Narration and dialogue in contemporary British and German-language drama (texts – translations – mise-en-scène) Submitted by Jens Peters, the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama, February 2013. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ……………………………………………………………………………… 1 Abstract The aim of this thesis is to undertake a comparative study of contemporary British and German-language playwriting, with an eye specifically towards possible reasons and solutions for the problematic situation of German- language playtexts in Britain. I will first conduct a stylistic analysis of a selection of British and German-language playwrights, focusing on the differences in representation of interiority through dialogue and narration. I will then introduce a phenomenological lens that will expand this literary analysis by looking at specific stagings of these texts, and at the use of gestures in particular. Tracing the performative implications of dialogue and narration in their relationship with gestures, I will suggest that while dialogue mostly requires metonymical gestures, the phenomenology of narration is better served by a more metaphoric use. This is followed by a chapter on translation, which will look at the specific problems and chances posed by narration and so-called ‘postdramatic’ plays in general. After these theoretical considerations, I will scrutinise my findings in a practical environment in two major steps. The first step is a comparative rehearsal observation of one German and one British director and their work with contemporary playtexts. My main question will be in how far the tendency towards dialogue in British plays and towards narration in German-language plays is matched by corresponding trends in the directors’ formal language. Furthermore, I will contextualise the work of these two directors in the larger field of directing in their respective countries. The second and final step of my practical investigation will be an implementation and testing of the previous theses in two directing projects of my own. I will again focus on rehearsal methodologies, attempting to find out which methodologies are particularly useful for the rehearsal of narrative playtexts and thereby hoping to 2 formulate some first ideas for the specific requirements of German-language playtexts in a British context. Dedicated to my sister, who helped to keep me positive and enthusiastic throughout the course of this work. I wanted to thank the following persons for their invaluable help: My family and friends, David Roesner, Birgit Haas, Jane Milling, Chloe Paver, Jonathan Evans, Penny Black, Rina Vergano, Klaudyna Rozhin, Allison Smith, Effrosyni Mastrokalou, Ioannis Souris, Donnacadh O’Briain, Charlotte Moore, Emily Sidonie, Catherine Cusack, Susie Riddell, Peter Stickney, Rory Murray, Phil Nightingale, Hester Chillingworth Craig Hamblyn, Jennifer Pick, Lucy McCormick, Sebastian Nübling, Simon Stephens, Julia Lochte, Çigdem Teke, Steven Scharf, Lasse Myhr, Nick Tennant, Ferdy Roberts, Rupert Simonian, Sean Holmes, Philip Decker, Ramin Gray, Derbhle Crotty, Cazimir Liske, Rona Morison, Jack Tarlton, Altan Onay Reyman, Freya Millward, Alice Higginson, Kirsty Proffitt, Rose Blyth, Ella-May Hooper, Bethany Horrell, Sian Keen, Camilla Borges, Laura-Jane Brown, Conor O’Grady, Jon Primrose, Andy Yarwood, Christopher Mearing, Michelle Yeates, Gayatri Simons, Patricia Barber, Johanna Latz, Sarah Themel, Angelika Stübe, Alan Read, Sue Dunderdale, Leonee Ormond. 3 Table of Contents Introduction 7 Chapter 1: Reality and representation in the relationship between text and performance Reality and representation 22 Representation of reality: potentiality and act 26 Dramatic and Postdramatic – Dramatic Realism and Theatrical Realism 33 Dialogue as action: concealing form as a construction of reality in British dramatic realism 43 Narration highlighting form as the construction of a model of reality in German-language theatrical realism 53 Interiority and its communication in the different forms of representation of world 59 Introduction to the British and German-language playwrights 64 Representation of interiority in narration and dialogue 82 The relationship between gesture and words: Jakobson’s metonymy and metaphor as modes of representation 109 Metonymic relationships of text and gesture in dialogue 114 Metaphoric relationships of text and gesture in narration 122 Chapter 2: The translation of theatrical realist text Translating strategies, not words 142 Speakability and dissidence 148 Foreignisation and domestication 154 4 The materiality of the text 159 Intersemiotic translation and metaphoric gesture 163 Translating into a second language 166 Chapter 3: Observation of rehearsal methodologies Rehearsing hybrids, hybrid rehearsals 171 Germany and Great Britain: director’s theatre VS writer’s theatre? 175 Production circumstances of Three Kingdoms and Crave 202 The director’s engagement with the text 212 Rehearsal methodology overview 220 Composition: montage and atmosphere 222 Improvisation 231 Improvisation with Events (‘Vorgänge’) 243 Improvisation of metaphoric gestures 246 Brechtian figure and Stanislavskian character 255 Character-subtext and gestus-subtext 267 After the observation: outlook and reception 272 Conclusion 282 Chapter 4: Development of rehearsal methodologies for a hybrid practice Staging narrative playtexts: Black Beast Sorrow (Anja Hilling) and End and Beginning (Roland Schimmelpfennig) 283 Composition Narrated stage directions 288 The narrator as psychopomp between fictional world and audience 292 5 Subtext and the character’s self-narration 295 The potentiality of verbalised subtext 303 Rhythm and timing 306 The metaphoric relationship between text and body: probability of moments of heightened potentiality within the overall dramatic development 312 The chorus: intersubjectivity, inbetweenness and the interplay between musical abstraction and psychological concreteness of language 327 Acting Stepping in and out of character 334 Narration as communication with the audience 347 Conclusion: a new hybridity? 353 Bibliography 358 6 Introduction This thesis was born of a desire to address an imbalance. Contemporary British plays have consistently enjoyed significant success in German-speaking countries, from stagings of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (German premiere 1957, Austrian premiere 1958) to Edward Bond (especially Peter Stein’s 1967 staging of Saved) and Howard Barker (repeatedly staged by Theater m.b.h. in Vienna in the Nineties). During the Nineties, the impact of British playwriting was particularly visible when the German municipal theatres started to develop “ein enges Netz der Autorenförderung nach englischem Vorbild” [a close-knit network for supporting playwrights after the British example] (Berger 2008). Thomas Ostermeier’s productions of Sarah Kane, David Harrower and Mark Ravenhill at the Baracke of the Deutsches Theater played a particularly important role in the increased production and reception of British playwrights in German-speaking countries. The popularity of these playwrights has endured until today, and they have been joined by Simon Stephens (recently selected again ‘Foreign playwright of the year’ by theatre magazine Theater heute, with his play Three Kingdoms also winning in the category ‘Best Play’), Dennis Kelly and others in municipal theatres across the country. Sadly, the reverse is not the case. There have been some productions of contemporary German-language playwrights, most notably Marius von Mayenburg’s Fireface [Feuergesicht] (Royal Court 2000), The Ugly One [Der Häßliche] (Royal Court 2007), The Stone [Der Stein] (Royal Court 2009), Dea Loher’s Innocence [Unschuld] (Arcola Theatre 2010), Tattoo [Tätowierung] (Tristan Bates Theatre 2010), and Land Without Words 7 [Land ohne Worte] (Theatre 503 2009), Lukas Bärfuss’ The Sexual Neuroses of our Parents [Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern] (Gate Theatre 2007), Anja Hilling’s Sense [Sinn] (Southwark Playhouse 2009), and Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Night [Arabische Nacht] (Soho Theatre 2002), Push Up [German title indentical] (Royal Court 2002), The Woman Before [Die Frau von früher] (Royal Court 2005), or The Golden Dragon [Der goldene Drache] (Actors Touring Company and Drum Theatre Plymouth, in association with the Arcola Theatre, 2011). However, these have mostly been isolated incidences, often realised by smaller theatres or companies with a specific interest in European theatre. More importantly, there was a noticeable tendency to stage only those plays that could comfortably be slotted into a still largely realistic theatrical culture. Exceptions seemed to prove the rule: the single staging of Jelinek’s work before 2012, Services or They All Do It [Raststätte oder Sie machens alle] (Gate Theatre 1996) was roundly dismissed as a failure by reviewers. I was interested to investigate the reasons for the continuing unpopularity of contemporary and formally experimental German-language plays and to address, if possible, approaches that could open up the British theatrical culture to these texts. In particular, I wanted to draw attention