Comrade Shakespeare – looking for

Heinar Kipphardt is the name of one of these playwrights who are in forgetting to be forgotten today. At first he worked in East Berlin at the Deutsches Theater and could not be happy there because of his free spirit and soon tried to gain a foothold in the Federal Republic, where he tackled for the same reasons. In 1952 he wrote a remarkable piece. “Shakespeare urgently wanted” it says. It was a veritable public success, one of the highlights of a new drama in the post -war Germany and has long since been no longer found on the game plans.

The subject of this comedy is quickly outlined: Amadeus Färbel works as a dramaturge at a small city theater in the GDR that has just been baptized and loves the theater. Which is quite a disadvantage. He feels particularly committed to promoting contemporary drama. With the awkward attempts by the would -be party poets, he has to deal with the same way as with the opportunism of Mr. Director.

Nevertheless, someone has to be found, so that is certain, which is at least half as talented as Shakespeare. So a lot would have been won. He tries to get rid of the less talented writer again and also pushes against his own will in front of the head, whom he is the only one. Now it is important to find the rejected author – and incidentally to win over the beloved Miss from the secretariat and get rid of the director.

Genosse Shakespeare

As you like it: Every two weeks, Erik Zielke writes about great tragedies, political lubricating theater and the fools from the past and present. He finds inspiration from his comrade from Stratford-Upon-Avon.

You can find all columns here.

But does not necessarily have to start such a piece of dust? Don’t the king dramas of the comrade Shakespeare tell us infinitely more than Kipphardt’s tips against the party bureaucracy of a lost state? What do us go to us that we endure in eternal capitalism, the cultural -political ailments of a socialism under construction?

It’s not that simple. When the secretary spoke: »At 2 a.m., BGL session is over the Chemnitz resolutions …- at half past two is production advice on the Zwickau plan …- at five session of the Stanislawskizkielkel, the circle for cooperation with the mass organizations, the circle for control of the organized work control …- At six o’clock there is a session of the coordination committee of the seminar and circle work, and for tonight, and for evening Two concert tickets for you at the cash register «, then you already suspect something. The daily program has other points in our times that – suspicious enough! – All and all unidologically. But more violently than it was the case 70 years ago, the drama profession has only developed into another position in the field of project management.

The stages are not trying to make it more right today, but adequacy has remained fashionable on the theaters. And when Färbel calls his director: “If you are looking for a dramaturge: take a pastor!” It is not difficult to pull the sheet to the persistent preaching tone, which not only sounds from the stages occasionally.

After all, the negotiated problem remains acute: Shakespeare, still urgently wanted. No, it has even gotten bigger. When Kipphardt’s play was premiered at the Deutsches Theater in 1953, Brecht was still a guest at this house with his Berlin Ensemble. In those 50s, Peter Hacks and Heiner Müller wrote their first dramas. The present seems poor. Heinar Kipphardt was perhaps not half a Shakespeare. But he probably brings it to a third. In other words, he definitely belongs to the stage.

Heinar Kipphardt: Shakespeare urgently wanted and other plays. Rowohlt, 346 p., Br., 6.50 €.