Benny Claessens and a lot of spirit on the Burgtheater stage
Photo: Lalo Jodlbauer
And now everyone together: There is a lot of choral activity at the Vienna Burgtheater for the opening of the new directorship. Not as powerful as Einar Schleef’s back then, more delicate. In “Hamlet” there are five Danish princes scurrying across the stage, in “Orlando” there are even seven title characters who become the title heroine overnight. And in “Johann Holtrop,” brought from Cologne by the new artistic director Stefan Bachmann, a lot of things are said together and in unison. Is this a new style at the largest of the Austrian spoken theaters? Is the time of great individual actors finally over?
On stage and behind it, it looks like there is a new cohesion that was probably missing under Bachmann’s predecessor. As a first team building measure, the manager’s office was converted into a staff room, including use of the balcony with a view of the Ringstrasse. After “Hamlet,” free drinks were even offered at the premiere celebration, something that, according to consistent reports, had never before existed in these venerable halls. Even the program booklets are friendly and very service-oriented; they are flattering because the reading effort is reduced to a minimum.
According to Heiner Müller (“Ten Germans are of course dumber than five”), more does not necessarily mean better. So what do five Hamlets or seven Orlandos tell us? The individual becomes a dividual, something divisible instead of indivisible. This was discussed under the heading “capitalism and schizophrenia” in French philosophy in the 1980s; schizoanalysis was very fashionable. Since then, the splitting of stage heroes has been seen more often in the theater, sometimes more and sometimes less motivated by content. It’s always suitable for pretty scenic ideas.
In Karin Henkel’s “Hamlet” there is not only a method to madness, but also to reproduction. Katrin Brack sets not one stage, but three, in front of the background covered with colorful cardboard clouds. The spirit of the father? It’s a whole crowd from the past who, with their sheets, look like Otfried Preußler’s little ghost. “Who am I and if so, how many?” is the new “to be or not to be”, the subject’s radical doubt about its own substance. The roles change because, even in our present, some role expectations are becoming fluid – and others are not.
What the vengeful hesitant prince gives the troupe of actors for the “Mousetrap” is expanded to cover the entire play. Instead of theater within the theater, there is now theater about theater, everything is turned self-reflexively. “We can also do choral music,” it sounds from the stage. Of course you already knew it, but there are still laughs. You celebrate the diversity of forms of theater and also a little bit of yourself. At the end you almost forget the plot, which you only get summarized. All dead, but not because of nuclear war or natural disaster. Anyway. The rest is silence, says a child.
In “Orlando” at the Academy Theater, based on the novel by Virginia Woolf, there is a brief silence at the end, a moment of perplexity after a journey through eras and genders, which Therese Willstedt stages in front of a plastic-covered and magnificently illuminated semicircle. Here, too, the dissolution of role expectations is taken up at the beginning; everyone plays everyone and for everyone. Multiple personalities as theater teamwork. The images here go further than what they could convey, so after all the beautiful effort there remains a touch of plain insignificance.
“The art of remaining many” is a slogan that is currently being used in theater circles to promote such great things as art, freedom and democracy. It seems that the message has also been heard in Vienna and is bringing the art of the many to the stage as a choir. With a view to the National Council elections at the end of September, from which the FPÖ could emerge as the winner, the device can also be read as an attempt to make a political statement that opposes standardization and clarification. You could also say: “All together” instead of “It’s not enough for everyone.”
Next performances: September 11th, 28th and October 11th
www.burgtheater.at
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