Presentations

Presenters:

Dr. Laura Bradley, Dr. Peter Eckersal, Dr. Tara Forrest,Dr. Ulrike Garde, Dr Birte Giesler, Dr. Laura Ginters, Dr. John Guthrie, Dr Birgit Haas, Assoc. Prof. Alison Lewis, Prof. Moray McGowan, Charlotte Menin, Ralf Rauker, Dr. Gert Reifarth, Prof. Katrin Sieg, Bronwyn Tweddle, Dr. Denise Varney, Sabine Zolchow,

FRIDAY 15 SEPTEMBER

Dr. Denise Varney, University of Melbourne (Convenor)

Blue Man Group at Potsdamer Platz – National Issues and Global Pressure

The Blue Man Group is an American-in-origin global entertainment corporation performing simultaneously in seven cities – New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, London and Berlin. In Berlin, the venue is the Theater am Potsdamer Platz, a large modern theatre venue, next door to the IMAX, Casino and Hotel Grand Hyatt on Marlene Dietrich Platz. The tickets at 70 euros are more than twice as expensive as good seats at any of Berlin’s older historic theatres, yet it’s filled with a young and enthusiastic audience. The Potsdamerplatz area that Andreas Huyssen refers to as ‘part palimpsest, part Wunderblock’ is redolent with the city’s past and its corporate future. If it stands for reunified Berlin, then the presence of the Blue Man Group signifies the globalisation and corporatisation that is putting pressure on its theatres.
These introductory remarks set a framework for the presentation of the findings of the research project entitled ‘Where Politics and Theatre Intersect: German Theatre Since Reunification.’ It will focus on productions that suggest three main reunification themes: the loss of the GDR, the question of national identity, the processes of europeanisation and globalisation.

Denise Varney is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies in the School of Creative Arts. She lectures in feminist theatre, gender in performance, Brechtian theatre, theatre semiotics, and postmodern theatre as well as an inter-disciplinary study of women in the creative arts entitled Nymphs, Sluts and Madonnas.
Amongst other publications, Denise is co-author with Rachel Rensham of The Dolls' Revolution: Australian Theatre and Cultural Imagination (Melbourne:ASP, 2005). In 2004, she was awarded an ARC Discovery Grant to research German theatre since re-unification, which is her current project. Denise was Postgraduate Coordinator in The School of Creative Arts 2000-2005 and currently supervises in the areas of feminist performance, contemporary theatre, Australian theatre and European performance studies.
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Dr. Birgit Haas, University of Exeter (Keynote)

How Political is the New German Drama?

How does German drama present politics and what is its relationship to the German state? How is the gentle revolution in Germany portrayed in post-89 drama? The 10 years following the Fall of the Wall and the subsequent Reunification in 1990 are characterised not only by heated debates between East-West, but also by the renaissance of a political drama. With the advent of a new, young generation of playwrights, the focus shifted from the aesthetic and self-reflexive discussions, which had been fashionable ever since the 1960s, to a politically engaged theatre. The decade after 1989 saw the development of the various trends within this young generation of playwrights, their engagement with the impact of reunification as well as broader political debates. At the same time, drama as an artistic “form” was rediscovered and repoliticised. Through my investigation of the social and historical commitment of East and West German drama, I will challenge the widely held view that dramatic theatre in Germany plays only a minor role.

Birgit Haas studied English and German Language and Literature in Heidelberg. She completed her doctorate in 1998 with the topic: The Theatre of George Tabori. 1999-2004 DAAD-Lektorin at the universities of Keele and Bristol (GB); 2004-2005 teaching at the Germanistische Seminar at the Universität Heidelberg. Since 2005 lecturer in drama at the University of Exeter (GB). Her major publications include: Das Theater des George Tabori (2000), Modern German Political Drama 1980-2000 ( 2003), Wendetheater – Theater der Wende (2004), Das Theater von Dea Loher (2006). As editor: Macht – Performanz, Performativität und Polittheater seit 1990 (2005); forth. (ed): Der Postfeministische Diskurs.

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Sabine Zolchow, Archiv der Akademie der Künste, Berlin

The Isle of Berlin

The special status of Berlin, founded by the Four Power Agreement as a result of World War II, ended with the reunification of Germany. The fostering of culture, especially theatres was considered an important task in both parts of the city during this period: for West Berlin as a capitalist island within communism, for East Berlin as the capital of the GDR.
The cultural-political and thus the financial guidelines for a reunified Germany derived from the unification agreement of 1990, guaranteed, on the one hand, the maintenance of East Germany’s and East Berlin’s cultural assets including theatres, and stipulated, on the other hand, Berlin as the future capital – without a special cultural status.
An independent theatre experts’ report of 1991 however revealed doubts about whether or not the existence and quality of all fourteen municipal, federal and fully subsidized private theatres could be supported solely by the federal state of Berlin. A short time later two big theatres were closed in the western part of the city despite various proposals for a financial solution by the report and by the theatres itself.
Discussions about collective bargaining and those of professional associations regarding the situation of German theatres after the „Wende“ also had few consequences in Berlin. The altered concepts of the newly appointed theatre manangers in East Berlin were carried out with mixed results.
The reunification’s attempts to implement West German standards on the East took its toll on West Berlin, leaving the former theatre structures only partially intact. I would claim that this is also a unique characteristic of this city.

Sabine Zolchow has been working in theatre documentation at the archives of the Akademie der Künste Berlin since 2002. After studying translation and interpretation as well as comparative literature and theatre studies in Berlin she worked translating plays from English and Russian. She has also worked as a dramaturg and translator for independent theatre productions. Her editorial work includes working for the publishing house Verlag Vorwerk 8. Sabine has worked as the assistant curator of the exhibition Durch den Eisernen Vorhang – Theater im geteilten Deutschland 1945-1990 (Across the Iron Curtain – Theatre in Divided Germany 1945-1990) at the Akademie der Künste Berlin, 1999 and curator of a commemorative exhibition on the director Adolf Dresen at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2001. Her most recent publication, together with Rudolf Mast was: „Die anderen amüsieren sich königlich – Curt Bois auf der Bühne der Weimarer Republik“, in: Ich mache alles mit den Beinen. Der Schauspieler Curt Bois, Berlin 2001.

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Charlotte Menin, Technische Universität, Berlin

Modelle der Auseinandersetzung mit Geschichte: der Geschichtsdiskurs Rainer Werner Fassbinders

Fast ein Vierteljahrhundert nach dem Tod des enfant terrible Deutschlands zeigt sich das Werk von Rainer Werner Fassbinder mehr denn je als der ‚Sonderweg’ eines eigenartigen und einzigartigen Künstlers und zugleich als ein Modell der Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Geschichte im Theater und im Film. Keine Epigonen versuchten und versuchen heute seine Formen zu übernehmen. Doch der Autor und Regisseur, der seine Filme und Stücke mit einer reichhaltigen sakralen Rhetorik überfüllte und sich selbst entsprechend und provokativ inszenieren wusste, gilt heute als monstrum sacrum der deutsch(sprachig)en Kultur. Fassbinder hat bekanntlich die Wende nicht erlebt, doch finden sich in der zeitgenössischen Kulturproduktion zahlreiche Beispiele für intertextuelle und intermediale Bezüge auf seinem Werk. Seine Konzeption der Geschichte ist tatsächlich heute aktuell für diejenigen, die sich im Kulturbereich mit komplexen historischen Veränderungen der Gegenwart und ihrer künstlerischen Repräsentation befassen. In Fassbinders Werk wird eine scharfe Trennung von Geschichte und Gegenwart unterminiert. Die Gegenwart gilt in seiner archäologischen Betrachtung der BRD immer gleichsam als Ausgangspunkt und Horizont. Dabei verzichtet er stets auf eine Darstellung vergangener Zeiten ‚wie sie gewesen sein sollen’ und verlagert den Blick stattdessen auf die Mittel der medialen Repräsentation (sozusagen auf die technische und mediale Dispositive) und ins Subjektive, auf das Innenleben des Einzelnen. Somit legt er Denk- und Handlungsmuster der vor- und nachnazionalsozialistischen bürgerlichen Gesellschaft frei und zeigt wie diese sich auf die Gefühlswelt des Einzelnen niederschlagen. History und story verzahnen sich und unterminieren die Idee der Geschichte als einer linearen Sequenz von Ereignissen.

Charlotte Menin ist 1980 in Milano, Italien, geboren. Seit 1999 lebt sie in Berlin. Sie ist Absolventin an der Technischen Universität, Berlin, in den Fächern Germanistik und Romanistik. Seit 2001 arbeitet sie als Lektorin und Auslandsreferentin für den italienischen Theaterverlag Zachar International. Sie hat gelegentlich für das italienische Jahrbuch des Theaters vom Verlag Ubulibri und für Theater der Zeit gearbeitet und übersetzt gelegentlich ins Italienische (u.a. R. W. Fassbinders Stück „Der Werwolf“ für Teatro della Limonaia, Firenze). Sie leitete in April 2005 einen Seminar zum Leidenschaftsdiskurs im Werk von Marguerite Duras in der Universität Potsdam. Seit Mai 2006 ist sie auch im Zentrum von Literaturforschung als studentische Hilfskraft im Projekt "Erbe Erbschaft Vererbung - Überlieferungskonzepte zwischen Natur und Kultur im historischen Wandel" beschäftigt.

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Dr. Gert Reifarth, University of Melbourne

Fostering Cultural Schizophrenia: East Berlin theatres re-create the GDR.

The official end of the GDR in October 1990 meant for its citizens that the ’hard copy’ of their mother country ceased to exist. What was left was, for some, a feeling of relief that the dictatorial regime had fallen, and, for others, a regret that with it had vanished the various joys of communism (eg. security in the workplace, free education, free health care, privileges for the nomenklatura). The former attitude led to people adopting to the new country and the new rules. The latter attitude created a nostalgia, and a longing for the past.
An agenda was developed to use and market this phenomenon. A political party in Germany, the PDS, has profited heavily from the nostalgia, and over the years, the media have learned to excessively fuel and feed it.
Some productions at East German theatres are part of this agenda, too, fostering a cultural schizophrenia by trying to re-create a GDR identity, which suggests to people the possibility of living in a defunct country in their minds while in fact living in a new united Germany. As GDR citizens were highly experienced schizophrenics, this strategy falls on fertile ground. The re-creation of the GDR was achieved in a wide array of ways, from philosophical contemplation to a crude depiction of features of (pre- and post-Wende) everyday culture.
My paper looks at productions from the Volksbühne (Castorf: „Die Räuber“, 1990, „Die Weber“, 1997, and „Meine Schneekönigin“, 2004; Marthaler: „Murx den Europäer!“, 1993, and „Die Fruchtfliege“, 2005), theater 89 (plays by Oliver Bukowski), Neue Bühne, Senftenberg (Volker Braun’s „Was wollt ihr denn?“, 2005), and Staatstheater Cottbus (Christoph Schroth’s „Zonenrandermutigungen“ from the 1990ies), and will show the mechanisms of the re-creation of a GDR identity as well as highlight the dangers of such an undertaking. I will also explore the relationship between the production itself and responses from critics and peers.

Gert Reifarth was born in Weissenfels/GDR in 1968, and studied German Language and Literature, American/English Language and Literature and German as a Foreign Language at the University of Jena from 1987 to 1993, when he received his Master's Degree.
He then lectured at the German Dept. of the National University of Ireland in Galway between 1994 and 1999, and at the Freie Universität Berlin in the following year. From 2000 to 2003 he taught German at a private language school in Berlin to students from all over the world, and in 2003 he joined the University of Melbourne.
Gert received his Ph.D. from the Technische Universität Berlin in 2002.
Apart from a number of journal articles and book chapters (on German poetry, GDR and Soviet literature, German reunification), he has published a book whose title translates into “The power of the fairy tale. On the depiction of suppression and submission in the GDR in fairy-tale prose” in 2003.
In Ireland, Gert directed various German plays (Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Hacks). He recently taught a seminar entitled “Political theatre in Germany: Brecht and beyond”. He is currently involved in a theatre project which translates the myth of Heracles into the Australia of the Pacific Solution, and is working on a collage entitled "Who's afraid of Harry Heine?", which will be staged in Melbourne in October.

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Dr. John Guthrie, University of Cambridge

From Shakespeare to Schiller. Contemporary Approaches to the Classics in Germany.

The inception of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s project to stage the complete works of Shakespeare and the end of the Schiller bicentenary year is an appropriate point at which to ask how contemporary German directors approach theatre classics. How does their approach differ from that of contemporary British directors? This paper examines two recent productions of classic plays in Berlin: Schiller’s Maria Stuart at the Schaubühne (dir. Luk Perceval) and Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus in the adaptation by Botho Strauss’s (Schändung) at the Berliner Ensemble (dir. Thomas Langhoff). It makes some comparisons with recent British productions of these plays and considers in what ways and to what purpose the classic text has been adapted, expanded, altered, adulterated or renewed. It considers the role of language, seen as moving between the poles of the desire to preserve canonical poetry and the (sometimes improvised) use of the modern vernacular. The performance text as event is also considered from the point of view of non-verbal elements.
This paper is intended as a contribution to the discussion on what direction 'Regietheater'  is taking in Germany.

John Guthrie studied at the University of Western Australia, Tübingen and Cambridge and has taught at the Universities of Leicester, Leeds, and since 1984 at Cambridge, where he is Fellow in German and Director of Studies in Modern Languages at New Hall, and Newton Trust Lecturer in the Department of German. He teaches German literature and thought from 1720 onwards and has research interests in drama (language, performance and production), German poetry and poetics. He has written books on Lenz and Büchner, Droste-Hülshoff, and has edited Büchner’s Woyzeck. He has edited a volume of essays with Nicholas Boyle, Goethe and the English-Speaking World (Camden House, 2001), has recently published a series of articles on Schiller and is currently working on a project on the dramas of Schiller.

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Prof. Moray McGowan, Trinity College Dublin (Virtual Presentation)

What was the ‘Wende’ and what of the ‘Volk’? Fidelio’s questions and the Weavers’ answers

In this conference’s bilingual title and its syntactic and semantic shifts between ‘German theatre and reunification’ and ‘Deutsches Theater nach der Wende’ lie still contested ambiguities, terminologies and teleologies: what was the ‘Wende’ and what was ‘reunification’, and are they synonymous? How have their meanings changed over time? What part did theatre play in them? How did their course affect the meanings of the productions that accompanied them? This paper addresses some of these questions by discussing two productions being performed in Dresden in autumn 2004, fifteen years after the events of autumn 1989. Firstly we consider the changing meanings of Christine Mielitz’ production of Beethoven’s Fidelio in the Staatsoper Dresden, premiered in October 1989 as the events that led to the GDR’s collapse gathered force. Secondly, we consider Volker Lösch’s production of Hauptmann’s Weavers, premiered at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden in October 2004, a production whose themes, form, dramaturgy and extra-theatrical circumstances constitute a passionate commentary on fifteen years of unification and socio-economic transformation. Taken together, these productions provide a necessarily partial but revealing snapshot of German experience since 1989 and of theatre’s representations of and engagement with it.

Moray McGowan studied German, English, Philosophy and Politics at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (BA 1971, MA in German 1973), and took a Dr. phil. in Literaturwissenschaft at Hamburg in 1987.
After teaching at the German Universities of Siegen and Kassel in the 1970s, he was a Lecturer in German Studies at three UK Universities, Lancaster, Hull and Strathclyde, between 1978 and 1989, when he became Professor of German and Head of the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Sheffield (UK). In 2000 Moray was appointed to the Chair of German at Trinity College Dublin, and was elected a Fellow in 2003.
Moray teaches modern German literature and culture, particularly drama, German social and cultural history, contemporary studies and language. His main research interests are in the modern and contemporary periods, and he is currently working principally in three areas: German theatre and drama in and since the 'Wende' of 1989-90, ideas of 'Europa' in modern German thought, and Turkish-German writing.

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Dr Laura Bradley, University of Edinburgh (Virtual Presentation)

Contesting the legacies of Socialism: Brecht’s Die Mutter in the Berlin Republic

Critical discussions of the new wave of Vergangenheitsbewältigung have tended to focus on texts published after 1989, but this paper examines how three German theatres have used a far earlier play – Brecht’s Die Mutter (1932) – to explore the cultural and ideological legacies of Marxism and state Socialism. The theatres’ contrasting approaches reflect not only their personal experiences of Germany’s division, but also their political and cultural agendas in the Berlin Republic.
In 1998, theater 89’s East German actors used the play to rehabilitate the ideals of the early Socialists and work through the trauma of state oppression, whereas in 2002 the southern German cast of the Stadttheater Konstanz treated it as a vehicle for their scepticism towards Brecht, Marxism, and Ostalgie. In contrast, in 2003 Claus Peymann’s staging at the Berliner Ensemble, involving actors from East and West, made a strong case for the contemporary relevance of Brecht’s anti-war arguments, even as its performance aesthetic discredited his political solutions. Both the productions and their reception testify to the absence of any public consensus on the status of political theatre, the effects of reunification, and the value of culture inherited from the GDR. Yet far from rendering Die Mutter obsolete, the Wende has re-invigorated its performance history by creating new challenges and opportunities for theatre practitioners.

Laura Bradley is a lecturer in German, University of Edinburgh. Her current Research Project is, Theatre and Censorship in the GDR, 1961-1989, which comes after her first monograph, ‘Brecht and Political Theatre: ‘The Mother’ on Stage’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) Peer-reviewed articles include: ‘Stealing Büchner’s characters? Leonce und Lena in East Berlin’, Oxford German Studies, 35 (2006), 67-79 (forth.); ‘A different political forum: East German theatre and the construction of the Berlin Wall’, Journal of European Studies, 36 (2006, forth.); ‘GDR theatre censorship: a system in denial’, German Life and Letters, 59.1 (January 2006), 151-62; “Prager Luft” at the Berliner Ensemble: the censorship of Sieben gegen Theben’, 1968-9’, German Life and Letters, 58.1 (January 2005), 41-54; ‘Collaboration and cultural practice: the “Brecht” Version of Die Mutter’, Brecht Yearbook, 28 (2003), 189-208.
Articles in edited volumes of conference proceedings include: ‘Prager Luft im Berliner Ensemble? Die Zensur am Fall der Sieben gegen Theben, 1968-1969’, Polen und Europa: Deutschsprachiges Theater in Polen und deutsches Minderheitentheater in Europa, ed. Horst Fassel, Malgorzata Leyko and Paul S. Ulrich (Lodz: Wydawnictwo Uniwertsytetu Lodzkiego, 2005), 288-300; “A struggle of two styles”: Brecht’s Mother at the New York Theatre Union, 1935’, in Drama Translation and Theatre Practice, ed. Sabine Coelsch-Foisner and Holger Klein (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2004), 399-413.

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SATURDAY 16 SEPTEMBER

Prof. Katrin Sieg, Georgetown University (Virtual Presentation)

Transnationalizing the German Theater

Since the early 1990s, German theater has undergone significant restructuring. Although we are seeing only the beginnings of a large-scale transformation of the public performing arts system, we can already discern some contours of the future shape of theater in Germany and Europe at large. In my paper I examine how national cultural practices and institutions are affected by both economic globalization and EU cultural policies. I will explore the following questions: does the downsizing and reorganization of the national theater really equal a loss of civic self-reflection and democratic expression, as Baz Kershaw has argued for the UK? Or can the transnationalization of culture that is currently being implemented through EU cultural policy also overcome the troubling legacy of the nation-state—including the deplorable marginalization and exclusion of women, ethnic minorities, and immigrants: populations whose contributions are actively promoted as part of this policy? Does the EU’s insistence on a “cultural exception” to the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), which promises to protect linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe against profit-driven global media and entertainment conglomerates, ensure artistic freedom along with minority rights in a transnational public sphere? Or does the active promotion of the cultural sector, regarded as central to the postindustrial knowledge economy of the future, merely serve to create a quasi-national European superstate positioned advantageously in the emerging world system of regional trading blocks? A superstate, moreover, that is saddled with all the oppressive ideological baggage of the nation but stripped of its democratic frills?

Katrin Sieg is Associate Professor of German at Georgetown University. Prior to her appointment at Georgetown, Professor Sieg was a faculty member of the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University. She holds a Ph.D. in Drama from the University of Washington, Seattle. She has received several awards and grants: most recently she received a Humboldt Fellowship, which she used to pursue research in Berlin during the 2001-2002 academic year.
Professor Sieg is the author of two books: Exiles, Eccentrics, Activists: Women in Contemporary German Theater (1994), and Ethnic Drag: Performing Race, Nation, Sexuality in West Germany (2002). Ethnic Drag received the Research Award for Outstanding Book by the Association of Theatre in Higher Education in 2003. She is currently working on a book about contemporary German culture, gender, and globalization. It examines the process of postcommunist transformation as it is reflected in popular culture and performance.

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Assoc. Prof. Alison Lewis, University of Melbourne (Keynote)

German Reunification and the Postwar Alliance between German Politics and Culture

In 1990 a number of German intellectuals called for a radical break with postwar cultural traditions. For too long literature, including theatre, had been evaluated in political rather than aesthetic terms. According to Ulrich Greiner, it was time to put an end to “Gesinnungsästhetik,” that peculiar German postwar aesthetic which purportedly privileged political opinion over literary value. This paper will provide an overview of the history of the postwar alliance between culture and politics in West and East Germany prior to reunification. The cultures of East and West Germany are typically characterized in terms of their difference, a difference which is generally attributed to the opposing political ideologies of each of the German nation-states. While the modes of cultural production operating in each Germany were diametrically opposed, there were a surprising number of convergences between the two literary cultures, which were most apparent within the theatre. The second half of this paper will introduce the key debates of the post-unification period that have played a formative role in the redrawing of the cultural landscape and the repositioning of drama and dramatic performance within it. In conclusion it will attempt to provide some tentative answers to the broad question of what has happened to the nexus between politics and culture since 1990. Have Greiner’s predictions held true for literature in a unified Germany or has theatre merely become one of the last few bastions of German culture in which political interventions are tolerated? Have the last 16 years seen a shift not only in our understanding of culture but in our notion of politics? Have the grand gestures and totalizing projects of Brecht and Müller, the “macropolitics” of world systems, possibly been replaced by politics of a different kind, say, by the micro-politics of identity politics?

Alison Lewis (FAHA) is a Reader at the University of Melbourne. She is currently Head of the Department of German, Russian and Swedish Studies, and Deputy Head of the School of Languages. She has published widely in the fields of German literature, unification studies, cultural studies, and gender studies. She is the author of two monographs on the feminist writer of fantastic fiction Irmtraud Morgner (Subverting Patriarchy 1995) and on secret police surveillance in the East German literary underground (Die Kunst des Verrats (2003) as well as numerous journal articles on a wide range of writers (Heinrich von Kleist, Martin Walser, Monika Maron, Irmtraud Morgner, Christa Wolf, Birgit Vanderbeke, Ingo Schramm, Michael Kumpfmüller and Brigitte Burmeister) as well as a broad range of themes (memory and politics, gender and the body, trauma, autobiography, German intellectuals and the Stasi). She is currently working on a monograph on the “difficult marriage” of German unification in love narratives in post-unification fiction.

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Dr Laura Ginters, University of Sydney (Virtual Presentation)

“Wir sind das Volk!”: How a failed revolutionary wrote about the French Revolution – and thereby helped cause one 154 years later.

Twenty years before the Berlin Wall fell Christopher Innes attributed the high status of theatre in German society to a "national failing", quoting Friedrich Wolf to the effect that “[w]e have not translated our political passion and perceptions into deeds, rather we diverted them into the realm of the intellect and the theatre”. The early production history of Georg Büchner’s play, Dantons Tod, might well serve to confirm his theory. Büchner died in exile in 1837, two years after writing Dantons Tod, and 65 years before it was first staged, but since its premiere, it has been enthusiastically embraced by each new generation of theatre-makers eager to reflect on times of social and political crisis in the German-speaking countries. This reached a fascinating turning point in 1989, however, when, in the middle of a flourish of productions commemorating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, Germans were surprised by a revolution in their own backyard. This, moreover, was a revolution where theatre and politics did intersect in an unprecedented way, spilling out from the theatre and into the streets: theatre practitioners were at the forefront of the calls for reform, speaking out from their stages, leading demonstrations and addressing huge public gatherings. Quotations from Dantons Tod were plastered on the banners leading these demonstrations, and this peaceful revolution’s motto – “Wir sind das Volk” – was also a quotation from Büchner’s play. The repercussions of these political events continued to be played out over the next decade in productions of this play, in the controversies and commentary surrounding these productions – and, indeed, even in proposed productions which never made it to the stage. In this paper I propose to examine a number of major productions (and a non-production) of this play by significant directors such as Alexander Lang, Klaus Michael Grüber, Ruth Berghaus, Leander Haussmann, Andrea Breth and Robert Wilson, demonstrating the ways in which this text, its constant reproduction in performance and its reception allow us insight into broader contemporary cultural and political issues.

Laura Ginters is a lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney; her doctorate is in Germanic Studies and Performance Studies. Her translations of contemporary German and Austrian plays have been both performed and published: most recently her translation of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera was adapted for Company B Belvoir. She also works occasionally as a dramaturg and script assessor. She has had articles published locally and internationally in the areas of feminism and theatre, translation, rehearsal, performance analysis, Indigenous theatre, writing for performance and radio drama, as well as performance reviews for various arts journals.

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Dr Peter Eckersal, University of Melbourne

Shakespeare, Müller, Kawamura: revolution and suburbia in Daisan Erotica's 'Hamletclone'

This paper will consider Kawamura Takeshi's reworking of Hamlet/Hamletmachine in his play 'Hamletclone' (2000). Experimental Japanese theatre has been responsive to trends in Germany since the 1920s and in 'Hamletclone' Kawamura updates Müller's critique of revolutionary politics for an age of postmodern suburbia. Hamletclone explores images of family and political party that intermingle nationalist sentiments (the imperial family), cults (such as AUM supreme truth) and the dysfunctional families of the Japanese suburbs. This is rendered into a rereading of history that marks the end of the time of revolution.

Peter Eckersall teaches Theatre Studies at the University of Melbourne and has had a long time association with theatre in Japan. He is author of 'Theorizing the Angura Space: Avant-Garde Performance and Politics in Japan 1960-2000' (Brill 2006) and coeditor of Performance Paradigm journal. He is resident dramaturg for the Not Yet It's Difficult (NYID) performance group and has worked on a number of collaborations between Australian and Japanese artists including the NYID-Gekidan Kaitaisha 'Journey to Con-fusion' project (1999-2003).

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Dr Birte Giesler, University of Sydney

Staging the Genetic Debate and the performative force of history in
Igor Bauersima’s futur de luxe

Although German reunification is not directly brought up in Igor Bauersima’s futur de luxe (2002), the grotesque drama is a highly political and up-to-date theatre play circling around the German past.
Futur de luxe addresses the subjects of human cloning and genetic engineering while simultaneously dealing with the interrelation between language, media and perception. The play exposes the human clone as symbolic figure of postmodern tendencies questioning identity and the relationship between fact and fiction. In the paper, Igor Bauersima’s futur de luxe (2002) is considered as an ironic comment on the discourse on genetics and the recent genetic debate. Using the stylistic and technical devices of irony, intertextuality and cross-fading, the play is a hybrid example of multi-media theatre dealing with the blurring of ‘story’ and ‘history’. The play conveys its own theory of theatre by demonstrating the function of theatre in ‘the age of the mechanical reproduction’ of the human being.
The analysis of the play will be supplemented by a video clip showing a section of the debut performance directed by the playwright at the Hannover State Theatre in 2002.

Birte Giesler received her Dr. phil. in 2001 from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and is Lecturer in Germanic Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research interests include women and gender studies, the German ‘Bildungsroman’, theories of intertextuality, the motif of the artificial human being, contemporary drama, as well as the history of Germanic and literary studies. She is author of Literatursprünge. Das erzählerische Werk von Friederike Helene Unger (2003), “... wir Menschen alle sind Palimpseste...” Intertextualität in Hedwig Dohms ‘Schicksale einer Seele’ (2000), several articles on the German ‘Bildungsroman’, German women writers as well as contemporary drama, and she coedited Gelegentlich: Brecht (2004) (with Eva Korman, Ana Kugli and Gaby Pailer).

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Dr Tara Forrest, University of Technology, Sydney

‘Acting out Prejudice: Schlingensief’s Political Theatre’

This paper focuses on two recent performance/media events staged by Christoph Schlingensief in an attempt to mobilise debate about xenophobia and antisemitism in Germany and Austria. The immediate impetus for Bitte Liebt Österreich (which was staged in Vienna in June 2000) was the formation, some months earlier, of a coalition government between Wolfgang Schüssel’s conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) – the latter of which became well known internationally for its far-right, xenophobic stance. In an attempt to ignite public debate about the new government, Schlingensief staged an event in which Haider’s anti-immigration policies were “acted out” on a very public stage in the Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz in Vienna. Similarly, in 2002, Schlingensief staged Aktion 18 in Germany in the lead up to the federal election, the impetus for which sprang from the very public criticisms of the Israeli government voiced by Jürgen Möllemann (the then deputy leader of the Free Democratic Party - FDP) and, more specifically, Möllemann’s perceived targeting of the far-right, antisemitic vote. Drawing on Alexander Kluge’s delineation of the task of an alternative public sphere, this paper will not only provide a detailed analysis of these complex performance/media events, but it will explore the way in which Schlingensief - by “acting out” prejudice on the public stage – has sought to mobilize debate not only about the policies of the FPÖ and the FDP, but about xenophobia and antisemitism in Germany and Austria more generally.

Tara Forrest is a lecturer in Cultural Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she is completing a book on the politics of imagination in the work of Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Alexander Kluge. Her research in this area has recently been published in Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice (December, 2005) and in G.Hartung and K.Schiller (eds.), Weltoffener Humanismus. Philosophie, Philologie und Geschichte in der deutsch-jüdischen Emigration (Bielefeld: transcript, 2006). Her current research revolves around the political interventions of Christoph Schlingensief.

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Dr. Ulrike Garde, Macquarie University

Actor v. critic: A scandal in the German theatre scene and some underlying cultural and political issues.

On 16 February 2006, the eminent German theatre critic Gerhard Stadelmaier attended a premiere of Ionesco’s Jeux de massacre which was performed by the experimental arm of the Schauspiel Frankfurt under the direction of Sebastian Hartmann. During the performance, the actor Thomas Lawinky provoked the critic by taking his notebook with the words “Let’s have a look what this twirp has written.” The critic reacted by leaving the theatre. The actor commented on this reaction with quite explicit words. ( “Buzz off, you arse!”)
This scandal caused a heated debate about the freedom of the press versus the freedom of the (performing) arts in contemporary Germany. Further, I contend that this incident and the debate raise more fundamental questions about German culture and politics today such as
- Which basic role is attributed to theatre in a Germany that considers itself, once again (or still?), to be in transition? How is this perception influenced by national traditions?
- Who does the critic write for in this context?
- How do socio-political and cultural issues intersect in theatre and theatre criticism as reflections of ‘everyday life’ and the arts?

Ulrike Garde is Lecturer in German Studies, in the Department of European Languages at Macquarie University, Sydney. Her research background is in German Studies as Cultural Studies, in particular the question of creating cultural identities in literature, the performing arts and critical reviews. In recent years, she has researched Australian-German cross-cultural relationships with a focus on the Australian reception of drama by German-speaking playwrights.
Her academic qualifications include a PhD (Monash University), an MA (Magister Artium, Universität Bonn) and a BA (Licence es Lettres Modernes, Université de Toulouse). She gained a Diploma of Education at the University of Melbourne.

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Bronwyn Tweddle, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

“PAN-EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY AND ERARITJARITJAKA”

In 2006, Wellington audiences could view Eraritjaritjaka, a new work by German composer/director Heiner Goebbels, at the New Zealand Arts International Festival. These spectators were, however, not aware the intricate diplomatic juggling that was necessary to bring the production to New Zealand. Eraritjaritjaka was the first time that three diplomatic services [the German, Dutch and Swiss embassies] collaborated in the organization and funding of a major arts event in New Zealand. This paper will examine the process of collaboration involved in this funding exercise which raised issues of national identity and the question: What does it mean to be an ‘international’ ‘German’ theatre artist post-1989?

Bronwyn Tweddle is a theatre director and dramaturg, who has been a lecturer in the Theatre Programme of Victoria University of Wellington since 2001. As a director, Bronwyn has produced her own bilingual adaptations of Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine (1996, Melbourne) and Gertrude Stein's Dr Faustus Lights the Lights (1998, Berlin), and in 2002 directed the New Zealand premiere of Wolfgang Borchert's The Man Outside. Last year she directed Peter Barnes’ adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu at the Fortune Theatre (Dunedin). She is a core member of the teaching staff on the Masters of Theatre Arts in Directing taught by VUW and Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School.
Bronwyn was dramaturg for the multi-award-winning Albert Speer at BATS
Theatre (Wellington) in 2004 and for Democracy (2005) and The Underpants
(2006) at Circa Theatre (Wellington). She has been an Executive Board member of Playmarket: New Zealand's National Playwrights' Agency and Script Development Service since 2002. Her research and teaching interests include: physical theatre methodologies; theories of acting and directing; and 20th century German-language performance.

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Ralf Rauker, Edith Cowan University, Perth

Biomechanics, Ostermeier and the Wende (Video presentation)

I will give a brief introduction about Meyerhold’s Biomechanics and why it played an important role as an actors training in Berlin during the 1990s.
In 1991 I met Gennadi Bogdanov from Moscow who had learned Biomechanics from the Meyerhold actor Nikolai Kustov. This gave a complete new dimension to the research, because suddenly there was a living source of physical information. Together with the Mime Center Berlin (which was in the east part of Berlin) and Gennadi Bogdanov I started a long-term research on Biomechanics.
In 1994/95 the Mime Center Berlin started a collaboration with Ernst Busch Hochschule fuer Schauspiel (the former East German Acting School) and I trained the acting students and two directing students in Biomechanics. Later the young directors created a performance and were supervised by Bogdanov in Biomechanics.
One of the students was Thomas Ostermeier (a west German). The production he did in 1995 was shown during Berliner Festspiele and after that he was offered the directorship of the Studio Buehne at Deutsches Theater (Die Barracke), where he worked again with Gennadi Bogdanov and Biomechanics on ‘Mann ist Mann’ by Brecht. The video will show a scene from this production filmed in 1998.
Thomas Ostermeier who has been director of the Schaubuehne Berlin for the last few years draws a lot on the work on Meyerhold and his actors training Biomechanics, as he stated more recently in a television interview.
Europe is not divided anymore by an “Iron Curtain”, neither on the political stage nor in Theatre. Meyerhold killed by the Stalinists in 1940 belongs again to the heritage of World Theatre.

Ralf Räuker, born in Aachen/Germany,1960 and studied acting at „Hochschule der Künste, Berlin“ from 1981 until 1986. Received a two year scholarship1988-90 for his research on Meyerhold’s Biomechanics, an actors training. - worked from 1991-96 in close collaboration with Gennadi Bogdanov from Moscow on a long term research at the Mime Center Berlin. Ralf has held workshops and lectures on Meyerhold’s Biomechanics in many countries. Ralf is a lecturer at the Western Australian Academy for Performing Arts, Perth and a lecturer in Contemporary Performance at the School of Communications & Contemporary Arts, Edith Cowan University, Perth. He has been enrolled since 2005 in a PhD in Performing Arts on Bertolt Brecht at the Western Academy for Performing Arts.

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If you would like further information on the symposium sent to you, please email: german-theatre@unimelb.edu.au

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