The transition society
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The transition society |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1990 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Thomas Langhoff |
| production | German television broadcasting |
| music | Jürgen Corner |
| camera |
Bernd Müller Angelika Katzer Renate Müller Detlef Peter Wolfgang Schönfeldt |
| cut | Bettina Bessert |
| occupation | |
| |
The transition society is the recording of a performance of the play of the same name by Volker Braun from the Maxim-Gorki-Theater Berlin by the German television radio in 1990 .
Production and publication
In the "Transitional Society", Volker Braun moved the tragic comedy " Drei Schwestern " by Anton Chekhov about dreams of a better life in the end times of the socialist order. The piece was written in 1982 and premiered on April 24, 1987 in Bremen . Its GDR premiere, directed by Thomas Langhoff, took place on March 30, 1988 in Berlin's Maxim-Gorki-Theater. In August 1990 the play was recorded with the television cameras on the stage of the Maxim Gorki Theater in the cast of the GDR premiere and shown in color on November 4, 1990 in the 2nd program of the DFF .
The set was designed by Pieter Hein and the costumes were created by Ursula Wolf. The dramaturgy was in the hands of Manfred Möckel.
action
A very old man by the name of Wilhelm Höchst sits in front of the stage, surrounded by foil cocoons in which the three sisters and other figures from Anton Chekhov's play are "woven", and reads the newspaper. He, a former revolutionary, comments on the beginning of the performance. Although he is getting on in years and has come to rest, he is still strong enough to leave traces on his brother's children, with whom he lives. There are also three sisters, but from the pen of Volker Braun. The characters of the historical drama wake up, wrap themselves out of the foils and speak almost literally original texts by Chekhov. Now they are turning into GDR citizens of the seventies. The Höchst family meets in their home, a former “mansion”. Irina, the youngest of the sisters, has a birthday. Walter, the brother, manager of a state- owned company , comes to visit. He brings Mette, his lover, an actress. She watches the people she finds here - the reticent Wilhelm, the teacher Olga, who insists on order, the strangely day-blind historian Mascha, the reasoning operator Irina, Dr. Bobanz, Mascha's husband, plus the writer Anton. Sometimes directly, mostly past each other, conventional conversation arises in this birthday round: sarcasms, narrow-mindedness, knowledgeable, sensible things are mixed up. Irina, apparently unhappily in love, quarrels with herself and the world. The impatient driver Walters makes an unpleasant appearance, which fades the good mood, the atmosphere becomes dull, boring, uncomfortable. Mette tries to counter this with an unusual parlor game. She suggests that everyone should become aware of his repressed, his unacknowledged, silent and beautiful dreams and express them. You actually manage to animate the procrastinators. But what is revealed is not a mental upswing to human perspectives, but a lack of imagination. hectic, disappointingly sparse psychodramatic self-reflection. Walter even falls into a nightmarish frenzy of anarchist aggression. The next morning, when the sisters, their relatives and guests shake off their last dismay about the previous evening, Wilhelm has a daydream. Perhaps stimulated by the love he found with Mette that night, this man, who always sought and lived the full life, reveals his legacy for those who want to hear it. Reflecting on the struggles of his class , on the victoriousness of the revolution, on sacrifices, on errors, on his basically modest place in this struggle, he conjures up the image of a free personality fighting for a better world. Irina begins her emancipatory self-discovery that morning with a fire that, in an anarchistic mood, she sets in her parents' home, probably to put an end to the old “mansion” for good.
criticism
In the Berliner Zeitung , Dieter Krebs remarked:
“To put it straight away with a paradox: Langhoff's staging in the stage set by Pieter Hein (atmospherically dense, tense arranged, savoring parallel processes with caustic sharpness) derives its strongest effects from the fact that Braun, pointedly, is actually played like Chekhov. The fact that the crudity of the text, its harsh radicalism is taken back, cannot be avoided. Braun's piece is definitely a challenge, and for some viewers it is also a burden. There is certainly one thing it is not: a malicious listing of outlived attitudes towards life. "
Helmut Ullrich asked himself in the Neue Zeit whether this was a homage to Anton Chekhov. That is what this piece is as a reminder of how much this poet still has to say to us. But that's not all. It has intrinsic value and weight. It's uncomfortable, and it has had a performance that makes it oppressive.
Awards
- 1988: Critics' award from the Berliner Zeitung for the theater performance
Web links
- The transitional society in theInternet Movie Database(English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dead Future In The Time May 1, 1987
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of April 7, 1988, p. 7
- ↑ Chekhov's three sisters in the present . Neue Zeit from April 5, 1988, p. 4