Stefan Pucher

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stefan Pucher (* 1965 in Gießen ) is a German theater director .

life and work

From 1988 to 1994 Pucher studied theater studies and American studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. In Frankfurt he also worked as a DJ at times. At the beginning of the 1990s he also brought out the self-published theater fanzine "Fake" together with the actor Frank Riede.

He went to the cinema a lot and dealt with the question of what acting can be after bourgeois illusion theater: What do “role” and “image” mean, if you want to go beyond the psychologizing theater of tradition, what does theater do in relation to film and how can it stay contemporary? Soon he brought out a theater fanzine (“Fake” 1989–93) and began his first performance projects, inspired by the Wooster Group and Needcompany , by Einar Schleef , by the texts of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann and again and again by pop as music and lifestyle. When the then director of the Theater am Turm (TAT) in Frankfurt / M., Tom Stromberg , noticed him, free projects at TAT followed, including with the German-English theater group Gob Squad , in which he sampled music and videos and mixed texts in cut-ups and experimented with physical presence and medial communication.

After evenings at Kampnagel in Hamburg and in Podewil in Berlin, the theater world became aware of Pucher through the performance 15 Minutes To Comply, a work with which he and Gob Squad at the invitation of Tom Stromberg at the documenta X in Kassel in 1997 underground tram stop. This was followed by the step from independent theater to city and state theaters, which was still unusual in the 1990s. After initial projects at the most important theaters of the 1990s, the Berliner Volksbühne and Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, Pucher accepted the challenge and staged dramatic literature for the first time: Chekhov's Der Kirschgarten at the Basel Theater (1999). His casual play with subcultural stylistic devices from the independent scene attracted a lot of attention in the state theater. After further highly acclaimed and controversial productions (Die Möwe at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and Three Sisters at the Schauspielhaus Zürich), the Zurich director Christoph Marthaler - like Pucher a theater man from the independent scene - hired him as in-house director at the Schauspielhaus Zürich (2000-2004). Pucher consistently broke up the aesthetics of the box set with actors who didn't speak to each other, but to the audience, who exhibited their feelings instead of embodying them.

To this day, Stefan Pucher regularly directs at the most important theaters in German-speaking countries: the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Vienna Burgtheater, the Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Schauspiel Frankfurt and the Deutsches Theater Berlin. His theater is a game with the illusory space of the stage, with identity and sensuality, a test of the contemporaneity of theater through the use of text sampling, video and music. He worked again and again with the great actors of these houses such as Josef Ostendorf , Jens Harzer , Alexander Scheer , Wolfram Koch , Wolfgang Pregler, Bettina Stucky and Wiebke Puls . He has worked for many years with his set designers Barbara Ehnes and Stéphane Laimé, his costume designer Annabelle Witt and the video artists Chris Kondek and Meika Dresenkamp. With the American video artist Chris Kondek, who had worked with the Wooster Group, with Laurie Anderson and the choreographer Meg Stuart , Pucher developed a decisive aesthetic of the duplication and refraction of the actor's image on stage and in video. Paradoxically, this created a great intimacy through the media, which traditionally cannot be created in the theater due to the spatial distance and constant line of sight between the audience and the performer. In his production of Othello in Hamburg , a clever game between Othello as a sovereign military and glamor pop star on stage and an emotionally overwhelmed lover in the intimate close-up of the videos succeeded. The game with the cliché expectations in the audience began with Jago, the “bad guy”, as a successful businessman in a suit and tie, speaking from the audience as one of their own - and that in the merchant city of Hamburg. After the break in the theater, it did not continue on the stage, but in Hamburg on the street in front of the theater. While Othello was walking past in a cool boxer coat, Rodrigo was murdered on the street - and the audience stood by as fascinated and unsettled voyeurs of the event.

In addition to staging dramatic literature, Pucher repeatedly developed projects with text samplings and live music, such as Andersen. Trip between Worlds (2010) with the music of Carsten “Erobique” Meyer and Matthias “Tex” Strzoda or Charles Manson: Summer of Hate - The Musical. A musical trip between LA and Death Valley (2014) with the band Trümmer under the musical direction of Christopher Uhe. He and Christopher Uhe have had a longstanding musical collaboration.

While his productions were dismissed by parts of the press and the audience as “pop theater” with a “VIVA aesthetic” that was unsuitable for the stage, on the other hand, Pucher's text work, his progressive use of video, his innovations in music, stage design and costumes were soon to be invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen honored. Pucher contrasts the in-depth text exegesis of psychological theater with a theater in which image and music have emancipated themselves and the presence of the surface does not mean superficiality, but intensity: an expression of a theater that maintains its relevance even at the beginning of the 21st century .

Productions

  • 1989: What you see is what you get , a performance by Stefan Pucher, Theater am Turm Frankfurt / M.
  • 1992: The Cold Heart , a project by Stefan Pucher, ffm drama school, Justus Liebig University, Giessen
  • 1995: Zombie - A horror trip through three decades of culture , a project by Stefan Pucher, Theater am Turm Frankfurt / M.
  • 1996: Very close , a project by Stefan Pucher and Gob Squad , Theater am Turm (Daimlerstraße) Frankfurt / M.
  • 1997: Dreamcity - The City in Words , a project by Stefan Pucher, Kampnagel Hamburg; Tracks , a project by Stefan Pucher, Clubtheater SUB Hannover; 15 Minutes To Comply by Stefan Pucher and Gob Squad, documenta X , Kassel
  • 1998: Bodycheck , a project by Stefan Pucher, Theater am Turm Frankfurt / M .; Flashback , a project by Stefan Pucher and Alexa Hennig von Lange , Volksbühne Berlin
  • 1999: Comeback, a project by Stefan Pucher and Meg Stuart , Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg (Malersaal); Snapshots , a project by Stefan Pucher and Meg Stuart, Theater Basel; The cherry orchard by Anton Chekhov , Theater Basel
  • 2000: A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare , Schauspielhaus Zürich (shipbuilding rehearsal stage); Highway 101 , a project by Stefan Pucher and Meg Stuart, Kaaitheater Brussels; What are you afraid of? by Richard Dresser, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg; The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg
  • 2001: Reigen by Arthur Schnitzler , Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg (directing with Jan Bosse , Viviane De Muynck, Ingrid Lausund, Ute Rauwald, She She Pop , show case beat le mot, Franz Wittenbrink and others); Three sisters by Anton Chekhov, Schauspielhaus Zurich
  • 2002: Leonce and Lena by Georg Büchner , Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg; Richard III by William Shakespeare, Schauspielhaus Zürich
  • 2003: The golden age , a project by Stefan Pucher and Meg Stuart, Schauspielhaus Zürich; Heinrich IV by William Shakespeare, Schauspielhaus Zürich; Bank robberies are treated with true love by René Pollesch , Schauspielhaus Zürich (box in the shipbuilding)
  • 2004: The Oresty of Aeschylus , Schauspielhaus Zurich; Othello by William Shakespeare, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg; Homo Faber based on Max Frisch , Schauspielhaus Zurich
  • 2005: Diabolo, it's a shame he's the devil by René Pollesch, Volksbühne Berlin; St. Matthew Passion , by Stefan Pucher, Christoph Homberger and Martin Schütz based on Johann Sebastian Bach , Schauspielhaus Zurich; Uncle Wanja by Anton Chekhov, Theater Basel
  • 2006: The Fatherless by Anton Chekhov, Volksbühne Berlin; Elektra has to mourn by Eugene O'Neill , Münchner Kammerspiele
  • 2007: The Iron Curtain Star , a project by Stefan Pucher based on texts by Rolf Dieter Brinkmann , Schauspielhaus Zürich; The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Münchner Kammerspiele
  • 2008: The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen); M - a city is looking for a murderer by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, Maxim-Gorki-Theater Berlin; The Persians by Aeschylus, Schauspielhaus Zurich
  • 2009: Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare, Münchner Kammerspiele; Struwwelpeter after Heinrich Hoffmann by Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch, Martyn Jacques, Burgtheater Vienna; Platonow by Anton Chekhov, Münchner Kammerspiele; Neil Young - The Way , a project by Stefan Pucher, Theater Neumarkt Zurich; Antonius and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Burgtheater Vienna
  • 2010: Andersen. Trip between worlds , a project by Stefan Pucher, Thalia Theater Hamburg; Death of a traveling salesman by Arthur Miller , Schauspielhaus Zürich (Schiffbauhalle)
  • 2011: Rausch by August Strindberg , Burgtheater Vienna (Akademietheater); Mjunik Disco , a project by Stefan Pucher, Münchner Kammerspiele; Tape by Stephen Belber, Deutsches Theater Berlin (Kammerspiele); Endgame by Samuel Beckett , Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen)
  • 2012: Quixote. Trip Between Worlds , a project based on Miguel de Cervantes, Thalia Theater Hamburg; Roast Satans by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Münchner Kammerspiele; Ariodante by Georg Friedrich Händel (musical direction: Andrea Marcon), Theater Basel; Faust I by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Schauspiel Frankfurt; A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Thalia Theater Hamburg
  • 2013: The cat on the hot tin roof by Tennessee Williams , Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen); Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen , coproduction by Deutsches Theater Berlin and Ruhrfestspiele 2013; Woyzeck by Georg Büchner , Schauspielhaus Zürich (shipbuilding hall); Elektra von Sophokles , Deutsches Theater Berlin; Car piece. Belgrade dog by Anne Habermehl, directed by Stefan Pucher and Tom Stromberg, Schauspiel Stuttgart
  • 2014: The Maids by Jean Genet , Munich Kammerspiele; Charles Manson: Summer of Hate - The Musical. A musical trip between LA and Death Valley by Stefan Pucher, Christopher Uhe and Susanne Meister, Thalia Theater Hamburg; Baal by Bertolt Brecht , Deutsches Theater Berlin
  • 2015: What you want from William Shakespeare, Deutsches Theater Berlin; The dirty hands of Jean-Paul Sartre, Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen); An enemy of the people by Henrik Ibsen in an arrangement by Dietmar Dath , Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen); Nora by Henrik Ibsen, Deutsches Theater Berlin
  • 2016: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, Thalia Theater Hamburg; América after TC Boyle , Münchner Kammerspiele; Antigone von Sophocles, Schauspielhaus Zürich (shipbuilding hall); Marat / Sade by Peter Weiss , Deutsches Theater Berlin
  • 2017: Kasimir and Karoline von Ödön von Horváth , Schauspiel Stuttgart; Tartuffe by Molière, Thalia Theater Hamburg; Waiting room based on the novel "Exil" by Lion Feuchtwanger , Münchner Kammerspiele
  • 2018: Am Königsweg by Elfriede Jelinek , Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen); Witch Hunt by Arthur Miller, Thalia Theater Hamburg
  • 2019: Frankenstein by Dietmar Dath, Schauspielhaus Zürich (Pfauen)

Awards

Invitations to the Berlin Theatertreffen :

In 2005, Stefan Pucher was voted "Director of the Year" by the critics of the theater magazine Theater heute for his production of Shakespeare's Othello at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg.

Teaching activities

  • 2008/2009: Endowed professorship for "scenic arts" at the University of Hildesheim

Web links

literature

  • Marvin Carlson : Theater is more beautiful than war: German stage directing in the late twentieth century . University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 2009, ISBN 978-1-58729-814-1 . [To Pucher: chap. 9, pp. 181-193.]
  • Stefan Tigges: From the world soul to the super-puppet: Cechov's dream theater as an avant-garde experimental arrangement . transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1138-0 . [On Pucher's Seagull at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg: pp. 366–382.]

Individual evidence

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Stefan Pucher in the Munzinger archive , accessed on February 23, 2019 ( beginning of the article freely available).
  2. ↑ Carlson, Theater is more beautiful than war , 2009, op.cit., P. 182.
  3. ↑ Georg Diez: DJ and thief . In: Der Spiegel . Culture Extra 9/1997, August 25, 1997.
  4. ^ Arnd Wesemann: Party with a message . In: taz . September 1, 1995, p. 16 .
personal data
SURNAME Pucher, Stefan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater director
DATE OF BIRTH 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH to water