Moritzburg TV theater

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The Moritzburg television theater , which saw itself as a socialist people's theater and distinguished itself from the popular entertainment theater à la Millowitsch-Theater , Ohnsorg-Theater , Komödienstadl or the Royal Bavarian District Court on television in the old Federal Republic of Germany , which was successful from 1953 , was in the casemates of medieval Moritzburg located in Halle an der Saale . The room consisted of a 4.25 meter wide, approx. 18 m² stage and a few rows of spectators. Between 1965 and 1991, the didactically designed television theater , which was always in competition with the much more successful Adlershof department for cheerful drama than the other editorial team for entertainment programs, produced almost 270 popular theater pieces on behalf of German television and television of the GDR , Studio Halle . These folk theater pieces, which were mostly staged as an in-house development, played in front of an audience, recorded and then broadcast on television, "range from Schwank to the boulevard piece and are to be viewed as part of a 'folk-oriented television art'." media and genre aesthetic as well as cultural and communicative perspectives of high interest for the history of the GDR and its television and media culture .

history

The Moritzburg television theater, which "at least in German-speaking countries" represents a "unique theater experiment []", owes its existence to the later President of the People's Chamber, Horst Sindermann . At the beginning of the 1960s, as a party official or district secretary, he pushed through the establishment of his own television studio in Halle. This television theater, which was created in the course of 1965, was intended to educate people in terms of taste, ideology and citizenship in a cheerful way or with cheerful plays. In the words of the dramaturge and director Gerd Focke , whom Sindermann commissioned with the establishment of the Moritzburg television theater , primarily because of his specific notion of folklore and folk theater , and who headed the television theater for a long time: "You are building a television theater. [...] It's a one Indictment that people always have to turn on western television to be able to see cheerful plays. We can do that too! " According to Fockes himself, Sindermann basically gave him a free hand, but other pieces should be selected than those preferred by the West German so-called Volksbühnen. And above all it should be staged differently, not for "slapstick" and for "cheap laughs": "We [...] wanted [...] to create the little comedy of GDR television [...] in which even the Singspiel or the small opera should and should have its place. "

Program / program history

The first 80-minute broadcast of a play from the Moritzburg television theater took place on Sunday, December 19, 1965 in the first program at prime time at 8 p.m. Ten days later, the next piece was broadcast with Szöke Szakall's comedy Das Streichquartett , edited by Dieter Hildebrandt and Georg Marischka . Kurt Jung-Alsen, a prominent GDR or DEFA director, was also won over to stage this play , and popular GDR actors were involved in Helga Göring and Heinz Behrens (see "Actors").

In the more than 25 years of its existence, the Moritzburg TV Theater has staged a wide variety of plays and authors according to genre and sub- genre . In addition, it has other television formats such as late podium , small theater and court broadcast , which are anthologically specific authors and artists such as Bert Brecht , John Stave or Jacques Offenbach or specific literary-musical topics such as cabaret , poetry or "Russian authors" assumptions or who had the 'hot iron' "crime in the GDR" as their subject, provided variety.

In detail (see "Pieces" below) - over the entire production period - national and international representatives of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period , the Enlightenment and the Weimar Classic , the salon comedy and the folk play can be found in addition to authors and plays from antiquity of the 19th century, the time piece and the present piece . On the one hand, it is noticeable that authors (e.g. Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel the Elder or Niccolo Machiavelli ) and plays ( e.g. Cervantes : The Much Speakers ) were staged that only belong to the expanded canon of literature . On the other hand, especially in relation to the played authors from Eastern Bloc countries ( Russia or Soviet Union , Bulgaria , Hungary , Poland etc.), the strong presence of French and English-speaking authors, especially from the 19th and 20th centuries, is striking. As far as German-speaking authors of the past are concerned, the third surprise is the presence of bourgeois-conservative authors such as Carl Laufs , Ludwig Thoma , Franz von Schönthan , Paul von Schönthan or Curt Goetz . Fourth, one would hardly have expected that in the mid-1970s with Every Day in Autumn (broadcast on August 1, 1975) a play was staged by an author - Werner Bräunig - who was still at the 11th plenum of the SED Central Committee in December 1965 with his fairground (novel) was one of the most severely attacked by Erich Honecker .

Although the entire production period is characterized by diversity, the program history of the Moritzburg television theater can still be divided into three phases. On the one hand, "overarching political, television and cultural-political turning points" contributed to these phases. Just as decisive, however, were - in addition to internal personnel-structural conditions and the profile and commitment of individual employees - "the success or failure of the productions with the television audience, the changing status that was assigned to the television theater as such within the GDR television system, and thus probably related and poorer financial resources of the television theater over the years. " In this context, it cannot be overlooked that the television theater with its ambitious, idealistic and problem-oriented, popular enlightenment notion of popular character ultimately missed the mass audience who did not want to be taught.

The first, culturally particularly ambitious phase of television theater lasted until the early 1970s. It is determined by "historical-cultural curiosity, genre diversity and staging experimentation. This is followed by a short phase of intensive, above all 'quality' oriented profiling efforts, which lasts until around 1977. 1978, there is a massive concentration on the contemporary GDR fluctuation, which seeks to deal with common problems of everyday life in the GDR within and outside of the family in a cheerful manner. " "Simplifications", "phrases" and "dead punchlines or gags" in these timelines, however, stand in the way of the audience's sustained interest in these broadcasts.

The last, almost three-quarters of an hour broadcast from the Moritzburg television theater took place on September 18, 1991 in the country chain of German television, for the first time in the afternoon program at 2:20 p.m. In the program Audience favorites in the television theater: Heinz Behrens (director: Hartmut Ostrowsky ) Behrens told "of his experiences and numerous appearances in the Moritzburg television theater ." This has been preceded by nine episodes since April 1, 1989, of the 30-minute court program broadcast at 7:30 p.m. at good time, Von Fall zu Fall (1989f.) , Two comedies based on the 'old tradition' and three programs that repeat the high standards aimed at entertainment, education, clarification and social participation, which the 'makers' of the Moritzburg television theater had always pursued with their productions: Wolfgang Leonhard's experiences. Reading ( Wolfgang Leonhard , broadcast on July 8, 1990), "Totgesagt" - Trude Richter: Memories of Stalin's Camp ( Trude Richter , broadcast on July 22, 1990) and A rare case of love. Monologue ( Friedrich Nowotny ), broadcast on November 5, 1990. The respective broadcast times 10:55 pm, 11:30 pm and 9:50 pm make it clear, however, that the Moritzburg television theater with this claim in the future-oriented considerations of the program makers already does not Role played more.

actors

As with the first two pieces mentioned, it can also be noted for many later productions that numerous popular and great actors as well as television and theater makers from the GDR worked at the Moritzburg television theater. Representing the actors, for example, Dieter Bellmann , Astrid Bless , Fred Delmare , Eberhard Esche , Fred-Arthur Geppert , Werner Godemann , Sigrid Göhler , Jenny Gröllmann , Gert Gütschow , Eva-Maria Hagen , Helga Hahnemann , Harald Halgardt , Hans-Joachim Hanisch , Hannjo Hasse , Hans-Joachim Hegewald , Rolf Herricht , Ingeborg Krabbe , Georgia Kullmann , Fred Mahr , Jürgen Mai , Ingeborg Nass , Wolfgang Oldag , Evelyn Opoczynski , Marylu Poolman , Uta Schorn , Helmut Schreiber , Ernst-Georg Schwill , Siegfried Voss , Ellen Weber and Wolfgang Winkler .

Among the makers are people like Günter Agde , Celino Bleiweiß , Eva-Maria Boege , Ursula Damm-Wendler , Klaus Eidam , Günther Feustel , Peter Groeger , Jörg Kaehler , Peter Mansee , Walter Opitz , Hartmut Ostrowsky , Dieter Perlwitz , Hans-Joachim Preil , Horst Ruprecht , Horst Schönemann , Peter Sodann and Robert Trösch .

exploration

At the beginning of this century, the Moritzburg TV theater was established as part of a German Research Foundation research project entitled "Program history of GDR television - comparative" from the sub-project "Hilarious drama in German television - the 'Moritzburg TV theater" "under the direction of Gerhard Lampe of the institution, Researched according to the program and the individual productions in the context of "social developments, specific production and reception contexts" as well as "domestic and foreign media or program offers" (see "Literature").

Pieces (selection)

The selection, which is limited to approx. or the productions are representative of the program history of the Moritzburg television theater and its phases. Many of these pieces or productions, which were between 30 and 120 minutes long, were repeated, sometimes several times, sometimes over ten or more years and both in the 1st and later also in the 2nd program.

literature

  • Günter Helmes , Steffi Schältzke (Ed.): The Moritzburg TV Theater. Institution and schedule . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2003. ISBN 3-936522-99-5 .
    • Günter Helmes, Gerhard Lampe, Steffi Schältzke: Foreword . Ibid., Pp. 7-9.
    • Steffi Schältzke: A stage for serenity: the schedule for the Moritzburg television theater . Ibid., Pp. 11-24.
    • Günter Helmes, Gerd Focke: The TV theater Moritzburg: history, topics, tendencies. A conversation. Ibid., Pp. 25-64.
    • Dana Messerschmidt , Steffi Schältzke: program chronology of the broadcasts of the Moritzburg television theater / register . Ibid., Pp. 65-105.
  • Thomas Beutelschmidt : (Re) construction attempts - development steps of the GDR television drama in the historical context of the years 1968-1975 . In: Claudia Dittmar , Susanne Vollberg (eds.): Overcoming boredom? On the program development of GDR television from 1968 to 1974 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2002, pp. 245–294. ISBN 3-936522-59-6 .
  • Günter Helmes, Steffi Schältzke: The "TV theater Moritzburg" and the literary legacy: Using the example of the production by Theodor Gottlieb Hippels "The man after the clock or the ordinary man" (1765/1971). In: Claudia Dittmar, Susanne Vollberg (eds.): Overcoming boredom? On the program development of GDR television from 1968 to 1974 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2002, pp. 311–340. ISBN 3-936522-59-6 .
  • Claudia Kusebauch (ed.): TV theater Moritzburg II. Program history . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005. ISBN 3-86583-015-3 .
    • Steffi Schältzke: Stone on stone? Practice and theory of program history . Ibid., Pp. 3-14.
    • Claudia Kusebauch (with the assistance of Michael Grisko ): The Moritzburg TV Theater - Program Chronology . Ibid., Pp. 15-208.
    • Claudia Kusebauch (with the assistance of Dana Messerschmidt): The TV theater Moritzburg - program slots , topics and audience numbers / title register . Ibid., Pp. 209-242.
  • Steffi Schältzke: Between satire and clothes: The piece "String Quartet" as a mirror of West-East German staging practice . In: Claudia Dittmar, Susanne Vollberg (eds.): Alternatives in GDR television? The program development 1981 to 1985. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2004, pp. 413–438. ISBN 978-3-93720-985-2 .
  • Steffi Schältzke: Television Theater in East Germany 1965-1989: an Interim Report . In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television , Vol. 24, No. 3, 2004, pp. 455-463.
  • Claudia Kusebauch, Dana Messerschmidt, Andreas Mohrig , Steffi Schältzke (Eds.): Such a television theater !: Political actors and program practice of an institution of GDR television . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2007. ISBN 3-631-55638-1 .
    • Andrea Mohrig: Delegate 'cultural work'. TV studio Halle and TV theater Moritzburg as products of institutional relationships between DFF, SED and the GDR cultural authorities . Ibid., Pp. 15-142.
    • Dana Messerschmidt, Steffi Schältzke: The Moritzburg TV Theater - Socialist TV Theater ? Ibid., Pp. 143-174.
    • Claudia Kusebauch: Socialist comedy alternatives. Schwank productions of the Moritzburg television theater and the Ohnsorg theater in comparison . Ibid., Pp. 175-212.
    • Steffi Schältzke, Gerhard Lampe, Dieter Heinemann : Interview. Ibid., Pp. 217-232.
  • Steffi Schältzke (Ed.) The cheerful lesson? Selected analyzes of the Moritzburg television theater . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2006. ISBN 3-86583-021-8 .
    • Doris Rosenstein : "Love with Angel Gabriel". Notes on a Boccaccio adaptation for the Moritzburg television theater . Ibid., Pp. 11-48.
    • Claudia Kusebauch: A story between discourse on rule and cheerfulness. The portrayal of the French Revolution and Napoleon in the Moritzburg television theater . Ibid., Pp. 49-74.
    • Günter Helmes: "I am so free and speak ... because I am so free and ... and pay". Ludwig Thomas "Paralyzed Schwingen" (1916) on television in the GDR and the FRG . Ibid., Pp. 75-106.
    • Steffi Schältzke: "The tendency is lovable". Truth construction in the court series "From case to case" . Ibid., Pp. 107-134.
    • Günter Helmes, Astrid Bless: Interview . Ibid., Pp. 135-150.
    • Günter Helmes, Hans-Joachim Hanisch: Interview . Ibid., Pp. 151-160.
  • Steffi Schältzke: The Moritzburg TV Theater: Between the boulevard and the socialist Schwankbühne . In: Thomas Beutelschmidt, Hans-Martin Hinz , Rüdiger Steinlein , Henning Wrage (eds.): The literary television. Contributions to the German-German media culture . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2007, pp. 125-134.
  • Rüdiger Steinmetz, Reinhold Viehoff (Hrsg.): German television east: A program history of the GDR television . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-38665-048-82 .
  • Steffi Schältzke: Propaganda for petty bourgeoisie: cheerful drama on GDR television . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2009. ISBN 978-3-86583-347-1 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ Gerd Focke reports that after the end of the Second World War there was a "mass suicide of Nazi celebrities" Halle in this room . See Helmes, Focke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 30.
  2. ↑ Under "cheerful drama" as a sub-term for television drama one summarized comedy plays , swankies and comedies in the GDR .
  3. ↑ a b Helmes, Lampe, Schältzke: Foreword . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 8.
  4. ↑ Schältzke: A stage for serenity . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Steinmetz, Viehoff: Deutsches Fernsehen Ost (see "Literature"), 2008, p. 197ff.
  6. ↑ Peter Sindermann (* 1939), stepson of Horst Sindermann, could be seen more often in productions of the Moritzburg television theater until his early death in 1971.
  7. ↑ See, for example, Bertolt Brecht's article Volkstümlichkeit und Realismus , first published in Das Wort (exile magazine) ; again in: Bertolt Brecht: Collected works in 20 volumes. Vol. 19. Writings on literature and art 2 , ed. from Suhrkamp Verlag in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann . Frankfurt am Main 1967, pp. 322-331. ISBN 3-518-00915-X .
  8. ↑ " Proximity to the audience, that was the credo of this movement [which includes Hanns-Anselm Perten , who at the time directed the Rostock Volkstheater , as well as Benno Besson , who had worked at the Volksbühne Berlin since 1969 ], is created through plays and their productions that are uncomplicated and cheerful, but are by no means exhausted in mere vacillating or even pure slapstick. This does not exclude recourse to proven elements of the theatrical tradition, something of the commedia dell'arte , the posse and the carnival game , but combines their application with an instructive claim. " Schältzke: A stage for serenity . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Helmes, Focke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 29.
  10. ↑ Ibid., P. 31. - In this interview, Focke gives "taking into account economic, technical, local and overarching political-cultural aspects numerous references to the development and history of television theater" and "explains [...] the aesthetic, ideological and structural criteria according to which pieces were selected and staged. " See Helmes, Lampe, Schältzke: Foreword . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 9.
  11. ↑ The first piece that was produced by the television theater in the theater of the Junge Garde Halle was A Name Was Lost by Radi Kuschnirow in a production by Dieter Wardetzky ; however, the play was not broadcast. Cf. Claudia Kusebauch: Program Chronology (see "Literature"), 2005, p. 17.
  12. ↑ On September 22, 1981, the play was broadcast again in a production by Hans Knötzsch and with a different cast. Cf. Claudia Kusebauch: Programmchronologie (see "Literature"), 2005, p. 158.
  13. ↑ Quotations and further comments in: Steffi Schältzke, Eine Bühne für die Heiterkeit . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, p. 12f.
  14. ↑ Information about the number of viewers can be found at Claudia Kusebauch: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg . In: Dies .: TV theater Moritzburg II (see "Literature"), 2005, pp. 209–230.
  15. ↑ On this phase classification and on the phases themselves cf. in detail Steffi Schältzke, A stage for cheerfulness . In: Helmes, Schältzke: Das Fernsehtheater Moritzburg (see "Literature"), 2003, pp. 13–22; Quotes ibid., P. 13
  16. ^ So the brief information in Claudia Kusebauch: Programmchronologie (see "Literature"), 2005, p. 158.
  17. ↑ Between November 24, 1988, when Horst Ulrich Wendler's revision was repeated with three people , there had been no broadcast from the Moritzburg television theater for four months; In previous years, the number of first and repeat broadcasts had declined further, to seven in 1988 (four ES and three WH).
  18. ↑ E.g. Cervantes ' Die Vielredner / Das Wundertheater (first broadcast on May 6, 1972), Giovanni Boccaccio's love with Engel Gabriel (first broadcast on August 9, 1973), Rudi Strahl's A certain Katulla (first broadcast on August 23, 1973), Horst Ulrich Wendler's Tschüß , bis Friday (first broadcast on December 10, 1974), Margot Schölzels Kur-Schatten (broadcast on December 5, 1978) or Ludwig Thomas Waldfrieden (play) and Paralyzed Schwingen ; listed in: Claudia Kusebauch: Programmchronologie (see "Literature"), 2005, pp. 68, 79, 81, 90, 130 143.