Professions and Education

The recession is doing the rounds in Germany and around the world, the Neue Markt has collapsed in turmoil, a great deal of money has disappeared into thin air and we are hearing complaints from the business community - it seems as if everything were in ruins.

Is this really so? Let us turn our attention to a one-person business. This person must have sipped a magic potion whose formula cannot cure our microchip or car manufacturers. We are talking about a sought-after person who is constantly presenting texts, rushing from one workshop, festival or premiere to the next; we are talking about a ray of hope in German productivity; we are talking about the playwright.

Why is it that so many young people in particular think they should write for such an old medium? Are they driven by intrepidity, by unsuspectingness, or by some kind of vague hope? A desire to get rich is certainly not the motive. The dramatist is still at the beginning of the value chain, at the lower end of the money-making hierarchy. Even the pleasure of seeing one's own work acted out on stage cannot be the reason, because daring ideas by stage-directors only serve to increase the author's suffering. It is a shock for many authors, at any rate, to suddenly see the protagonists they have come to know and love assuming a definite form on the stage.

I remember an interview with a playwright after a dress rehearsal which took place outdoors because feelings had run so high: "That should not be shown. That is not my play anymore."/"But hardly a line was left out."/"I know."/"Nothing was added and no extra text was combined with your own."/"I know."/"And the stage-director's concept doesn't distort your text."/"Yeah, yeah, I know, but I don't like the actors." The applause after the premiere the next day set everything to rights.

Could it be that the boom was brought about by premiere-mad directors, as dramatist Moritz Rinke called them? Or, as Frauke Meyer-Gosau suspects in her affectionate Theater-Heute article entitled Wir wollen doch nur das Beste! (i.e., We only want the best!), is it the uncles and aunts? By whom she means all those people, including herself, who make efforts to promote young talent by organising readings, workshops, theme nights and play fairs. But who really are the mothers and fathers of this success?

Scenic Writing at university

Let us let the cat out of the bag: We are not one hundred per cent sure either. So much is for sure: For a number of years, there has been fruit to harvest which has ripened mainly because writing is being taught, and authenticity is being sought in the theatre. In the golden age of the barracks at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, Thomas Ostermeier made sure that people elsewhere also began to take a look at contemporary drama. That was not fundamentally new, but few important theatre critics went to the barracks. Unconventional young English writers were the first to become the focus of attention, but soon Marius von Mayenburg appeared on the scene with his successful play Feuergesicht, which was premiered here in Germany and then staged all around the world.

But where did Mayenburg come from? He graduated in "Scenic Writing" from the Universität der Künste in Berlin, a course that has been on the programme for more than ten years. It would be difficult to imagine theatre programmes today without the authors it has produced. Dea Loher, Melanie Gieschen, Katharina Guericke, Rebekka Kricheldorf, Andreas Sauter, Bernhard Studlar and David Gieselmann, for example, are all graduates of this "writing school", which is currently directed by Jürgen Hofmann and Oliver Bukowski. Bukowski, himself one of the best-known stage writers of the "middle generation", began to write after the Berlin Wall came down and put on many of his plays with Theater 89 in Berlin, where contemporary texts dominate the programme to this day.

In his case, and in the case of other writers too, a close relationship has developed between the writer and a particular theatre or director. In Oliver Bukowski's case, it was Hans-Joachim Frank and the dramatic advisor Jörg Mihan; in the case of Dea Loher, it was the stage-manager Andreas Kriegenburg and the director Ulrich Khuon; Marius von Mayenburg is still cooperating closely with Thomas Ostermeier. Other writers went straight into the theatres: John von Düffel, Thomas Oberender, Oliver Reese, Roland Schimmelpfennig - they are now working on dramaturgy in renowned theatres and are in turn ensuring that young writers and contemporary texts are given a chance. Thus, we come full circle.

Writers in residence

There are also the so-called "commissioned plays". Theatres did not want to wait for new plays but instead wanted to commission them themselves. Theresia Walser suspected that good times were on the way for stage writers: "At the moment, there is nothing but good news. My colleagues, too, are overjoyed and amazed at all the attention they are suddenly receiving. All of a sudden, commissions for plays are coming thick and fast, they are being showered with gifts, confidence and more gifts!" she exulted in "Theater heute" in 1999. There was even talk of theatres "stocking up" on plays. Today, eight years later, little has changed - thank God. The situation is regarded more soberly, perhaps even with more matter-of-factness. Meanwhile, even smaller theatres have successfully started to enter into commitments with writers - Giessen, Heilbronn and Wilhelmshaven, for example. Others, such as the Theater Rampe in Stuttgart, have taken a radical and courageous line and have set their stakes exclusively on contemporary drama, where plays are not only premiered but many new plays are restaged. They all find their audience and are not put off by the odd flop.

Theatre publishing houses

It should be said with all due modesty at this point, however, that a host of curious and committed theatre publishers have contributed to establishing a modern, contemporary repertoire in the theatres. While one can argue about who "discovered" whom in some cases, it should be beyond dispute that the ongoing cooperation that is common in publishing houses has contributed to the fact that we can now speak of a renaissance in German-language drama.

So the "magic potion" has many cooks, and at the moment they are not spoiling anything. Up-and-coming stage writers will only continue to be successful if the theatres continue to fulfil their duty to foster authors, and do so to a greater extent - by means of premieres, follow-up productions and appropriate fees. Writers need their uncles and aunts!