Karl Valentin's Illogical Subversion
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Oliver Double and Michael Wilson Karl Valentin’s Illogical Subversion: Stand-up Comedy and Alienation Effect Admired by Brecht, yet also counting Hitler among his fans, the German cabaret performer Karl Valentin remains an enigmatic figure for most English-speaking theatre people; and his accommodation as a licensed jester during the Nazi years has reinforced the received wisdom that his comedy was ultimately offering reassurances of their own supremacy to bourgeois audiences. Here, Oliver Double and Michael Wilson outline Valentin’s life and career, and offer an analysis of his performance style closely linked to two of his best- known routines, which are here also translated for the first time into English. They conclude that Valentin’s idiosyncratic style of surreal logic had an effect akin to that of Brecht’s Verfremdung, of making the familiar strange, and so, while often extremely funny in its unexpected dislocations, never offering a simple view either of comedy or of life. Oliver Double worked as a comedian for ten years on the alternative comedy circuit, was formerly proprietor and compère of Sheffield’s Last Laugh Comedy Club, and is the author of Stand-Up! On Being a Comedian (Methuen, 1997). Currently he lectures in Drama at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Mike Wilson, whose background is in community theatre, is now Professor of Drama and Field Leader for Performing Arts and Film at the University of Glamorgan. He has published widely on varying aspects of storytelling practice and, in particular, on teenage storytelling culture, notably in Performance and Practice: Oral Naratives Among Teenagers in Britain and Ireland (Ashgate, 1997). His latest book, Theatre, Acting, and Storytelling will be published by Palgrave in 2004. VALENTIN Ludwig Fey was born on 4 June this context. Literally meaning ‘folk singer’ 1882 in the Munich suburb of Au, effectively (the term preferred by Robert Eben Sackett in the only child of an artisan-class family – his his book Popular Entertainment, Class, and sister and two brothers all died in early child- Politics in Munich, 1900–1923),2 it is important hood before Valentin Ludwig was even six not to equate these performers with the agra- months old. Valentin himself only narrowly rian working-class amateur singers who acted survived a childhood encounter with dip- as the informants of the great folk-song col- theria (all of which, perhaps unsurprisingly, lectors such as Cecil Sharpe or Sabine Baring- contributed to his ever-increasing hypochon- Gould in England, nor with the professional dria),1 but he went on to become arguably the musicians who emerged from the ‘folk revival’ most famous German comedian and cabaret of the 1950s and 1960s. The Volkssänger was performer of his generation: Karl Valentin. a popular entertainer who ‘came from the common people . lived among them, and knew what troubled their hearts’,3 and a Popular Entertainment in Munich more useful comparison would be with the The popular entertainment scene in Munich artists of the British music hall. The tradition in the early years of the twentieth century was began in the back rooms of pubs and had a vibrant mix of the traditional Volkssänger been centred on music and song, but by the culture, Salonhumoristen, and the more overtly end of the nineteenth century it was largely political cabaret established by figures like becoming sketch-based, or at least ‘patter’- Frank Wedekind and much frequented by the based. Bohemian intellectual community. Volkssänger What was distinctive about the Volkssänger is a notoriously difficult word to translate in in Munich was that their work was distinctly ntq 20:3 (august 2004) © cambridge university press doi: 10.1017/s0266464x04000107 203 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. Open University Libraryy, on 13 Jan 2017 at 10:30:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X04000107 Bavarian and politically conservative – nostal- nity fled the country for self-imposed exile or gic for a more rural Bavarian past.4 The Salon- suffered worse fates (as did Erich Mühsam, humoristen were considered more upmarket, who was killed in 1934),7 Valentin chose to performing in a better class of venue and in remain and continued to enjoy a successful formal dress. They are best characterized by career under Hitler, one of his greatest fans. Karl Maxstadt, in whose honour the stage While still capable of criticizing the regime, names of both Valentin and his long-time co- Valentin found a way of accommodating performer, Liesl Karlstadt, were conceived.5 himself within the Third Reich, in contrast to Valentin’s uniqueness is that he was able to Weiss Ferdl, the other famous Munich Volks- span all these types of popular entertainment sänger of the time, with whom Valentin is and appeal across the spectrum of popular often contrasted. audiences. He was both Volkssänger and Salon- Weiss Ferdl’s act was fundamentally popu- humorist, while also being courted by the list, often pandering to the worst conserva- political cabaret. tive and right-wing instincts of his audience, Much of Valentin’s career is characterized yet he was not apolitical and would openly by his long-standing stage partnership with criticize the Nazis as well as support them. Liesl Karlstadt, whom he met in 1911 at the He spent a number of short spells in Dachau Frankfurter Hof in Munich, where both were for his troubles,8 a dubious privilege that performing. They worked together (except Valentin managed to avoid. This is ironic, for a period in the late 1930s and 1940s fol- since Weiss Ferdl joined the NSDAP in 1937, lowing Karlstadt’s nervous breakdown) until which was to result in his being banned from Valentin’s death in 1948. Karlstadt (whose performing by the denazification authorities real name was Elisabeth Wellano) was also after the war, whereas Valentin never joined born in Munich, in 1892, and already had the party, although later he admitted that he theatrical experience as a singer, dancer, and would have done so – out of fear – if he had actor in thrillers by the time she teamed up been asked.9 with Valentin. For over thirty years the pair We can only speculate on why and how dominated the German cabaret scene during Valentin not only survived but continued to its most politically turbulent years with their thrive in Nazi Germany,10 but his enduring subversive sketches and monologues attack- popularity probably ensured that he was ing the conventions of German Bürgerlichkeit never in any real danger (even if his brazen with biting satire – fighting absurdity with refusal to sell Hitler his extensive collection absurdity. of photographs of old Munich seems a little For comedians with such obvious anti- reckless),11 as long as he generally behaved establishment (if not explicitly left-wing) lean- himself. And so he did, although his relation- ings and anti-militaristic sympathies, these ship with the regime was not entirely unprob- were potentially dangerous times. Although lematic and involved several brushes with the political and social comment is often implied censors. Nor, as Murray Hill rightly asserts, rather than openly stated in their work, J. M. did Valentin purge his work of political Ritchie makes the point that Valentin ‘was an satire, as can be seen from the monologue outspoken pacifist, anti-militarist, and anti- Der Vereinsrede (‘Speech to the Membership’, capitalist and was able despite censorship and recorded in 1938), which unapologetically police control to express these sentiments in parodies the rhetoric of Goebbels.12 his amusing sketches, though even he had Ultimately, Valentin’s relationship with the trouble with the authorities because of his Nazis is complex and occasionally contra- stage utterances’.6 dictory, but his ability to remain unaligned to any official political party was undoubtedly a key factor in enabling him to continue his Valentin and Nazism work without too much interference. We After 1933, however, when many members of should be wary of being too critical of his Germany’s artistic and intellectual commu- decision to remain and prosper in Nazi 204 Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. Open University Libraryy, on 13 Jan 2017 at 10:30:52, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X04000107 Germany. In 1933 Valentin was firmly into attempt to tour as the ‘Musical Fantasist’ middle age, and he may have felt too old to Charles Fey, with his own invention, the go into exile or nervous about abandoning Orchestrion, a multi-instrumental machine, his significant following in Germany if he he was penniless. attempted to start his career all over again. Then Valentin met with some good for- He may simply have been reluctant to leave tune, finding lodgings with Ludwig Greiner, his beloved Munich. Either way, Valentin, who suggested that he make use of his un- very much like the character of Galileo in commonly lanky physicality. The result was Brecht’s Leben des Galilei, chose to remain and the establishment of his trademark image of survive. As Michael Schulte says, in spite of ‘elongated boots, a nose of equally absurd his complete distaste for National Socialism, length, and a tightly-fitting costume which ‘Valentin was anything but a resistance exaggerated his slight, gangling build’.16 This fighter. He was too frightened for that.’13 awareness of physicality and physical appear- So it was in the period of political and eco- ance became a defining characteristic of his nomic uncertainty in the years immediately work and marked him out from many of his after the war that Valentin found himself out contemporaries.