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The Erotic in the Theatre of Peter Zadek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Andreas Höfele
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Abstract

In NTQ 4 (1985) we included a fully-illustrated interview with the German director Peter Zadek conducted by Roy Kift. Here, Andreas Höfele explores one of the subjects touched on in that interview, as in most responses to Zadek's work: the utilization of the erotic as a recurring motif. From his introduction to London of the then little-known work of Jean Genet to his most recent productions – of Wedekind's Lulu and of Chekhov's Ivanov – Zadek has, in Höfele”s words, opted for ‘the kaleidoscopic uncertainty of play’ and a ‘deliberate lack of closure’, which are here analyzed in terms of Baudrillard's ‘structure of seduction’ employed both as aesthetic principle and as working method. Andreas Höfele, who has taught in the German Department of Edinburgh University and in the English Department at Würzburg, has been Professor of Theaterwissenschaft at the University of Munich since 1986. Apart from four novels, and books on Shakespeare's stagecraft and Malcolm Lowry, he has published articles and lectured on contemporary German productions of Shakespeare, on contemporary British drama, and on aspects of theatrical theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 7 , Issue 27 , August 1991 , pp. 229 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

Notes and References

1. Nagel, Ivan, Kortner Zadek Stein (Munich and Vienna, 1989), p. 37–52Google Scholar.

2. For an apt summary of the situation of the West German theatre of the 'fifties, see Canaris, Volker, Peter Zadek: der Theatermann und Filmemacher (Munich and Vienna, 1979), p. 37 fGoogle Scholar.

3. Documented in Canaris, op. cit., p. 66 f.

4. For instance, in an interview conducted by Müller, Peter for the leading German theatre journal, Theater Heute (Jahrbuch 1988), p. 86–90Google Scholar, which was tellingly entitled: ‘Ich bin natürlich ein Krimineller’ (‘I am, of course, a criminal’).

5. Nagel, op. cit., p. 41.

6. Bakhtin, Mikhail, Rabelais and His World (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 88Google Scholar.

7. ‘Ist der Boulevard progressiv?’, Die Zeit, No. 50 (1978), p. 43.

8. Apart from Breth's, Andrea Bochum production of Season's Greetings (1987)Google Scholar, Zadek's, staging of Joking Apart (Hamburg, 1979)Google Scholar and of Henceforward (Berlin, Theater am Kurfürstendamm, 1989) are, to date, the only instances of a major German director tackling plays by Ayckbourn. Some critical reactions to the (not wholly successful) production of Henceforward are collected in Theater Heute, No. 5 (1989), p. 25–34.

9. Bakhtin, op. cit., p. 317.

10. ‘Hoping for the Unexpected: the Theatre of Zadek’, Peter, New Theatre Quarterly, I, No. 4 (1985), p. 329Google Scholar.

11. For a comprehensive list of productions until 1990, see Zadek, Peter, Das wilde Ulfer: ein Theaterbuch, ed. Kornitzer, Laszlo (Cologne, 1990)Google Scholar; for a detailed biography and description of his work until 1978, see Canaris, op. cit.; and for the later work, see Lange, Mechthild, Peter Zadek (Frankfurt am Main, 1989)Google Scholar.

12. Elsom, John, Erotic Theatre (London, 1973), p. 164 fGoogle Scholar.

13. Quoted in Canaris, op. cit., p. 26.

14. For a translation of this programmatic text see Roy Kift, ‘Hoping for the Unexpected’, op. cit., p. 329.

15. Theater Heute, No. 10 (1967), p. 24–6.

16. Hensel, Georg, ‘Gefuchtelt, gefistelt, aber getroffen’, Darmstädter Echo, 25 11 1967Google Scholar; reprinted in G. Hensel, Das Theater der siebziger Jahre (Stuttgart, 1980), p. 13.

17. Compare Lange's, Mechthild review in Frankfurter Rundschau, 15 10 1985Google Scholar.

18. For illustrations of this production, see Roy Kift, op. cit., p. 337.

19. Zadek, Peter and Grützke, Johannes, Lulu, eine deutsche Frau (Frankfurt am Main, 1988), p. 16Google Scholar.

20. Merschmeier, Michael, Theater Heute (Jahrbuch 1988), p. 71Google Scholar.

21. Merschmeier, op. cit., p. 70.

22. Zadek and Grützke, Lulu, p. 17.

23. Ibid., p. 42.

24. Henrichs, Benjamin, ‘Friede den Menschenfressern!’, Die Zeit, No. 25 (1990), p. 59Google Scholar.

25. Ibid.

26. Baudrillard, Jean, ‘Le Malin Génie de la passion’, trans, into German by Leiby, Martin S. as ‘Der Teufel der Leidenschaft’, in J. Baudrillard, Laβt euch nicht verführen! (Berlin, 1983), p. 7–34Google Scholar.

27. Bochum, Kunstverein and Bochum, Schauspielhaus, Zadeks Hamlet in Hamme (Frankfurt am Main, 1977), p. 53Google Scholar.

28. Habicht, Werner, ‘Shakespeare in West Germany’, Shakespeare Quarterly, XXIX (1978), p. 298Google Scholar.

29. Sontag, Susan, Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York, 1966), p. 14Google Scholar: ‘In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art.’