University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln zz Theatre & Film Faculty Publications 1995 Howith's Glaube Liebe Hoffnung and the Current Scene in Dresden William Grange University of Nebraska - Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/theaterfilmfacpub Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Grange, William, "Howith's Glaube Liebe Hoffnung and the Current Scene in Dresden" (1995). zz Theatre & Film Faculty Publications. 3. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/theaterfilmfacpub/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in zz Theatre & Film Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Howith's Glaube Liebe Hoffnung and the Current Scene in Dresden Williiam Grange While the venerable Dresden Schauspielhaus, The production features startling scenic built in 1910, is undergoing renovation (the process effects, reminiscent of Ariane Mnouchkine's Mephisto was begun in August of 1993 and is scheduled for in Paris nearly fifteen years ago. There is no stage completion next summer), the Staatschauspiel Dresden floor in the Kuppeltheater, for instance. Designer is located in numerous venues throughout the city. Volker Walther has replaced it by water, over which They include the Kleines Haus in der Neustadt, a twelve inch-wide boards have been placed to create former recital hall on the north bank of the Elbe; a walkways for the actors. A five foot-wide pigeon small space in a former recital hall on the north bank coop is situated up the side of the tent, running across of the Elbe; a small space in a former automotive its roof to the tent's center; inside it, live pigeons bill factory; a small chapel in the restored Dresden Castle; and wo throughout the performance. A character and a tent near the present Schauspielhaus. The tent falls unto the water and sinks in up to his neck; a is called the "Kuppeltheater" (Cupola Theatre), and cow's skull sits rotting in the water and garbage is it has a vague, if weirdly abstract resemblance to the piling up in one place, while the process of cupolas sitting atop the baroque palaces, churches, and putrefaction is taking place in others. A character museums for which this city is well known. Any deposits dry ice into the water fiom his briefcase resemblance between the Kuppel Theater and the creating a bubbling fog effect that lasts for several renowned architecture of the "German Florence," as minutes. A fire display occurs in the upper reaches Dresden has traditionally been called is purely of the tent, alternating with rain that falls coincidental; the tent has been rented hma West intermittently throughout the performance. A wind German entrepreneur and its interior has facilitated machine drives a tempest of rain and fog across the Irmgard Lange's innovative production of Od8n von stage area. "My future has fallen into the water" is HorvAthYsGlaube Liebe Homg,the shorter version a common German aphorism (whose analogy in he subtitled "a little dance of death." Lange has also English might be Amanda Wingfield's "All my hopes interlarded the working script with snippets of the and dreams---up the spout! ' '); as Elisabeth repeats it, playwright's work related to the play, and the result she evokes much of what this production has to say. is a dark, disturbed vision of a world in complete In the midst of a sewer, life goes on. It may be at collapse. the bacterial level, but it is going on nevertheless. Anyone who has seen Horvhth in Dramaturg Beate Seidel views that small performance will recognize that world; he did not level of life as crucial to understanding Elisabeth's present a particularly happy outlook, even though he motivation. She is determined to become independent titled his plays Volhtiicke, a genre historically as a traveling saleslady, to rise above the decay which associated with young love, musical backgrounds, and surrounds her. Thus begins her "little dance of robust humor. This play briefly portrays a loving death," because in attempting - independence she couple, but the music Horvirth recommends is initiates "a gigantic struggle between herself and Chopin's Funeral March and its humor is cadaverous society," according to Seidel. The best she can hope rather than robust. It begins in fiont of a mortuary, for is "a moment or two to enjoy the illusion of a after all, and its central conflict arises between its cease fire" with a society determined to swallow her. heroine Elisabeth and her one-time benefactor, the Thus the production proposes that life is closely Mortician. Is there any faith, hope, or charity to be associated with the process of death. That is not found here? Inngard Lange and her ensemble make exactly an original proposal, but in the midst of the an extensive search for them, but they turn up just complete overhaul this part of Germany is fleetingly in the brave attempts of the doomed experiencing, the production has found an exposed Elisabeth. She has a tiny hope for a little love in her nerve. It does so by calling attention to the life; what she gets instead is a prison term, rejection "essentials" of existence which many in the Dresden from the only decent man she ever met, and finally. audience might overlook in their rush to buy new death. cars, televisions, or washing machines. Those Published in WESTERN EUROPEAN STAGES 7:1 (Winter 1995), pp. 81-86. Copyright © 1994 Center for the Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, CUNY. Heinrich and SchrOder in GIaube Liebe Hohng. Photo: Hans-Ludwig BBhme. essentials include faith, hope, and charity on the section of society and to negate the idea of a intellectual level, but at the most basic level (this generational conflict. The only characters in their production emphasizes) they are water, fire, wind, and forties or fifties are power figures like the Judge, the earth. Judge's Wife, and Elisabeth's employer, Irene Prantl. The production entertains the possibility of The conflict among them all ensues from society's transformation in the midst of wholesale collapse. expectations of Elisabeth; the Mortician, for example, Elisabeth attempts to rise above the putrefaction wants to become Elisabeth's paramour; society could surrounding her, but she (along with her future) accept such an arrangement although he is really more repeatedly falls back into it; by the play's end she has interested in his pigeons, his dead dog, and his become just another piece of decaying earth. Director terrarium than he is in women. But Elisabeth elects Lange presents her audience, in the figure of independence from him--even though she taxes his Elisabeth, with a metaphor for the "new" German money to help her pay off a fine she incurred for who was a citizen of the old German Democratic selling womens' underwear without a proper license. Republic. You can buy all the gadgets you want, she Alfons comes to represent Elisabeth's fondest hopes, seem to be saying, you can travel to all the places that namely a faith in love. The love scene they share were formerly forbidden; in the end you must explodes into a trapeze act, staged high above the confiont your own meager faith, hope, or love. The audience on a swinging chair; it quickly hurtles to the production completely abandons any hint of concrete ground when the police detective arrives to arrest representation in the performance of that Elisabeth for violation of probation. With her love confrontation; it embraces instead a level of the crashes also any faith she had left, faith in other abstract that is, as noted, visually arresting and human beings or even faith in herself. provocative. Christiane Heinrich's performance as Lange has cast several male characters (the Elisabeth is marked by ecstatic outbursts and an policeman Alfons, the antagonistic Mortician, the astounding level of energy maintained throughout the decadent Baron, the Accountant, Joachim Prantl, and entire performance (it lasts more than two hours and several minor characters) within the same age range is presented without an intermission). Heinrich lacks as Elisabeth to avoid the impression of a broad cross- the world-weary voice and demeanor one might ex- pect in Elisabeth, but director Lange sees the either. But thanks to the trapeze arrangement character metaphorically, and as such she regards her provided them by designer Walther, hope with a measure of optimism. As the mortician, momentarily takes flight before the police come Michael Meister has been allowed to indulge in some crashing in. After the police reveal to Alfons the extravagant histrionics, most notably with his voice. danger Elisabeth poses to his career, Lange places The result is a figure lacking human dimensions, but SchrUder in groups in order to isolate Heinrich and representing, as director Lange intended, the social make her self-destructiofi appear more inevitable. Yet forces which destroy Elizabeth. He mirrors the Elisabeth, as Heinrich plays the character, is not quite traditional Spiessbiirger one finds in all Horviith ready to give up the ghost. When police bring in her plays, a type Horvhth himself described as an body on the presumption she has drowned herself, "egotistical hypochondriac;" he is brimming with Heinrich's energy confounds the audience's tendency self-pity and narcissism. at that point to feel sony for her. 'Ihe Accountant As the policeman Alfons Klostermayer, (whom Lange has conceived as a personification of Alexander Schraer carefully avoids any obvious death) breathes life back into her long enough for the display of self-pity. By the play's end, he seems final scene between her and SchMder, and Schr6der genuinely mystified why his wife (he had been again resists the temptation to indulge in remorse.