, basically result from two reference levels: on the one hand the reference to politics and history, on the other to the personal biographies of all those taking part in the production. This matrix of history and biography also corresponds to the model of historiography developed by Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt. In German language this is already communicated in the ambiguity of the word “Geschichte”, which can mean story and history according to context. The “bigger” and “smaller” narratives behind it make this clear. Castorf’s theatre could therefore also be described as a historical-materialistic discourse theatre, equally fed by an abstracting understanding of history as well as by an individual biographical life experience; both in the most diverse materialised forms. From the handling of this material from general, cultural and art history, media history, everyday observation, biographical experience, etc., the typical theatre of Castorf is created. Carl Hegemann summarises this kind of work flow: “Castorf really is the best intellectual dramaturge of all directors” (Castorf 2017: 218). Hegemann continues: “Castorf possesses a historical consciousness as hardly anyone today (and is) at home in factual world history like hardly anyone else” (Castorf 2017: 220). This knowledge together with the ability to gain new insights into the (historical) transmission of the world by posing surprising questions and detecting unexpected connections also determine his directorial work. It is not the elaboration of scenic solutions (down to the smallest detail), possibly also through practically demonstrating himself, that determines the rehearsal work, but the elaboration of a scenic material texture, the dramaturgical validity and conviction of which is created mainly through long and loud thinking. The rehearsals are often characterised by demanding intellectual speech performances, the aim of which is to reach understanding by the actors. This way of working is shared by the actors and actresses of the Volksbühne and is seen as a great impulse, partly also as a specific feature of theatre work developed before the background of an East German experience in particular. As the actor Bernhard Schütz puts it: “This is the power of the East Germans, who come from a different school of theatre acting, which is based on reflecting and historical consciousness, but not on empathy and psychology, which also gives the audience a much greater freedom” (Raddatz 2016: 209). The Swiss Christoph Marthaler also emphasizes this characteristic from his perspective of experience: “Almost all the events that took place here drew their impulses from the clash of the GDR past of the country, the city and the theatre with the realities of the post-reunification period” (Raddatz 2016: 164). This politically motivated way of dealing with history, this activation of biographical experience and the production of unusual questions (questions beyond habituation, which is responsible for concealment) is what makes the theatre of the Volksbühne so peculiar.
And Frank Castorf claims: “History is in fact always the foundation. Only it is commonly explained from the state of what we know, as grit and commonplaces of petty bourgeois and middle class. In fact, history represents an evolution or transition. We find ourselves in a transitional stage, from what was – a random state – to something that this society ultimately does not want to see out of fear and a corresponding defensive attitude” (Raddatz 2016: 327–28). The Volksbühne had given itself the task of mastering this historical transitional stage and in the sense of the play of the same name by Heiner Müller did not see itself released from the mission (of the revolution).
The artistic organization of the inter-PLAY of history and biography/ies is the essence of Frank Castorf’s staging work. The concept of play is used here primarily in its philosophical meaning rather than as referring to a concept of acting within the theatre. Sucher is right when in the sentence “Castorf’s work is about creating a state of ‘unique reality’ on stage” (Sucher 2018: 29), he is referring to this philosophical meaning of “play” as a public unleashing of congealed experience, as loud reflection and provocation, ultimately as public artistic intervention in our reality. Playing in this sense has a twofold function. On the one hand, it desires to uncover realities whose understanding is only possible through the superposition of diverse historical events and subjective perceptions. On the other hand, the play of all participants as practical action is a far-reaching social experience with regard to the dimensions of experiences of sociality in work. This dimension of theatre work also seems to be at the core of the self-conception of most of the actors involved. Kathrin Angerer correctly describes the surplus value of this understanding of reality produced by acting, when she sees her first task in not getting involved in the character but in the play. The reference to the figure only provides material for the confrontation with a reality that grows complexly into past and present: “You don’t play a role or develop a character from scene to scene, but besides the text there are other themes and thoughts in which there are enough aspects that have something to do with yourself, so that a very personal structure is created next to the structure of the production and the structure of Frank (Castorf)” (Raddatz 2016: 44). The consequences of such an approach for a theory of acting are enormous. Just as interpretation, fable, meaning, etc. are not sufficient for describing the specific handling of the texts, questions about the style of acting, the principle of presentation, the acting method, etc., are not suitable for understanding the situation of the actors in a Castorf production. Castorf demands the biographical as an activated life story, as a remembered individual life experience unleashed in theatrical work. Here, a clash of actor experience and character experience, of actor biography and character biography, occurs, and the question arises as to who is delivering himself to whom, who is making himself available to whom. Thomas Martin sees the goal of all these efforts in the connection of art and history and referring to Josef Vogl he claims: “‘The historian looks into history in order to alienate the present until one can recognise it.’ I would also claim the validity of this sentence for this house and especially for Castorf’s work” (Raddatz 2016: 267). In this sense, in Castorf’s understanding of directorial theatre, the conceptual does not first and foremost focus on the text, on readings, its interpretations or updates, but on the real evolvement of a play on stage, which is to be seen in connection with the material of the production, its integration into the theatrical production process in rehearsals and performances, and its communication with the audience. Based on this mode of play, theatre thus becomes a scenic experimental arrangement. Frank Raddatz describes its actual objective as follows: “The scenic evocations of ghosts from hastily disposed pasts make a present time become apparent that systematically shields itself from what was yesterday and pushes the past into the underground of an infinite horizon of the contemporary” (Raddatz 2016: 14). Frank Castorf, however, remains connected to a seemingly still practicable dialectic of enlightenment.
6.
Conclusion: As successful, as vital, as stimulating as the Berliner Volksbühne has been in the last 25 years, the consequent conclusion is as simple as Marc Hosemann puts it: “The Volksbühne – I think anyone can agree with that – is a complete exception!” (Raddatz 2016: 79). And in the more modest words of Bert Neumann, one of the central figures of the history of the Volksbühne:
“You must not generalize what you do yourself and think that everyone has to do it” (Raddatz 2016: 30). The uniqueness, peculiarity, originality, productivity of the Volksbühne is neither repeatable nor generalizable, it cannot be reproduced anywhere in theatre nor in educational programs. It can and should only be seen as an invitation to search for an Eigensinn that can be found anew in every time and in every generation. Again, Frank Castorf: “In fact, in every (...) city and state theatre there is for a certain period of time the possibility of achieving something like a commonality through work and thus also of practising a political expression for oneself in these moments of working” (Raddatz 2016: 340).
Works cited
CASTORF, Frank – LAUDENBACH, Peter. Am liebsten hätten sie veganes Theater. Interviews 1996–2017. Berlin: Verlag Theater der Zeit, 2017.
RADDATZ, Frank (ed.). REPUBLIK CASTORF. Die Berliner Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz seit 1992. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2016.
SUCHER, Curt Bernd. Suchers Welt: Theater. München: Droemer Verlag, 2018.