Dionysus in 69

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Dionysus in 69 is a theater performance by the "Performance Group" from New York City . The piece was staged and produced by Richard Schechner . The play is largely based on the classic drama " The Bacchae " by the Greek poet Euripides .

The zeitgeist

"This was a time of radical social transition, reflected in diverging social values ​​between old and young, rich and poor, whites and blacks, male and female sexual roles, and above all, between advocates and opponents of war in Vietnam" (I. Zeitlin 2004, p. 51)

We are in the 1960s, a month before Woodstock and the night after the Robert F. Kennedy assassination . To understand Schechner's production “Dionysus in 69”, one has to capture the zeitgeist, understand it and transform it into a theater. The idea for the title came about not only to provoke people, but to connect theater with something political. The time of the Vietnam War, the time of Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll and the hippies : the call for peace, freedom of expression, freedom of speech and the sexual revolution are united in the play. The urge for individualization and, at the same time, the formation of communities outside the constricting social and institutional world ran through all of America and is also reflected in Schechner's play. Even the outward appearance resembles that of the age of Dionysus : Long hair, androgynous faces, long, tattered clothes. Fittingly, the whole piece is set in a garage in Soho , New York.

Avant-garde theater

"Virtual reality could be experienced by an actor in performance, a reality which originated with ordinary life experience but somehow transcended it." (Shepard 1991, p. 3)

The avant-garde theater, which Schechner also belonged to, intended to break the previous rigid spectator-actor roles. They reduced the illusion of the theater by creating interactivity with the audience. There are no seats, people sat on the floor, on ladders or other structures. An actual stage cannot be seen either. The theater plays in the here and now , the audience is in the middle of the performance. Schechner went even further: for the first time, the traces between the person and the person depicted are blurring. This is what Dionysus calls himself God, but at the same time he also says “I am William Finley, grew up in a Catholic environment.” The actors improvise and reveal their personalities and connect them on stage with the character portrayed. Schechner breaks all barriers: can it go well? Sometimes it worked - sometimes it didn't. The group played the piece for a month, but after a week they had to reduce interaction with the audience. Two scenes in particular contain caresses and touches, and over time it became more and more difficult to keep control over them. The actual idea of ​​the scene was lost. This is how the actors were divided. One group stayed in the middle to itself and the other interacted with the audience.

The group

For a long time, the troupe works in a workshop to rehearse the play, prepare dialogues and perfect the performance. Since the actors could not pragmatically differentiate themselves from the roles played, rivalry, jealousy, love and conflict came into the group:

“My symptoms of dissociation both inside and outside the production, feelings of increased isolation from everyone around me, and the conflicts between incompatible elements of my own personality were increasing. Instead of being overjoyed at the Group's apparent success, I was withdrawing more and more into myself ” (Shepard 1991, p. 143)

Bill Shepard, who played Pentheus , felt more and more connected to his role. As a result, he felt more and more excluded and eventually became depressed . At one point he even went so far as to sabotage the play by refusing to be seduced by Dionysus. The problem was finally solved by alternating roles.

To the bakkchen

Who am I? : At the heart of the Bakchenstück is the question: Who am I? Schechner does not address the question ontologically , but more on a theater level. The change of roles, the identification of the person with the person portrayed, the blurring of the spectator-actor role contributes to the fact that a complex question of identification is posed. The identity is there, but it is multilayered, laid out like a patchwork blanket.

Some of the texts in the piece have been changed. He quotes Sophocles as well as current issues. For example, the upcoming presidential election or, more generally, the political attitude towards church and state. From the bakchen about 600 of 1300 lines are used. The rest of the text has been worked out by the group itself in workshops. It is interesting that Pentheus is at the beginning strongly based on the original text of the Bacchae. The further the piece progresses, the more his speech becomes freer and more individual. With Dionysus the opposite happens, at the beginning he speaks freely and sticks more and more to the original text. In the course of the piece Pentheus becomes more and more free through the touch and conviction of Dionysus. Dionysus, on the other hand, has to present himself more and more as god and assert his divinity. At the end of the day he cannot be sure whether the audience really believes that William Finley is a god.

Sexual Liberation

“The nudity stirred a storm beyond our expectations. […] Everyone who saw or even heard about Dionysus had something to say about the nakedness ” . (Schechner 1968, p. 96)

Schechner thought a lot about the costumes . He didn't want to ruin the piece with ridiculous costumes and so the choice was made for the nudity . The actors are naked for most of the play. In general, the whole piece plays a lot with sexuality, permissiveness and even sexual liberation. Schechner and the group themselves did not see this in a suggestive or voyeuristic way, but as necessary for a representation of the Bacchae. The play follows the Bacchus plot fairly faithfully, except for the earthquake scene and Pentheus' disguise. The earthquake sequence is omitted and that of the disguise is transformed. The group decided that Pentheus should not disguise himself as a woman, but should reveal the real meaning of the scene. Dionysus consequently demands homosexual satisfaction from Pentheus, which, however, is not visible on the stage. They wanted to bring people's fear to light: the prudish society, fear of sexual freedom and homosexuality .

reception

Schechner's production was definitely a groundbreaking one. And as is usually the case when someone invents something new or is ahead of their time, there is only so much criticism. The nudity in particular led to media hype:

"Is Schechner proposing that, authoritarians being latent homosexuals, the state be brought to wither away by seducing those in power?" (Stefan Brecht 1969, p. 160)

Above all, Brecht criticizes the Dionysian aspect of the piece. He accuses Schechner of not responding to the audience through the ecstasy experience, but that it is an experience of the ego . He also criticizes homosexuality in the play. So if Pentheus is drawn to homosexuality, are all authorities homosexual? And if so, can that power be brought down by seducing it? Brecht doesn't give an answer here, but it is definitely an interesting interpretation of the piece. The piece generally leaves a lot of room for interpretation and thus also for criticism and your own thoughts. Not least because of this, the play is celebrated that way - anyone can become a Bacchen in the theater and actively participate in the Dionysus cult.

The documentary film Dionysus in '69 (German: Dionysos 69 ) by the American film director Brian De Palma ran in the competition at the 1970 Berlinale , but was very poorly received there. It was last released on DVD in 2003 by Carlotta Films (France).

literature

  • Froma I. Zeitlin: Dionysus in 69 . In: Edith Hall u. a. (Ed.): Dionysus since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-925914-3 , pp. 49-75.
  • Richard Schechner: Dionysus in 69 . In: Educational Theater Journal . Vol. 22, No. 4, 1970, ISSN  0013-1989 , pp. 432-436.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Ulrich Pönack : Crash in the youth jury. In: Der Schrei , March 1970 ( online : February 15, 2017).