Background

There must be something to the thesis that the theatre is a place where society reflects upon itself. Thus, at the end of a long winter and at the half-way point of the 2004/05 season, the German stage has worked its way through a series of weighty issues: the recent German fear of losing one's economic and social position has been addressed in new productions of Gerhart Hauptmann's social dramas and in plays about the unemployed by Fritz Kater, Marius von Mayenburg and Volker Braun. The question about how much freedom the West should sacrifice for the sake of its security has been discussed by means of Goethe's Egmont, and Fundamentalism by means of Schiller's indestructible Joan of Arc. And Lukas Bärfuss's saint's legend, Der Bus (i.e., The Bus), is as suited as The Bible or The Ten Commandments when it comes to treating the gathering strength of religion even in secular societies.

Not that the theatre has an aesthetically and analytically satisfactory solution ready for every conflict. But it is, the obligatory Schiller Year notwithstanding, a good deal more than an institution for the gentle care of the national dramatic inheritance. Not even in the history-obsessed 19^th century was it that, for both regional princes and municipal citizenry desired to see themselves represented by and reflected in their own theatre. For all that, it was then that originated the system of roughly 150 municipal and state theatres, now subsidised by millions of Euro, to which its local publics are indebted for the proud repertoire of classical, modern and contemporary plays – and German theatre for its most splendid troupes of actors (such as, at present, that of the Hamburg Thalia Theatre, the Munich Kammerspiele, and above all the Berlin Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, which is in a fair way to becoming a legend in its own time).

A new generation

The German-language state and municipal theatre is diverse – and more dynamic than its reputation would have it. The pressure to economise felt by the municipalities has made many theatres inventive. At the big and famous houses, too, the structures have in recent years been modernised and thus better tuned to economic realities. Ever more state and municipal theatres have in the meantime latched into a network of co-productions such as was already customary among the leading performance sites of the independent scene.

The great directors of the seventies and eighties like Peter Zadek and Claus Peymann, and the 'father figures' of today like Christoph Marthaler and Frank Castorf, have now been followed by a new generation represented by Armin Petras, Thomas Ostermeier, Michael Thalheimer and Stephan Kimmig. Directors like Nicolas Stemann, Sebastian Baumgarten, Christiane Pohle and Sebastian Nübling, director-authors like René Pollesch and teams like the 'Rimini Protokoll' or Daniela Kranz/Jenke Nordalm, first came from the independent scene (independent groups and theatres which have no seasonal programme but perform plays as long as there is a demand and which are sponsored in the form of projects) and work today in both areas. Not least, this generation has made elements of conceptual art and the collective development of productions respectable in state and municipal theatres: they dramatise films and novels, and bring to branch stages projects in which video cameras and headphones are assigned more importance than the actors.

Junctions of cultural life

Extensive support for authors contributes to the literary theatre's not becoming dusty. Competitions like the Mülheim Stücke Festival (i.e., Plays Festival) and the Berlin Stückemarkt (i.e., Plays Market), workshops and authors' days as in Hamburg, Munich and Heidelberg, demand and encourage the production of contemporary theatre texts. Not least and in spite of all language barriers, top-calibre directors from other countries work repeatedly in the German theatre. Following Robert Wilson and Dimiter Gotscheff, it is today Johan Simons and Alice Zandwijk from Holland, Luk Perceval and Alain Platel from Belgium, Krzysztof Warlikowski from Poland and Alvis Hermanis from Lithuania who have been tied to varying theatres through individual projects. The trigger for such co-operations is often international festivals like Theater der Welt (i.e., Theatre of the World, this year in Stuttgart), Theaterformen (i.e., Theatre Forms, up to now in Braunschweig/Hanover), and Neue Stücke aus Europa (i.e., New Plays from Europe, in Wiesbaden).

If the so-called 'provincial' theatres seldom determine what will be regarded throughout the Republic as the theatrical dernier cri, they do frequently form a junction of cultural life in their regions. They integrate pensioner and school class in cultural activities, strengthen the self-confidence of a city, and offer their public a forum. In big cities, in turn, theatre projects in which, for instance, immigrants, homeless and handicapped persons, or prisoners take part as actors, perform this work of social integration beyond the merely artistic level. And they all help keep civic theatre curious and open, expose it to the currents of the times and prevent it from becoming absorbed in the contemplation of its navel.