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An unusual premiere: The play Der durch das Tal geht by Tankred Dorst and Ursula Ehler had its first performance in Hanoi. In an interview, the writers spoke about human morals, Vietnam and Wagner.

Thirty-five years ago, Germany and Vietnam resumed diplomatic relations. Now, the Year of Germany came to an end in Vietnam, for which the Goethe-Institut organized over one hundred events. The finale was a cultural sensation: the premiere of the play Der durch das Tal geht at the Hanoi Opera House. In the libretto, the eminent playwright Tankred Dorst deals with Parzival, Pierre Oser wrote the music and the director is Beverly Blankenship, who caused a sensation in Dortmund with her Don Giovanni. It was an exchange of German and Vietnamese culture at many levels: an international production team meets with over 100 Vietnamese artists; the play is sung in German and spoken in Vietnamese and combines dance, music and theatre. Nadine Albach met Tankred Dorst and his co-writer and wife Ursula Ehler in Hanoi.

You have been occupied with the Percival story for a long time. What is it that fascinates you about it?

Dorst: It’s a long story. Percival was already a character when I wrote Merlin oder Das wüste Land. It was then that I had the desire to see the character again, new and independent. In a joint play with Robert Wilson then the Parzival project resulted at the Thalia Theater Hamburg.

Ehler: From the very beginning it was a very open project.

And the basis for the play “Der durch das Tal geht”, which is now celebrating its premiere?

Dorst: Yes. But since you asked about my fascination: While writing, my perspective was that it is about someone from the backwoods becoming a human. Everything that happens, happens for him for the first time. He first has to learn to sit on a chair and not on the table, to not shout but speak quietly – and also what social rules apply. I found this very important theatrically: Percival knows nothing about life and death; he is a cruel loner.



Ehler: Of innocent cruelty, like a child gutting its teddy bear.

Does becoming human for you mean becoming an adult?

Dorst: Well, even among adults there is a group of people who remain childlike; who have a childish angle. For artists, it is the bed from which they pick flowers.

From the Percival legend, we are mainly familiar with the grail story, but you tell of his youth…

Dorst: As a writer, you don’t want to do what everyone’s already done. Moreover, the grail is a big subject that would have grown too big for this type of play.

Ehler: And it’s so strongly used by Wagner.

Dorst: It was less about religious themes for me than about entering the world to find awareness.

What importance did it have for you that the play is being premiered in Vietnam?

Dorst: None while writing. I’ve written over 40 plays and always under the assumption that I am not familiar with the audience. I want to do my work well for my own sensitivities. I’ve never written for a specific audience. If a writer wants to be good, he has to produce his own world. Of course, I am also a child of my times; the present is part of my history. For me, Percival is a present-day story of a person in the present who asks that old human question: Who am I?

Ehler: The play is a little like a message in a bottle – you don’t know who will open it.

Percival is both a hunter and the hunted. Is that symbolic of modern humanity for you?

Ehler: Yes, the question of whether Percival is a victim or a perpetrator touches on the core of the play.

Dorst: The victim is also a perpetrator – and vice versa.

Ehler: Percival is an extremely active character; he wants to clear his own pathway and downright lashes about himself to do so.

And what do you think of how it transfers to Vietnam?

Dorst: Naturally, the performance as it is now is greatly influenced by the Vietnamese feeling for art, but I don’t perceive this as a problem. The story does not take place in a realistic environment in the narrower sense.

Ehler: We are curious and would be delighted if it also works in another culture.

Dorst: Of course, interest has to be aroused here in the character. But, I think the way it is being produced with actors, dancers and singers is very good. They come up with lots of good ideas.

Isn’t it hard to give up control over a play?

Dorst: It’s certainly always different than you imagined it would be, but ultimately the author and director can never have the same vision of its realization. But, as long as the play is not destroyed, I find it legitimate. However, I have directed my plays myself a few times when I had very fixed ideas – so that I could see my play performed the way I imagined it at least once.

Beverly Blankenship has divided up the character; Percival, for instance, is played both by a dancer and an actor.

Dorst: I think that can be done. No human is merely one person, but has elements of mother, father, family in themselves. Every person is somehow composed of different attributes and characteristic traits.

Ehler: It also suits the Asian theatre tradition well, where so much more is expressed through movement. You can portray far more with dance and music.

Even if you left out the grail story – did Wagner play a role?

Dorst: Well, actually Siegfried was always my favourite character, because he’s not a simple hero, but a complicated personality. The same applies to Percival: He is a blind doer, who heads off to gradually learn about life and death.

So, are you convinced that humans are basically evil?

Dorst: I think humans are cruel.

Ehlert: They are not intrinsically good.

Dorst: Without ethical laws we would all kill each other – and we have to fight that any way we can. But we mustn’t deny it. For me, that is the art of theatre: to not conceal anything. We need to know what life is like, otherwise why bother writing? When I began writing plays, people generally demanded that theatre should be ideological, preferably leftist.

And you reject that?

Dorst: Yes, ideology has cost us so many lives. That is, of course, particularly interesting in Vietnam, which is still under a communist government.

Ehler: We’re also very curious to see how the people here react, for instance, to the aggression inside Percival – and to the negative father figure

In a country where family is everything, the mere fact that Percival leaves his family is already volatile…

Ehler: Yes, we certainly would like to know what the people here think of it, but it’s doubtful we will find that out.

Dorst: The more so since at first glance you don’t have the feeling you are in a communist country. It seems more like aspiring capitalism: Everyone here is selling something on the streets. It’s like a carnival.