•
Were you familiar with contemporary German theatre
before being invited/having your work translated there?
• What was
the most interesting part of your experience?
• Were you
surprised by which of your plays was chosen to be
staged in Germany?
• How did
you react to your play being transposed into German,
by the translation, possible adaptations, staged readings
and performances?
• What good
ideas did you “dig up” in Germany for
promoting contemporary playwrights?
• Were you
asked to work with the translator, the dramatist,
the actors or the director?
• How was
your work perceived?
• Do they
still think contemporary French plays are too “wordy”
in Germany?
• Did anyone
make any remarks about a “French identity”
in your plays? Is this notion of “identity”
still a valid one?
• Did your
work in Germany have any effect on the play you’re
currently writing?
Language levels are an issue in translating
Denise Chalem
I attended a staged reading of Dis à ma fille
que je pars en voyage in early 2004 at the Maxim Gorki
Theater in Berlin. Hearing your own work in a language
you don’t understand is a strange experience.
Somehow you feel it inside and can tell instinctively
if the actors’ energy and intentions are appropriate
or forced, or if they’re deviating from the
true meaning. You can also learn a lot from audience
reactions compared to the way a French audience would
react. You feel relieved –happy even–
when they laugh or react in the same places.
I was not particularly surprised by which plays were
chosen to be translated into German. On the other
hand my play La Nuit de cristal, written in 1982 and
awarded the Fondation de la Vocation Prize, has never
been staged in France, but was translated and read
in Germany in 1984 as well as at Ubu Repertory Theatre
in the United States where they found the play quite
moving.
Language levels are an issue in translating. There
is an inevitable loss when dealing with slang or familiar
language, less with more literary writing. Sometimes
people ask questions about my work that seem obvious
to me but pose a problem for the foreign translator
or director. Certain cuts in my plays–where
I would have made other suggestions–have struck
me as inappropriate, taking the text in a different
direction. Generally speaking, the work with the translator
ought to be simpler, more direct. They work alone
too much.
The intense audience discussion was the most enriching
part of my experience in Germany. It is a culture
where they value debate, respect what the playwright
has tried to express, and want to understand his intentions
in detail. I am far from knowing everything about
my characters; and certain questions and interpretations
of the play left me rather puzzled. At times they
seemed to focus a bit too much on the cerebral side
and dissecting everything.
I would have thought working with the actors and director
was crucial. I could have arrived the night before,
but according to them there was no point. I regretted
it somewhat after the performance. There was a real
problem with timing; everything was flat, too realistic
and overstaged, with not enough emphasis on silence,
ellipsis and imagination.
My work gets across well in emotional scenes between
characters, and less well when it involves humour
and reserve.
The Germans find us too “wordy” because
they tend to get tangled up in lines that we wouldn’t
say as intensely. Musical notes don’t all have
the same value.
I don’t believe in the idea of a “French
identity”. There are as many identities as playwrights
in France. A play either moves you or it doesn’t;
and that’s what makes it universal.
Theatre go-betweens need a deep understanding
of the culture and language in both countries
Emmanuel Darley
First, the translation. Working long-distance via
e-mail on a text that has necessarily turned into
a detached object for me, something so personal yet
also foreign. Distant. Working on making it even more
distant in an unknown language you can’t understand.
Having to go over it again, or rather like you never
have before, questioning it, pummelling it until it
gives in. Answering Reinhardt Palm’s questions
about form, meaning and language. This is the unusual
part because the play was written in French, but in
quite wacky French, a private language with elisions,
silences and suspensions that sometimes have to be
explained; and what’s there to say in that case?
There aren’t always answers other than–who
knows?–sinking back into the shrink’s
couch. And once the text has been transposed and rewritten,
despite not being able to understand the language
you try to grasp the re-transcribed rhythm and music.
Is the result plain German or some Germanized Darley
language?
Why this play? Perhaps there’s something intentionally
“universal” in it, the issues of space
and time remaining purposefully open here. Is it really
French, wordy and self-absorbed? Or do we not really
give a damn, the only border being the language? And
once the translation has been launched, what borders
remain? What makes up this or that country’s
specificity, its identity? It’s French in language,
but other than that…?
The French Theatre Office in Berlin has undertaken
a laborious job. I follow the long series of events
once again from a distance, by stops and starts. It
seems rather vague–the relationship between
them and my agent and between them and the theatre.
It’s hard to know, hard to understand or intervene.
It’s a problem of distance and of language,
not of borders. And when it finally happens and you’re
there in Berlin, something seems to be missing in
order to get a full grasp of the inside story. The
main thing is the play and what course it takes. That’s
the main thing–the questions about the plays
and the deep knowledge of the two cultures required
of those ferrying them back and forth, since they
also have to know which ones are likely to find an
audience. Is it the more “universal” work,
or the sufficiently “German” parts of
the play, or again what is most “French”,
spoken in French to appeal to people here?
In this case it’s a different culture, a different
system, different theatres and ways of promoting plays
that are light years from our companies, our national
theatres and our good old debate about private versus
subsidized theatre. Things here seem robust and full
of life, quite rich, teeming with productions of German
and foreign plays, and contemporary playwrights seem
to be truly present; but, who knows, it could be an
illusion, the grass being always greener on the other
side.
Between dramatists and directors, who does what and
who are the true creators? Here again lines are blurred
at the outset, but afterwards there’s the pleasure
of the performance, the inventive staging, and another
reading. Then there’s that language you keep
getting lost in, finding and losing all over again,
meeting up at certain points, forgetting about yourself
and just listening and being amazed at people laughing,
in German. It works here too, in the same places,
but transposed.
Finally, there is the encounter with the audience,
the questions–not too different from the ones
in France, although a strange relationship to the
text comes out in Berlin that is specific to the city.
It’s a new reading that was brought up by the
actors, the dramatist and the director: these two
characters from Pas Bouger, this A who is moving and
this B who is motionless, are like symbols (?) of
East and West Berlin, like the “tourist’s”
image of a pedestrian stoplight with the green man
walking and the red one standing still for such a
long time. Of course I never thought of that while
writing. I was far from that idea when
writing. Everyone sees what he wants, and this collective
vision is a real pleasure which strengthens convictions
and a lasting desire to leave the text open, to leave
it intentionally vague about the place, characters
and period of time. In order to give everyone a chance
to make the text his own, to nurture it and give it
life, beyond questions of language culture or identity.
“The Poetics of Translation”
Claudine Galea
I was surprised when attending readings in German–although
I don’t speak the language–at the common
musicality and intonations that exist on a rhythmic
and sensorial level between German, French and English.
I reacted to the musical qualities expressing similar
emotional states through linguistic differences.
When Les Idiots was translated, I had no contact with
the translator. It was surprising because questions
inevitably arise–issues involving meaning, syntactic,
metric, linguistic, rhythmic and prosodic choices,
slang/familiar/poetic/everyday levels of language,
etc.–requiring a dialogue between the playwright
and the translator. I tried to contact her, but she
didn’t seem interested until she sent me the
finished translation. I asked a translator from the
Maison Antoine Vitez to have a look at it. Laurent
Muhleisen, who knew the French text, read it and pointed
out certain problems and changes. Then Barbara Engelhardt
took over, to my great relief. She went over the translation
and asked me to clarify the meaning and usage of certain
prickly language questions. Coming as it did after
the first layer of work, it felt like being translated
and retranslated, or rather “fixed up”,
“corrected”, “caught on the wing”.
Barbara, whom I met, didn’t deny the added difficulty
in rewriting a text from a first translation. Her
clarity and support were invaluable.
I had the opportunity to work once before with an
American translator and dramatist in London. We confronted
our respective positions (without always agreeing)
on the use of (spoken and written) linguistic systems,
which operate differently from language to language,
from country to country, and from culture to culture.
They can, for example, change the point of view–and
give a different, even opposite, direction to a character–depending
on whether nouns or verbs are stronger in a particular
language, whether repetition is effective or not,
etc.
This perspective is particularly noticeable and acute
in the theatre, where words are spoken and perceived
in an active immediacy, which propels them into an
action, situation or state captured just as it is
being expressed.
Working together on a translation is fascinating because
it evoke the origins of your own language, its habits
and the ways in which thoughts fit together or not
within a language learned–and within the “foreign”
one. Translation is a second sensory experience of
language. Depending on how attentive one is to this
question, the text and style may be transferred into
a different type of thought and scansion, or be reduced,
distorted, diverted, undone. Translation always involves
passing through.
There is a “Poetics of translation” as
Henri Meschonnic says. Like the poetics of writing.
In order to find a language’s exact mood, it
is not unheard of for the playwright to change the
original text, since one language can never be superimposed
on another.
I would prefer this kind of work always–the
effort of testing the exactitude of an intention or
desire in a new form so that it may be recreated in
the new language, rather than neglect, abandonment
and renunciation, which are deadly. A play can be
killed, and the rest of the playwright’s work
along with it. Languages involve birth and death.
Writing means giving birth to talking complexities.
There is a part of the text that is irreducible–in
both meaning and form. An approximate, hasty translation
might kill these essentials, this vital spirit and
organic whole which are immediately perceptible on
stage. Translating means recreating this all over
again.
I am always drawn to cultures and languages that are
totally foreign to me (ones I’ve never learned).
For me, the readings and staging of my work in Germany
was like an invitation to come back. I’d especially
like to go to Berlin. It’s a city that really
interests me, a place where I’d like to stay
a while and write.
The advantages of calculated promotion?
Koffi Kwahulé
I admit, to my great shame, that I used to know nothing
about contemporary German playwrights. Is it because
contacts with these and other contemporary European
playwrights takes place through relatively “official”
channels? The “state-controlled” nature
of these contacts inhibits all feelings of curiosity
in my case. I feel– probably wrongly–as
if I were taking part in an artistic transaction regarding
contractual terms and conditions between institutions
from different countries. On that subject, I have
noticed that very few “officially” translated
German plays ever make it to the stage (this is also
true for translations in the other direction). That
said, I must admit that without such calculated promotion
my knowledge of contemporary German playwrights would
amount to naught. Yet–and here I have only myself
to blame–I have become accustomed to the idea
that these institutions choose what I should be curious
about.
What stands out in my mind from my various visits
to Germany is the German actors, who seem to have
a more forceful presence. I think the German system
of permanent companies, which enables actors to perfect
their craft, has a great deal to do with it. Whereas
a thirty-year-old German actor has already played
ten parts, a French actor is still doing his first
walk-on parts–fortunately, not always. In the
theatre, as elsewhere, the longer the tea steeps the
stronger it gets.
I was truly amazed by the plays the Germans chose
to translate, particularly since my first play to
be translated and staged there was Bintou, in which
the main theme is excision–not really a big
concern for German society in my view. But while attending
the opening of the play directed by Annegret Hahn
at the Thalia Theater in Halle, I realised that her
way of staging it focused mainly on the amputation
of desire for young people who had learned to love
the world reflected in a blade. The fact that all
the actors were white made it possible to expand upon
the issue of excision and open the play up to matters
of concern to all human beings. My other discovery
was what you might call–without the slightest
pejorative connotation–the joy of my exchanges
with the translator, or translators to be more precise,
as Bintou was translated twice in Germany. The first
translation was by Oliver Ess (staged reading at the
Baracke in Berlin, then staged in Halle), the second
one by Johannes Westphalen (staged reading at the
Theater Zerbrochene in Berlin). In discussions I had
with both of them, I had the impression that they
didn’t speak the same German, even though they
were both from Berlin. This double experience helped
me subsequently to “free myself” from
translations, or at least to be less finicky about
them to the extent that a translation is in fact a
form of commentary on a play.
Indeed, contemporary French playwrights are often
perceived in Germany, as in other European countries
and in America, as being too “wordy”,
rhetorical, hovering indulgently over their language
and ignoring dramaturgical issues. If you are at all
familiar with the range of contemporary French playwriting
styles–and I’m deliberately stressing
the plural here–such remarks are obviously exaggerated.
So how can you explain the “short-sightedness”
of these “Foreigners”, albeit in good
faith, with regard to our plays? Perhaps they only
have access to French plays that have been recognized
by institutions. This undoubtedly raises the issue
of “contemporary French taste”, or more
prosaically of the contemporary French vibe, of what
is chosen to be promoted in the name of France. Does
“this” represent all the various flavours,
sounds and fragrances in contemporary French playwriting?
Haven’t we tended to promote a certain kind
of playwriting that has–already!–been
adopted as part of our heritage?
There is a kind of music in Berlin, and it’s
a kind of home for me…
Fabrice Melquiot
I knew little about current German theatre other
than a few directors (Castorf, Ostermeier, Marthaler)
and playwrights (Mayenburg, Goetz, etc).
In Berlin I met Liliane Schaus, whose collaboration
has been invaluable. Liliane Schaus has been a faithful
and committed interlocutor, an assiduous reader, and
a theatre-lover who knows how to communicate her passions.
I could say the same for Andreas Beck at the Burgtheater
in Vienna.
I saw Les Divans in Berlin staged by Michel Dydim–for
which I wrote the monologue L’Actrice empruntée.
I attended a reading of Percolateur Blues in Mainz,
and another one of Le Laveur de visages in Düsseldorf.
I had lunch at the Berliner Ensemble’s canteen;
even coffee tasted good.
Perlino Comment has also been translated.
There is talk of Bouli Miro to be produced during
the next season at the Halle Theatre and of a radio
station doing a broadcast of Le Laveur de visages.
I found the stage direction during the readings pertinent,
and the work on the text precise. The actors did a
good job getting the play across to the audience.
As the German language is quite a mystery to me, I
don’t know what to say about the translations.
I thought they “sounded” good. Not bad
for starters. My German-speaking publisher, L’Arche,
and German actors and directors have all assured me
of the quality of the various translations. I was
able to dialogue with each of the translators, which
was invaluable. Passages were often cut out during
the staged readings; and I accepted them willingly.
But I undoubtedly feel more patently French in Germany
than anywhere else. I’ll say no more.
I was not required to be involved in any particular
way. I accompanied the translating work and participated
in the public discussions. I think people perceived
the clashing ice floes in my writing: the prosaic
next to the poetic, the trivial with the romantic.
At times they even found me funny.
I write to foreign music, creating native music from
that.
When I write to native music, I go far away to write.
So that this life pulse, this outward bound drumbeat
will run through every play.
There is a kind of music in Berlin, and it’s
a kind of home for me.
Later on we’ll see what course it takes.
What’s left to write about–and what could
come of it–is the important thing for me now.
Irredeemable German theatre staging
Véronique Olmi
Although my first theatrical publisher, l’Arche,
was German, I really discovered Thomas Bernhard, Botho
Strauss, Heiner Müller, Elfriede Jelineck, Fassbinder
and Peter Handke through readings and productions
of their work in French theatres–always in translation,
which automatically leaves you with a feeling of loss
or just plain frustration.
Hearing my play in a different voice–hearing
the actors without trying to understand the words,
but rather following the underlying meaning in its
pure embodiment–was a very enriching experience.
Since I don’t speak German, I had to follow
the actors’ mental and physical impulses in
order to keep up with the text. That way I could tell
if their presence was “real”–to
quote an expression used in the Christian tradition.
It’s impossible to cheat, like in silent films
where the actor’s presence alone conveys a feeling.
I can’t proceed as with my plays heard/listened
to in French, where I feel a kind of weird schizophrenia
in being both spectator and critic of my own text,
both inside and outside, wounded and revealed. Hearing
your own text in a language you don’t understand
gives you a new understanding of it, because you grasp
it without going through the narcissistic filter of
your own words. Being knocked off balance can be quite
a motivating force.
One of my play most often staged in Germany is La
Jouissance du scorpion, and I can’t help thinking
they really enjoy this text… about fascism as
an international defect. Numéro Six, my novel
which is a best seller there (but not in France),
speaks of childhood and also of the First World War.
I’ve had the unique reward of often hearing
letters written by my grandfather (a character in
the book) read in German at various conferences–some
of the finest moments in my career as a writer.
German stages seem to me to be filled with great violence.
Certain performances of my plays in German have given
me nightmares. There is something so frontal and irredeemable
in them. It’s very raw.
But people there generally perceive my writing as
violent too. And they always try to find a connection,
a “resemblance”, between the characters
and the playwright. Fortunately, they’ve never
found one!
My collaboration on translations has mainly involved
titles. It’s such a headache that, in order
to avoid having to face it again, I named my last
play Mathilde, banishing all puns, playful constructions
and attempts at humour. But, while Mathilde has been
“sold” to a number of countries, to date
none of the German offers have been satisfying. A
twist of fate!
I am always surprised by the questions that dramatists
ask. I find them either too simplistic or overly complicated;
and in both cases I feel like it’s my fault
when I can’t understand their queries. But I
never “think up” what I write. I hear
it. How can you explain something you hear?
Generally speaking, I arrive after the actors have
already done their work. I feel paralyzed by their
expectations about my opinions and approval, and this
inevitably spoils the performance for me. But when
they really “find” the character, what
a joy to give them a big hug!!!
I tend to be wary of directors who speak too finely
about my plays. Modest, reserved directors, perhaps
even overly protective of their work, are often the
most talented ones. They feel no need to justify themselves.
They just do it.
What really amazed me in Germany was that every theatre
has its own company. There is something compartmentalized
about a multitude of official theatre troupes–like
small-scale versions of the Comédie-Française–that
removes some of the risk-taking element for the actors,
which is kind of a pity. One Land, one city, one theatre,
one troupe. The advantage of course is the breathing
room it provides–impossible in France–of
having your play staged in several theatres at the
same time, and knowing that it won’t be “thrown
away” after being produced, that “openings”
don’t automatically lead to “closings”.
Why should my work in Germany have an effect on what
I’m writing now? That would be terrible. Having
your work staged is enriching, nurturing and rewarding.
But my course remains the same. Naturally.
The advantages of permanent theatre companies
Christophe Pellet
I wasn’t familiar with the theatre scene in
Germany, having only seen two productions there–which
I thought were really good–at the Halle Theater
where Le Garçon giraffe is being staged this
year.
I am as impressed as everyone else by the quality
of German theatre, by the number of important directors,
for instance, and by their efficient institutions.
They have a really strong theatre tradition. Every
region has its own theatre with its own permanent
company of actors who perform in a number of different
productions during the season, similar to the way
the Comédie-Française operates. I was
familiar with several contemporary playwrights from
my generation whose plays are published by l’Arche,
such as Marius von Mayenburg, Dea Loher and Roland
Schimmelpfennig. I feel quite close to their worlds,
to their formalism for instance, even though it is
usually associated with fables, narratives and the
notion of characters, which isn’t necessarily
the case in France. In that sense, German playwriting
is close to the English model.
Regarding translation, the secret lies not so much
in knowledge of one’s own language as in an
aptitude for foreign ones.
I was really struck by go-betweens such as the French
Theatre Office in Berlin, which has done excellent
work finding plays and getting artists connected.
Liliane Schaus was really involved in the production
of my play there. The French Theatre Office initiated
a real partnership with Halle, which will host a French
Theatre Week with readings and staged readings of
plays.
During the work process I didn’t notice any
differences with other countries–not with England
or France at any rate. When people are genuinely passionate
about what they’re doing–which is usually
the case, especially when producing a living playwright’s
work–they get equally involved in it, whatever
the country. I was particularly moved by the German
staging of my play and by director Carlos Manuel’s
really subtle and intelligent reading of it. I think
it’s the production that comes closest to my
world, where the play was staged just as I would have
done it. I was struck by the scenography, by its beauty,
by how well it works and its intelligence in that
area too... as well as by the acting–by the
acting company I should say. Perhaps that’s
what makes the difference with other countries. I
don’t feel that my plays have a French identity.
In London as in Germany, it’s the actors–more
than the staging–who give the play its “identity”.
And the play then goes beyond borders; the “French
town” evoked early in the play becomes a German
one, and the European capital later on in the text
becomes the capital of whatever country the play is
being performed in. With respect to Germany, people
are very reserved there, so I don’t really know
what they thought of the play. I was struck by the
professionalism of their theatre critics. Through
the direct contact I had with Germans, a diffuse specificity
emerged which changed my perception of the performances,
and thus of the play. This strange phenomenon of appropriating
another world is what I find so moving when my work
is produced abroad. One young actor in Germany reacted
by saying how sorry he was to express certain feelings
explored in my play in German. He felt that only the
French language could get close enough to them, as
if the German language had a tendency to distance
itself from lightness. Undoubtedly this language of
great poets and thinkers (Hölderlin, Schopenhauer,
etc.) is imbued with “the metaphysics of love
and death” and the weight of its own history
too.
Paradoxical stubbornness, which ends up producing
“results”
Noëlle Renaude
I was already familiar with contemporary German theatre
before being invited to Germany and having my work
translated. I found specific, recognizable dramaturgical
customs there, whereby themes and meaning were overvalued
and little interest was shown in implied content or
questions of form.
Several of my plays have been selected to be published,
performed and broadcast in Germany. I just finished
answering a questionnaire about French-Spanish relations,
and what amazes me is that, no matter what the country,
the same plays are always translated and published.
I think there are institutions in France that select
plays to be promoted in other countries with certain–in
my opinion, not necessarily accurate–ideas about
what will “appeal” to people abroad.
I have five German translators. Only two of them have
felt the need to contact me with questions. Although
my German isn’t great, I am capable of working
with a translator. Yet, despite our epistolary exchanges
involving suggestions and counter-suggestions, I’ve
noticed the text getting duller, which is only natural
(it’s true in all languages), and showing exaggerated
concern over meaning but carelessness about sound
(indifference regarding punctuation), etc.
My plays “broke in” slowly and with difficulty
in Germany. People there didn’t seem very interested
in a certain type of “French” playwriting
(to be direct, the kind that doesn’t correspond
to the dominant Anglo-Saxon model followed in England,
the United States and Scandinavia). This is not the
case for Spain and certain Eastern European countries.
Despite their difficulty in appreciating such plays,
the Germans are stubbornly persistent in getting them
onto German stages one way or another. They decided
that there was no audience for such work and, paradoxically,
their stubbornness ended up producing results. Indeed,
things have opened up and there are some noticeable
changes in dramaturgical ideology. For instance, I’ve
just finished giving a workshop on my plays in the
directing department of the Ernst Bush Schule with
Robert Cantarella, who noticed a great difference
in the students’ attitude about this kind of
playwriting–considered “difficult”
in Germany (such as Vinaver, Lagarce, Minyana, Gabily,
myself, etc.) You encounter fewer patent refusals,
more questions and signs of interest.
I have no idea where this stubbornness comes from.
The work undertaken by the French Theatre Office in
Berlin probably has something to do with it. In my
case what “increased” –rather than
renewed–interest in my plays was the reception
given the French production of Madame Ka at the Bonn
Biennial. The play had to be staged à la française
before my German agent and other foreign agents decided
to “promote” my plays in Germany. But
according to the director staging Madame Ka in Kassel,
the battle isn’t over yet.
Another German specificity is the vitality of their
radio broadcasts. Several of my plays have long-standing
directors, producers and listeners (and rebroadcasts
are common).
In my view, the best way to promote contemporary playwriting
in Germany and elsewhere is through training, such
as in schools like BAT where Cantarella taught, and
by highlighting these workshops, supporting them,
expanding them, and establishing connections between
German and French schools (even though, unfortunately,
this kind of work can only be done with plays that
have already been translated).
In Germany, as in France, connections are made and
lost. In the case of the BAT workshop, it’s
clear that it should be pursued for another year in
order to keep alive this new interest in (or questions
about) certain kinds of playwriting that have been
little appreciated or read until now.
As for the French institutions, I’m sure they
could take more risks by proposing a playwright’s
most characteristic work abroad rather than promoting
plays that are likely to appeal to “local”
tastes (I find it very disturbing, for instance, that
Ma Solange has never been translated into any language,
whereas Blanche, Aurore, Céleste is my most
successful play all over the world.)
My plays have been given a varied reception in Germany.
For Ostermeier, for example, my writing is outside
the box because it doesn’t focus on plot, it’s
sterile, etc. For others, it’s hard to grasp,
or even funny. In fact, it’s a bit like in France.
Contemporary French plays have often been called “wordy”.
That isn’t as true nowadays, and “wordy”
isn’t really the right word anyway; it more
like “fussy”. Of course it doesn’t
concern all French theatre–only the kind that
doesn’t correspond to the norms I mentioned
earlier.
The idea of a “French identity” is pejorative.
But you can’t incriminate the Germans (or anyone
else) for not being interested in our specificity.
I think there’s a kind of systematic devaluation
of French art that actually comes from within France.
It’s no secret that our constant self-flagellation
has obvious repercussions abroad. Why should they
love your work elsewhere when they love it so sparingly
at home. Just walk through a contemporary art museum
in Germany. What museum in France would dare to exhibit
a French Anselm Kieffer? An artist’s German
identity is not a problem there. A student in the
BAT workshop told me my plays were “very French”.
My first reaction was shame at having allowed my “Frenchness”
to show. Then I bounced back. Joyce was very Irish,
Soseki very Japanese, Dostoïevsky very Russian,
and Bernhard very Austrian. So what? It hasn’t
stopped anyone from reading and understanding their
work, even if it’s only 80% of it. I don’t
think you could criticize a German artist for being
“very German”. My initial reaction is
symptomatic. Why should I have felt a twinge of shame
about my identity?
The Importance of Dramatists
Lionel Spycher
Apart from “classics” like Brecht, Fassbinder,
Martin Speer etc., I wasn’t too familiar with
new German playwrights. Then I met them in Berlin
and Hamburg. It’s true that in1998 (when my
first play was translated and performed in Germany),
Mayenburg, René Pollesch, and Schimmelpfennig
weren’t “fashionable” in France
yet.
I think what playwrights want most is to have their
work performed. My plays are frequently staged in
Germany; in fact that’s where the most productions
have been done of my work. My three plays have been
translated and performed there in the chronological
order in which they were written.
Take Pit-Bull (my first play, and to date the one
most often staged in Germany). The German productions
have been very different. Pit-Bull was performed in
Berlin (at the Baracke) in a a very energetic production
where the text was sometimes switched around, not
to mention the time warps; it was also performed in
Karlsruhe with lots of video effects; Stefan Kimmig’s
staging in Stuttgart was more traditional, relying
more heavily on the text. Those are the three productions
of Pit-Bull that I’ve seen, and they are very
different. Personally I love to be surprised by performances
of my work. Well, in Germany I certainly got what
I wanted!
I have an agent in Germany (from Felix Bloch Erben
Verlag) who promotes my plays. He knows which theatres
and directors might be interested. His work is invaluable,
producing frequent results. The French Theatre Office
in Berlin helped publish 9 mm in “Scène”.
Plays are rarely published in Germany. They are passed
around among professionals in manuscript form. So
I think “Scène” is a really interesting
phenomenon because it publishes playwrights with and
without agents. So it provides the Germans with a
chance to read plays that haven’t been selected
by agents and are therefore read by few people–or
none at all.
Dramatists appear to be the surest route to go through
in promoting a play in Germany. Whether plays are
sent to them by the French Theatre Office or by an
agent, they is the ones to read and make selections
for the director(s) attached to the theatres where
they work. I find this a very interesting function–not
specific to Germany, but not very widespread in France.
It is one of the reasons for the profusion of new
productions of work by living playwrights in Germany.
It is much better than having a reading committee.
Dramatists are professionals who understand directors’
needs and know which plays to choose for them. A good
dramatist is also well-informed about what’s
going on elsewhere (in Germany and abroad). During
the creative process he may ask the director questions
and nurture the actors in their work. The lack of
training is the main problem in creating this kind
of position in France, and it can’t be remedied
overnight. A dramatist is neither a playwright nor
a director nor an actor, and even less a theatre administrator,
which is why he can be objective.
As in France, my involvement in the work around my
plays is quite variable. It depends on the director.
Stefan Kimmig in Stuttgart is the only one I met with
before he began staging the play. Sometimes I answer
questions from the dramatist, and at times my translator
(Uli Aumüller) asks questions while in the process
of translating. I worked a bit with actors from the
Schauspielhaus in Hamburg for a reading of 9mm. But
that’s all. I’ve never taken part in any
rehearsals. And I don’t go to all performances
of my plays.
I’m in regular contact with my agent of course,
as well as with Andreas Beck, whom I met at the Royal
Court Theatre in London in 1998. He was working as
a dramatist in Stuttgart when Pit Bull was staged
there. Later asked me to be playwright in residence
(Haus Autor) at the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg when
he was appointed dramatist there. He works in Vienna
now and we talk and see each other on a regular basis.
Marius von Mayenburg was working at the Baracke when
Ostermeier was the director, and I met him during
the staging of Pit-Bull. We run into each other in
Berlin and Paris now and then. I asked Laurent Mülheisen
to translate his latest play (L’Enfant froid),
which I did a staged reading of last year at the Comédie
de Reims.
I am also in frequent contact with Liliane Schaus
from the French Theatre Office. I’m working
on a project to stage my latest play in a swimming
pool. Laurence Lochu from the Institut français
in Magdebourg put me in touch with the Thalia Theatre
in Halle and is helping me to bring the project to
fruition.
You still hear people say: “contemporary French
plays are too wordy”, although it isn’t
always meant to be critical. I think monologues are
the hardest thing for German actors to deal with.
They often overact, and rarely perform them in a “simple”
way. I’ve often been asked to whom these monologues
were addressed and what the actor was meant to do
while performing one.
My play most recent, La Suspension du plongeur, was
commissioned by the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. I lived
in Hamburg for several months, although I was fond
of slipping off to Berlin and Poland. The play is
about a German businessman who is about to open some
car dealerships in Eastern Europe. So, in a way, you
could say that my stay in Germany did influence my
latest play.
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