Documentary Theatre Peter Weiss and Die Ermittlung Alleinvertretungsanspruch

Documentary Theatre Peter Weiss and Die Ermittlung

Alleinvertretungsanspruch • Claim to exclusive representation of the whole of Germany by various CDU governments, 1949 -69. Refusal to acknowledge the existence of the GDR.

Secondary anti-Semitism • Hatred/rejection of Jews not because of anti-Semitic prejudice but because of their status as living reminders of the Holocaust. • “The Germans are not going to forgive us for Auschwitz. " Zwi Rix, Israeli psychoanalyst

Peter Weiss, writer and painter (1916 -82)

Peter Weiss • born 1916, father Hungarian Jewish textile factory owner who converted to Catholicism, mother a Swiss actress. • 1935 family emigrates to England • 1936 -38 studies at academy of art in Prague • 1938 emigration to Switzerland after Nazi troops occupy parts of Czechoslovakia

• 1939 emigration to Sweden where he lives until his death • 19. Oct 1965 simultaneous opening of Die Ermittlung in West and East Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Essen, Dresden, Potsdam, Halle, Leipzig and other cities. • Peter Weiss dies May 10, 1982

Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem, 1961

The participants of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial visit Auschwitz

• Rolf Hochhuth (1931 -) Der Stellvetreter (1963)

Poster for Rolf Hochhuth’s Der Stellvertreter, 1966

• Peter Weiss (1916 -1982) Die Ermittlung (1965)

• Heinar Kipphardt (1922 -1982) In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964) Bruder Eichmann (1983)

Erwin Piscator before 1930

Bertolt Brecht, 1927

Naturalist Theatre • Anton Chekhov (R, 1860 -1904) • Henrik Ibsen (N, 1828 -1906) • August Strindberg (S, 18481912) • Gerhart Hauptmann (G, 1862 -1946)

First Stockholm production of Strindberg’s 1988 play Miss Julie, 1906

Piscator, Stage for Ernst Toller’s Hoppla, wir leben, 1927

Naturalism vs. Brecht’s stage • Interior • Characters are determined by their social background and dominated by their past • Focuses on individuals • Actor ‘becomes’ character: complete identification • Illusionistic • Plot (what? ) • Open stage, exterior • Characters are changeable • Focuses on political questions • Actor ‘presents’ character • Anti-Illusionistic (‘alienation effect’, breaking of identification) • Breaks with illusion • Process (how? )

Brecht, Dreigroschenoper, 1928

Brecht, Dreigroschenoper

Brecht, The good Person of Sezuan, Spanish Production, 1999

Brecht’s ‘epic’ theatre • Verfremdungseffekte (‘De. Familiarisation’) • Montage principle • Self-reflexive • Self-commenting • No ‘fourth wall’ • The ‘Showing of showing’ • Didactic purpose

Brecht’s Theatre • No empathy, no identification with character on stage • Analysis of emotions • Audience is not ‘immersed’ in events on stage • Audience judges characters on stage • Audience judges situation on stage • ‘Glotzt nicht so romantisch!’

‘Das dokumentarische Theater ist parteilich’ Peter Weiss, Notitzen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968

Peter Weiss, Notitzen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968 • ‘Das dokumentarische Theater ist ein Theater der Berichterstattung, Protokolle, Akten, Briefe, statistische Tabellen etc. ’ • ‘Auswahl, die sich auf ein bestimmtes, zumeist soziales oder politisches Thema konzentriert’. • Montage

Peter Weiss, Notizen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968 Documentary theatre is critique of • ‘Verschleierung’, (lit. veiling of reality) • ‘Wirklichkeitsfälschung’ • ‘Lügen’ • of public media – i. e. public media hide their relation to political power and interest groups – pretend to be ‘neutral’

Peter Weiss • ‘Meine Ortschaft’, essay written after visit to Auschwitz, 1964 • ‘Although I did not experience anything here, it remains a place for which I was destined and from which I escaped. ’

Peter Weiss, ‘Meine Ortschaft’ • ‘I came here out of free will. I was not unloaded from a train. I was not driven into this area with clubs. [. . . ] A living person has arrived and that which happened here makes itself unaccessible to him. ’

Die Ermittlung, Akademie der Künste, East Berlin, 19 Oct, 1965

Die Ermittlung, University of Cologne, Nov/Dec 2002

Peter Weiss, Die Ermittlung • ‘Bei der Aufführung dieses Dramas soll nicht der Versuch unternommen werden, den Gerichtshof […] zu rekonstruieren. Eine solche Rekonstruktion erscheint dem Schreiber des Dramas ebenso unmöglich, wie es die Darstellung des Lagers auf der Bühne wäre. ’

The victims’ experience • Absolute alterity – being designated as the totally ‘other’ of humanity (Jews as ‘vermin’ etc) • Absolute heteronomy – literally: being defined by someone else, opposite of autonomy. German: Fremdbestimmung: Göring: ‘Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich’ • Thus marked, being determined for extinction • Jean Améry: Nazi racial laws are a ‘death sentence’ (in: At the mind’s limits)

Peter Weiss, Die Ermittlung • Subtitle: Ein Oratorium in 11 Gesängen • Look up ’oratorio’ (musical encyclopaedia or wikipedia) • Look up Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Commedia (e. g. wikipedia)