Title

Howith's Glaube Liebe Hoffnung and the Current Scene in Dresden

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1995

Comments

Published in WESTERN EUROPEAN STAGES 7:1 (Winter 1995), pp. 81-86. Copyright © 1994 Center for the Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, CUNY.

Abstract

While the venerable Dresden Schauspielhaus, built in 1910, is undergoing renovation (the process was begun in August of 1993 and is scheduled for completion next summer), the Staatschauspiel Dresden is located in numerous venues throughout the city. They include the Kleines Haus in der Neustadt, a former recital hall on the north bank of the Elbe; a small space in a former recital hall on the north bank of the Elbe; a small space in a former automotive factory; a small chapel in the restored Dresden Castle; and a tent near the present Schauspielhaus. The tent is called the "Kuppeltheater" (Cupola Theatre), and it has a vague, if weirdly abstract resemblance to the cupolas sitting atop the baroque palaces, churches, and museums for which this city is well known. Any resemblance between the Kuppel Theater and the renowned architecture of the "German Florence," as Dresden has traditionally been called is purely coincidental; the tent has been rented from a West German entrepreneur and its interior has facilitated Irmgard Lange's innovative production of Odön von Horváth’s Glaube Liebe Hoffnung, the shorter version he subtitled "a little dance of death." Lange has also interlarded the working script with snippets of the playwright's work related to the play, and the result is a dark, disturbed vision of a world in complete collapse.

Anyone who has seen Horváth in performance will recognize that world; he did not present a particularly happy outlook, even though he titled his plays Volkstücke, a genre historically associated with young love, musical backgrounds, and robust humor. This play briefly portrays a loving couple, but the music Horváth recommends is Chopin's Funeral March and its humor is cadaverous rather than robust. It begins in front of a mortuary, after all, and its central conflict arises between its heroine Elisabeth and her one-time benefactor, the Mortician. Is there any faith, hope, or charity to be found here? Irmgard Lange and her ensemble make an extensive search for them, but they turn up just fleetingly in the brave attempts of the doomed Elisabeth. She has a tiny hope for a little love in her life; what she gets instead is a prison term, rejection from the only decent man she ever met, and finally. death.