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Scenography and Submedial Space: Frank Castorf's Final Destination America (2000) and Forever Young (2003) at the Volksbühne Berlin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2007

KLAUS VAN DEN BERG
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Abstract

German director Frank Castorf and his designer Bert Neumann have created a series of productions that have altered the dramaturgy of visual space. Their scenography integrates stage space with other spaces mediated by technology and interlocks taped and/or live mediated images with live performance. Castorf exposes spaces hidden from the audience's direct view to address the question of what ‘truth’ inheres in an image. The philosopher Boris Groys has called this spatial dramaturgy ‘submedial space’. I flesh out Groy's concept with reference to the writings of Walter Benjamin and analyse how Castorf and Neumann create such spaces through performance strategies that blend live and mediated elements. Using Castorf's productions of Final Destination America (2000) and Forever Young (2003) at the Volksbühne Berlin as examples, I argue that the multilayered images and complex spatial configurations thereby created effectively serve Castorf's purposes of political critique.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 49 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2006

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References

NOTES

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2 Ibid., pp. 41–82. Mitchell examines pictures, dialectical images and metapictures from artists and thinkers such as Ludwig Wittengenstein and Walter Benjamin. John Berger was one of the first critics to link forms of seeing and cultural place. See Berger, John, Ways of Seeing (London: Penguin Books, 1972)Google Scholar.

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5 As quoted in Mitchell, Picture Theory, p. 32

6 Ivan Nagel, Überlegungen zur Situation Berliner Theater (Berlin, n. p., 1991).

7 Diederichsen, Diedrich, ‘Endstation Theater’, in Adler, Nina, Forever Young (trans. of Williams, Tennessee, Sweet Bird of Youth) (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2003), p. 71Google Scholar.

8 I address the issue of America in my essay ‘Frank Castorf's Vision of America: The Pathology of Cultural Roles in a Mediated Society’, Text and Presentation, (2005), pp. 212–22.

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11 Ibid., p. 64.

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17 Ibid., p. 3.

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24 Castorf, ‘Vorwort’, p. 16; Gina Honegger, ‘Theater in Berlin. Last Stop Amerika [sic] and the Volksbühne Experience’, Theater, 32, 3 (2002), pp. 31–53.

25 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art’, p. 112.

26 Ibid., p. 112.

27 Castorf, ‘Vorwort’, p 18.

28 Ibid., p. 17.

29 Bray, Robert, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire: The Political and Historical Subtext’, in Kolin, Philip, ed., Confronting Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire: Essays in Critical Pluralism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993), NN–NN, here pp. 187–8Google Scholar.

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33 For more details see van den Berg, ‘Frank Castorf's Vision of America’.

34 Bray, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, p. 194.

35 Irene Bazinger, ‘Der amerikanische Albtraum’ (review of Forever Young), Berliner Zeitung, 23 October 2003, Secn K, p. NN.

36 Londre, Felica, Tennessee Williams (New York: Unger, 1979), p. 135Google Scholar.

37 Williams, Tennessee, Sweet Bird of Youth (New York: New Directions Books, 1959), p 3Google Scholar. In the stage directions Williams uses the word ‘Moorish’ several times to describe the setting, such as a ‘Moorish corner’ and a ‘Moorish lamp’.

38 Wilson, Quoted in 80. Ann Wilson “The Politics of Sexual Ambiguity in Sweet Bird of Youth.” in Gross, Robert F.. Williams, Tennessee, A Casebook (London: Routledge, 2002), 79–90Google Scholar.

39 Castorf, ‘Vorwort’, p. 8.

40 Ibid., p. 9.

41 Ulrich Seidler, ‘Forever Young in Wien’ (review of Forever Young), Berliner Zeitung, 17 June 2003, p. 9.

42 Castorf, ‘Vorwort’, p. 13

43 Wolfgang Kralicek, ‘Verschwende deine Jugend’ (review of Forever Young), Theater Heute, 8/9 (2003), p. 16.

44 Seidler, ‘Forever Young in Wien’, p. 9.

45 Ivar Hagendoorn, ‘Homepage’, 13 January 2005, available at http://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/blog/2004/week42.html (last accessed 11/2006).

46 ‘Die Kamera ist überall’ (review of Forever Young), Berliner Zeitung, 26 September 2003, Secn T., p. 3

47 Castorf, ‘Vorwort’, p. 13.

48 Ibid.

49 Crary, Techniques of the Observer, p. 8.