Title
Zuckmayer at the Berliner Ensemble
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
Fall 1990
Abstract
When the Berliner Ensemble at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm stages a production of Carl Zuckmayer's Der Hauptmann von Köpenick, one can without reservation conclude that enormous changes are indeed taking place in Germany. That statement may at first seem disingenuous, but to connoisseurs of footnotes in German theatre history, few developments could rival this latest evidence of reconciliation along political, cultural, and especially theatrical lines. Theatre and politics have a long history of close association in Germany, and no theatre has been more politically conscious than the Berliner Ensemble. Brecht was, as "his" Berliner Ensemble subsequently became, an advertisement for the ruling regime in the Soviet zone of occupation. With the impending dissolution of the German Democratic Republic, it is no wonder that Brecht's theatre should be at the forefront of stupendous change. Why is Carl Zuckmayer a beacon of that change?
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Comments
Published in WESTERN EUROPEAN STAGES 2:2 (Fall 1990), PP. 51-52. Copyright © 1990 Center for the Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, CUNY.