Comrade Shakespeare – no tender thing

I recently learned that there is a “Leipzig Internet newspaper” in the vastness of the online universe. And on this medium, a German teacher who had visited a staging of the drama of Leipzig with his school class – it was »Romeo and Julia« on the direction of Pia Richter – sent a letter to the editor. The “Leipziger Internet newspaper” has decided to make this document accessible to the network public.

To me, who is hard with stage performances to go to the country, it is strange to defend a staging that I did not see myself two and a half years ago. But a few contradictions to the reactionary art image with which students of a ninth grade are apparently (superior) to be harassed, they seem appropriate.

The teacher was “hard disappointed” – and therefore proves that even studying German studies does not necessarily have to lead to linguistic accuracy. The expressive looks of his students were also disappointed, sometimes angry. Why? You would have hoped for a “beautiful Julia”. “But today she had a beard, today the men wore clothes,” says the teacher. But who tells him that the Shakespeare era theater only knew male actors?

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.

With the ironic wink widespread among educators, he states: “Fortunately, the students who only read the work at school learned three new faecal words.” However, everyone knows that 15-year-old swear words do not learn in theater, but the theater the swear words from the 15-year-olds. The fact that Shakespeare dominated not only the high tone, but also the most powerful language. Have fun with the uncensored reading under the teacher desk!

“› Romeo and Julia ‹belongs to the pattern of classic literature, which is repeatedly re -played, played and staged,« we find out. You already suspect what he means. Alone, the right words don’t want to find him.

But the lawsuit is not yet over: “The actors change roles and their genders, quite normal, and that every minute.” So it is: quite normal. The thing is called – theater.

Finally, he starts with the very big lament: »Classic works are destroyed because we do not let them be classic, but the longing for classic productions is great: teachers, students, adults long for a balcony, for medieval clothes and their language. We want to go to the Verona of the 16th century and not to the Gossen of 2025. «Shakespeare’s Globe, located between the brothels of London, was quite closer to the Gossen from 2025 than the Verona of the 16th Century. What the letter writer is longing for is probably a costum theater from the 1950s, recorded for the leading medium of the teacher room, television.

He contrasts the classical theater described in this way: »Modern pieces should take up modern topics. Authors are supposed to write about their today’s topics such as gender, gender change, homosexuality, war and hatred. ”All of the topics on which Shakespeare has processed. What do we learn from it? The player from Stratford was perhaps the first author of modernity.

“Is it nice a tender thing? It is too rough, / too wild, too raging; And it stabs like Dorn, ”says the“ tragedy of Romeo and Julia ”, transferred from the old Schlegel. So she is love. But, it seems to me that the eager letter letter will probably not be a lover of the performing arts and the comrade Shakespeare.