The Knights of the Round Table (Christoph Hein)

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The Knights of the Round Table is an anachronistic idea drama in three acts by Christoph Hein , which in the Hall of Arthurian castle plays. The comedy premiered on April 12, 1989 at the Dresden State Theater under the direction of Klaus Dieter Kirst . The text was published in 1989 by the Luchterhand publishing house in Frankfurt am Main and excerpts had been preprinted in " Sinn und Form ".

action

1st act

The Knights of the Round Table have grown old and gray. A decline in morals is rampant and cannot be stopped. Children play on the free chair - a process that used to be unthinkable in the prime of the table knights. Ginevra , Arthur's wife , sits at the table and reads. A woman sitting at this table and on the free chair was just as impossible in the past. Because the round table had always been a knight's affair. And the free chair - also called “the chair of the chosen one” - devoured or burned any of its unauthorized users. The Knights of the Round Table are not only looking for the Grail , they are also waiting for that chosen one.

Of the old knights, Gawein and Lancelot are still on their way in search of the Grail. Arthur has no news from them.

Knight Keie tells Arthur about one of his bad faces. Arthur is lying there in the grave. The 20-year-old son Mordret sits on the throne. The board is broken.

Arthur confesses his doubts to Keie. Lately he's not sure whether the knights of the round table really did everything right. Keie accuses Arthur of the marital infidelity of his wife Ginevra. Arthur doesn't want to hear about it. He still loves Ginevra.

Knight Orilus wants to revive the good old days with a tournament as soon as Gawain and Lancelot return home.

2nd act

Orilus wants to persuade the magazine editor Parzival to return to the round table. In vain - for Parzival the tablet broke. The young kunneware wants to bring the aged Parzival back to her bed. Parzival resists; talks his way out with his waiting wife Blanchefleur. Keie blames Parzival for the collapse of the Arthurian Empire. Arthur disagrees and tells Keie the contents of a letter he received from Gawain. The renegade knight wants to stay in the Chastell Merveille in the castle of the hundred women and spend the rest of his life as a fruit grower. Keie scolds Gawain as a whore and handsome. Parzival wants to have the letter in the next issue of his magazine. Arthur is against it. Orilus urges Arthur to ban the entire magazine. Arthur doesn't do that.

Keie's bias against Mordret proves to be justified. Incredible - Mordret doesn't believe in the existence of the Grail. According to the conversations of the men, the Grail could be a great gem or paradise . Perhaps the Grail is God, Mother Mary, or the Beloved. Parzival stays with it - everyone has to look for the Grail in themselves. Lancelot, ridden out as a man in his prime two years ago, returns an old man.

3rd act

Lancelot says nothing more because he has not found the Grail in any corner of the world.

Old Keie is happy that he no longer has to see Mordret's upcoming reign. Because the boy thinks the Grail is extinct, and so do the Knights of the Round Table, these dinosaurs. Kunneware compares the Arthurian Castle to a house of the dead. Keie can't take it all that easily. He challenges Mordret, the potential destroyer of the Arthurian Empire, to a duel. The boy doesn't want to fight, he prefers to have a beer in his room. Mordret doesn't want to become a knight of the round table. His father disagrees. The search for the Grail means life. Parzival has to contradict Arthur. In the eyes of the people, the knights of the Round Table have become fools and criminals. The otherwise silent Lancelot can confirm this. On his last search he was pelted with stones by the people outside.

Orilus is always looking for his wife Jeschute . When she finally shows up again and Kunneware blatters, she confesses to the husband that she has just slept with Mordret.

Finally, Mordret praises the father. His admission of the failure of the round table is brave. Mordret, the future destroyer of the Arthurian Empire, needs fresh air. The table and the chairs around it will end up in the museum according to his will.

Further performances

1989
October 1st: Halle (Saale)
October 14: Erfurt (Municipal Theaters)
1990
January 30th: Altenburg
February 3: Leipzig
February 10: Eisleben
March 16: Zwickau
March 3rd: German premiere in Kassel , director: Peter Siefert
March 27: Frankfurt (Oder)
April 24th: ZDF / ORF broadcast of a recording of the Dresden production
1991
February 17th: Mainz
February: English premiere in London.


Self-testimony

In a discussion in the early autumn of 1990, Hein put his interpreters in their place. For example, when he said Arthur he never meant Honecker .

reception

Comments after stage performances

Performances in Dresden

According to Max Thomas Mehr (“ die tageszeitung ”, Berlin, on October 26, 1989) it is about “the political leadership of the GDR ”. For Hartmut Krug (“ Theater heute ”, issue 7, 1989) the comedy has the effect of “Palaverdramatik”. The Dresden audience, which would have been tired in places, would surprisingly have applauded "frenetically". Ingrid Seyfarth (“ Sonntag ”, number 20, on May 14, 1989) also speaks of a “palaver as a ritual of numbness”.

After a performance in Dresden in February 1990, Kochta asks himself with 35 Germanists from West Berlin: Why doesn't Mordret chop up the free chair at the end of the play?

Federal German premiere in Kassel

Michael Laage (“ Die Welt ” of March 5, 1990) finds a performance about the futility of a society that could aim at the declining GDR as not only boring, but downright a faux pas. Joachim Schmitt-Sasse (" Deutsche Volkszeitung " of March 23, 1990) writes about Camelot near Wandlitz .

Meetings

Albrecht tells the story of the censorship of the play by the SED's cultural politicians and gives six reviews. The reviewer in “ Neues Deutschland ” wanted the play to be understood as a warning from the author: What has been achieved should not be disclosed under any circumstances. In 1990 Dieter Kranz commented on the criticism of the premiere that the criticism of the GDR had to use a “slave language” - that is a word from Brecht . Arnold reports 27 meetings.

Kiewitz emphasizes the closed form of the piece, discusses the comic and goes into separate sub-chapters, psychologically substantiated, on the couple relationships Mordret-Jeschute, Orilus-Jeschute, Parzival-Kunneware, Parzival-Blanchefleur, Lancelot-Ginevra and Gawains with the hundred women. Kiewitz emphasizes that the above-mentioned review in “New Germany” was so positive “only for tactical reasons”.

filming

On October 7, 1990, the German TV radio broadcast the television film of the same name by Fritz Bornemann. Reimar J. Baur played Arthur, Jenny Gröllmann played Ginevra, Jörg Schüttauf played Mordret, Volkmar Kleinert played Parzival, Christoph Engel played Keie, Hans-Peter Minetti played Orilus, Christine Schorn played Jeschute and Johanna Schall played Kunneware.

literature

Text output

Used edition
  • "The Knights of the Round Table". P. 131–193 in: Christoph Hein: The knights of the round table and other pieces. 264 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1990 (1st edition), ISBN 3-351-01632-8
expenditure
  • Christoph Hein: The knights of the round table. A comedy . 69 pages. Luchterhand Theater (2nd edition), Frankfurt am Main 1990

Secondary literature

  • Michael Töteberg : “The anarchist and the party secretary . The GDR theater criticism and its difficulties with Christoph Hein. "P. 36–43 in: in Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Ed.):" Text + criticism. Journal of Literature. Booklet 111. Christoph Hein. “Munich, July 1991, ISBN 3-88377-391-3
  • Klaus Hammer (Ed.): “Chronicler without a message. Christoph Hein. A work book. Materials, information, bibliography. ”315 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-351-02152-6
  • Karla Kochta: “Expulsion of the Grail?” Pp. 223–225 in: ibid.
  • Discussion with Christoph Hein on September 29, 1990: “Money is not the Grail.” Pp. 226–229 in: ibid.
  • Christl Kiewitz: “The silent scream. Crisis and criticism of the socialist intelligentsia in the work of Christoph Hein. ”308 pages. Stauffenburg Verlag, Tübingen 1995 (Diss. University of Augsburg 1994), ISBN 3-86057-137-0
  • Terrance Albrecht: “Reception and temporality of the work of Christoph Heins.” 191 pages. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-631-35837-7
  • Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Endgame. The 1989 revolution in the GDR. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58357-5 .

Web links

See also

  • The SED cultural politician Gerhard Wolfram pushed through the Dresden premiere.
  • Ten years later, Hein wrote the sequel to his play: In Acht und Bann (1999).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kiewitz, p. 268, 6th Zvu
  2. ↑ Töteberg, pp. 40/41
  3. ↑ Hammer, p. 272, 6. Zvo
  4. ↑ used edition, page 185, 7. ZVU
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 147, 10. Zvo
  6. ↑ see love for Lancelot .
  7. ↑ Hammer, pp. 266-267
  8. ↑ Discussion with Christoph Hein on September 29, 1990, p. 226, 16. Zvu
  9. ↑ Kochta, p. 225, 9. Zvo
  10. ↑ Hammer, p. 258 above - p. 261 below
  11. ↑ Albrecht, pp. 104–112
  12. ^ Albrecht, p. 187, 5. Zvo
  13. ↑ quoted in Töteberg, p. 41, 3rd Zvu
  14. ^ Töteberg, p. 42, 11. Zvu
  15. ^ Arnold, p. 103, 2nd column below and p. 105, 2nd column
  16. ↑ Kiewitz, pp. 266–288
  17. ↑ Kiewitz, p. 287, 2nd Zvu
  18. ↑ Full Cast & Crew ( English ) IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved March 13, 2019.