Comrade Shakespeare: Deutsche Bank is playing along

The creation of Heiner Müller’s “Hamlet/Machine” at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, the double production of his own play “The Hamlet Machine” and Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, is one of the most exciting episodes in recent German theater history. The visual artist Erich Wonder created the stage, Ulrich bother played the Danish Prince, Margarita Broich played Ophelia. The premiere was celebrated in March 1990. The rehearsal period began in the eventful autumn in the divided but yet permeable city of Berlin.

Contemporary history has written itself into this drama about an intellectual in a state that has become putrid. The Alexanderplatz demonstration on November 4th ’89 was not least made up of DT artists. Honecker had recently resigned, the wall was opened and shortly before the premiere date the People’s Chamber was elected for the last time. A deeply democratic interlude. And yet: helplessness on stage, helplessness on the streets.

In one of his witty conversations with Alexander Kluge, Heiner Müller himself provides interpretation help for his stage spectacle. The question for every production of “Hamlet” is: Who is Fortinbras? Who can be this aggressive and yet subtle Norwegian who brings down the eternal procrastinator, the always self-absorbed Hamlet? In Müller, the ghost that initially appears is Stalin’s dead father. Fortinbras, this “bankruptcy administrator,” goes by the name: Deutsche Bank.

According to Müller, one was allowed to witness the “adoption of the Hamlet principle in favor of the free market economy.” This is as clever as it is bold. An introduction to Müller’s thinking, to German-German reality, and to successful theater work is concentrated in an anecdote.

These days, 35 years later, I read that Deutsche Bank in the financial metropolis of London is running a program called “Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank” at the Globe Theater – a museum cemetery that is intended to provide a historic reminder of what was once a very lively art . A little of the dirty money flows into culture, but the institute’s emblem is emblazoned everywhere.

What boring times we live in! Today, the representatives of Deutsche Bank sit on the floor and enjoy performances presented by the children of bank employees or their shareholders and paid for by them. You would have to have the satiated one – a nice old dream! – understand how to cope with art.

This year the Kreditanstalt is supporting a “Macbeth” production. Maybe we should – Master Brecht bless him! – Consult Heiner Müller, who translates the drama for us into the present? It is more than clear that Deutsche Bank has its role here too: as Lady Macbeth, who craves endless power, regardless of losses, and knows how to send others forward for it. The audience knows that the trail of blood does not lead to her alone, but also to her husband. Is the military leader’s name Pistorius? Is the unscrupulous whore of capital called Merz? Whatever the case, the drama doesn’t end well.