It so happened that today domestic theater seldom spoils us with good shows. As for tours, they are mostly done by stock companies whose artistic quality leaves much to be desired. That is why I would like to share my experience as a theater-goer in Germany, whose modern theater is acknowledged as one of the best in the world.
The German stage used to have the same problems as those familiar to us: predominance of vulgar realism in the 19th century, then attempts of reform at the turn of the century, and then a virtual explosion and flowering. Truth be told, Germans were a bit luckier: they were not plagued by a civil war, they had three decades of relative freedom before Nazis came to power, and they were also blessed with such great innovative directors as Max Reinhardt and Bertolt Brecht. This stage school survived despite Nazism, Hitler’s dictatorship, war, and the split of the country.
Germany’s leading stage director today is Michael Thalheimer. His awards are too many to enumerate, and his productions range from ancient tragedy (Aeschylus’ Oresteia) to psychological drama (The Cherry Orchard) to opera. During my stay in Berlin, I happened to see three of Thalheimer’s productions: The Weavers after the eponymous play by the classic Gerhart Hauptmann, Innocence, based on the text by the modern author Dea Loher, and Mozart’s opera The Abduction from the Seraglio. The first two plays were staged at the Deutsches Theater, where Thalheimer is now chief director. The Deutsches Theater is famous, among other things, for being the place where Reinhardt developed and implemented his ideas. The Abduction from the Seraglio comes from the repertoire of Berlin’s Staatsoper, which, due to the renovation of the building, is temporarily working on the premises of the Schiller Theater.
Thalheimer’s directing is an example of visual minimalism. He is not given to using luxurious stage scenery. Usually he divides the stage with one huge construction, separating “the top” from “the bottom.” Thus, in The Weavers the factory owner emerges from the pitch dark on the very top of a gigantic staircase, which hides almost entire background, while the workers are sitting at its foot. In The Abduction from the Seraglio a broad black partition cuts the stage in two. The top floor, bathed in white light, is the realm of the Pasha Selim, whereas on the bottom floor the main characters, whose sweethearts are kept in Selim’s harem, are trying to free them. The upper space can narrow or broaden due to a black curtain that slides horizontally, creating a curious effect of an in-frame cut.
In Innocence the stage is occupied by a huge wide-angled cone, which looks simultaneously like a conventional landscape, foreshortened in perspective, and a slope which the characters, plagued by guilt and remorse, can hardly surmount. This division of space enables the director to create almost cinematographic dynamics of the show.
Costumes, too, suggest visual economy. Thalheimer avoids excessive luxury in his characters’ dress, accentuating with color when necessary. Thus, the Pasha Selim wears impeccable white clothes and a white-and-golden makeup half mask. One of the female characters, his prisoner Konstanze, is also clad in white, but her dress is edged with candy pink, and she wears the same color on her hands. Her chambermaid, the passionate and freedom-loving Blonde, is wearing a frock in the same provocative color. In The Weavers, when the uprising bursts out, one of the characters walks on stage with a face smeared in blue, and later this color of total madness dominates, as the characters shower each other with a blue powder, and blue dust swirls under their feet.
For Thalheimer it is the truthfulness of feeling that matters, rather than the entourage. He fully concentrates on the actor and the absolute revelation of characters. The characters’ motives are always complex, they cannot be classified into right and wrong. Nor will you find strong moral accents, homilies, and didactics. All of his productions are more or less clashes of passions and a certain order. The Abduction from the Seraglio shows a revolt of love against power. The Weavers is a riot, truly senseless and merciless. In Innocence each character is ridiculous and mad in their personal little unhappiness. Each time, the director builds up a dramaturgical situation, which at the beginning can verge on comedy or farce, but gradually gains pace and emotional tension to culminate in an outburst, a general or personal catastrophe, depicted with a striking persuasiveness and fancifulness. This bewitching combination of laconic form, irrational accents in the characters and events, and powerful, rapid dramatics makes Thalheimer’s direction unique.
Likewise, I had a chance to see how foreign producers worked in Berlin. The stage version of Eugene Onegin was produced at the Schaubuehne Theater by the Latvian director Alvis Hermanis. Hermanis is the director of the New Riga Theater, laureate of Europe’s highest stage award, the Prize for New Theatrical Realities (2007), and bearer of the Order of the Three Stars. He concentrates on working with a play’s form.
Thus, he saturates his Onegin with historical and material texture. His space, a stark contrast with Thalheimer’s, is extremely dense and full of detail: the walls of the mansion, where the action is set, are towering above the stage, leaving the actors a narrow passage along the proscenium. This enables the action to unfold simultaneously, with two parallel plots, and even with slides projected overhead on the wall. The costumes are truly authentic: the very process of dressing the actors right there on stage turns into a sort of show in itself.
Besides, if Thalheimer appeals to obscure passions and even insanity, Hermanis remains expressly rational: the show begins as an analysis of Pushkin’s text, with illustrations projected on the walls instead of paintings. The actors abstract themselves from the play and start as Onegin’s commentators, expounding the details of Pushkin’s life and work, and thus gradually getting into their roles. Due to this method of analytical prologue, the director is able to dissect the process of creating the play, and show the rise of a theatrical text from the literary one.
Of course, these are distinct theater companies, but in terms of performers, there are some prominent common features. German actors are always accurate. They are never given to extremes, never overly pathetic, and still they manage to render any feelings fully and convincingly. This is indeed different thinking, far from Stanislavsky’s transformation method which still dominates the former USSR space, and this tradition, created by Reinhardt and Brecht, relies on the individual performer. What matters is evidence about the character and an impartial view of him. The actors offer an analysis of events, rather than merely their emotional expression. Which, I reiterate, does not rule out a deep emotional compassion. At any rate, this is a powerful acting school, with skills cultivated by generations. With such companies both Thalheimer and Hermanis achieve similarly high results, albeit their initial goals were different.
Certainly, such “German lessons” could do our theater good, too. Moreover, the founder of modern Ukrainian theater Les Kurbas held similar views, as he founded his reform in the “intellectual Harlequin” as a paragon for the actor. But this is the matter for a whole new discussion.
