Helene Weigel

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Helene Weigel as " mother " in Bertolt Brecht's play of the same name; Berlin Ensemble (1967)
Night shot of the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1952

Helene Weigel (born May 12, 1900 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † May 6, 1971 in East Berlin ) was an Austrian - German actress and director of the Berliner Ensemble . Their importance for contemporary theater goes back to their unusual acting talent and the later development techniques for the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht . Your gestural, quiet and narrative game was in the Weimar Republicalso an alternative to the loud Nazi propaganda. Other major achievements include the establishment and maintenance of the Berliner Ensemble with its own house " Theater am Schiffbauerdamm ", the protection of Brecht's work from censorship, the extensive documentation of Brecht's work and the complete edition operated in cooperation with the West German Suhrkamp publishing house .

Her close family and professional connection with Brecht confronted her with ever new love affairs and love disasters from her husband. Against this background, Brecht's relationship with women was sometimes heavily criticized. Unlike the French intellectual couple of the time, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre , Helene Weigel relied on discretion and mostly put her problems at Brecht's side in the background.

There are also no documents that clearly prove her position on Weigel's political stance towards Stalinism and GDR policy. The interpretations of their political behavior fluctuate between the ascription of an uncritical attitude towards communist politics and its victims and the interpretation of their actions as ingenious tactics to assert Brecht's interests against the GDR cultural policy. Their strong social commitment and advocacy for groups without established interest groups is clearly documented.

Life

Childhood and school

Helene's father Siegfried Weigl was initially a correspondent , then (until 1938) authorized signatory of the textile company " Hermann Pollack 's Sons", her mother Leopoldine Weigl, née Pollak, owner of a toy store (under a single name) ( Schottenring  5, Vienna-Innere Stadt ). Both came from Jewish families and had moved from Moravia to Vienna before Helene was born , where they announced their engagement in April 1893. Helene's family initially lived at Heßgasse  7, Vienna-Innere Stadt, and from 1913 at Berggasse  30, Vienna-Alsergrund , a Jewish environment where Sigmund Freud practiced at number 19 . The secondary school run by the Austrian reform pedagogue Eugenie Schwarzwald had a strong influence on Helene Weigel . As a girls' high school, it offered the first opportunity for women in Austria to take the Matura . The mixture of housewife specialist knowledge and emancipatory thoughts conveyed there - if you follow Sabine Kebir's Weigel biography , for example - are also the basis of Helene Weigel's tolerance for Brecht's ever new woman affairs. In Eugenie Schwarzwald's school, Helene Weigel grew up in a "beginning movement of sexual liberalization".

Paths to the theater

After training to be an actor in Vienna , she went to Frankfurt am Main in 1919 and to Berlin in 1922 . Here she studied dramaturgy with Max Reinhardt , performed at the Volksbühne and at the Deutsches Theater , where she established her fame. For over a decade she played major roles in major dramas, including Meroe in Kleist's Penthesilea , Marie in Büchner's Woyzeck , Pauline Piperkarcka in Hauptmann's Die Ratten , Lucinde in Molière's unwilling doctor . Works by Sophocles , Shakespeare , Nestroy , Ibsen , Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller were also part of her repertoire.

Meeting and marriage with Brecht

In 1923 she met Bertolt Brecht ; their son Stefan was born on November 3, 1924. They married on April 10, 1929, after Brecht divorced his first wife, the opera singer Marianne Zoff . Their daughter Barbara was born on October 28, 1930 . Bert Brecht and Helene Weigel are included in the Berlin address books from 1925 to 1933. Helene Weigel is registered as an actress for 1925, she had her apartment in Wilmersdorf in the corner building at Babelsberger Strasse 52 at Berliner Strasse 163/164. From 1930 the actress is registered under Helene Weigel-Brecht. It is still in the address book in 1932 for Babelsberger Strasse 52 and must have moved to Bert Brecht on Hardenbergstrasse. Bert Brecht lived as a writer from 1927, first at Spichernstrasse 16, and from 1929 at Hardenbergstrasse 1a, where the job title was poet. He was registered at this address in Berlin until 1932. In 1933 both emigrated from Berlin and later to the USA.

The female figures in the poet's work are influenced by Weigel, many of whom she embodied and shaped. She played the title role in the premiere of the play The Mother in 1932 as well as in Brecht's Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar five years later in Paris .

exile

After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Brechts emigrated, which despite great efforts did not give them the opportunity to work as an actress. Brecht had written the role of the mute Kattrin in Mother Courage and Her Children for her so that she could perform wherever without language difficulties. In 1938 Helene Weigel played for the first and last time on a Danish stage, the Carrar in a production with amateur actors from the German émigré colony. She emigrated to the USA via Sweden and Finland . "Helli", as everyone called her, switched to the role of "just" wife and "just" mother for fifteen years. Brecht had written the screenplay for the director Fritz Lang for his resistance drama Die Henker Die together with John Wexley and Helene Weigel had initially been given a supporting role as a vegetable woman, but Lang changed it at the last moment, since he only had English characters in all Czech characters Wanted to have native speakers occupied in order to then have all the Nazis played by German actors. This was the end of the friendship between Lang and Brecht, the two of them never saw each other again. Weigel's only work as an actress in a Hollywood film was a silent role in The Seventh Cross .

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Spichernstrasse 16, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf

Return from exile and first years in Berlin

After returning from the USA, Helene Weigel played the title role in the world premiere of Brecht's Die Antigone des Sophokles in Chur , Switzerland in 1948 . Her appearance in the role of Antigone was also a test after the long acting abstinence of Weigel. As for other glamorous roles, Weigel was actually too old for Antigone at 47, and her lover's actor was 20 years younger. Helene Weigel remembers: “That was also an impossible thing, a 47-year-old Antigone. The Hämon was 20 years younger and Gaugler, who played Creon , was not much older . ”“ All of them, and I especially, were so heavily made up that the masks completely eliminated the age differences […] The experiment worked for me good. We discovered that it was still possible on stage. ”Sabine Kebir interprets the positive reception of Antigone by the critics primarily as a merit of the Weigel and continues to refer to controversies between Brecht and Weigel: Brecht criticized the Weigel play as too emotionally harsh . Nevertheless, he recognized their importance for success.

Development of the Berliner Ensemble

In the same year Brecht and Weigel went to East Berlin, where a new theater era began with the premiere of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Deutsches Theater . On February 16, 1949, Helene Weigel became director of the newly founded Berliner Ensemble at the Deutsches Theater. After the agreement with the magistrate and the SED, Brecht immediately traveled to Switzerland and Austria to win theater people such as Caspar Neher , Teo Otto , Therese Giehse and Leonhard Steckel for the Berliner Ensemble and to try to get his Austrian passport. In April 1950, Weigel and Brecht were granted Austrian citizenship. In 1952, Weigel and Brecht bought a summer house in Buckow , which, under the name Brecht-Weigel-Haus, serves as a museum and memorial to the artist couple.

By 1954, the Weigel had to master the situation, despite some independence , always making new compromises with the host Wolfgang Langhoff , the director of the Deutsches Theater. Contract details, lack of space and the setting of deadlines played a major role. Using excerpts from Weigel's correspondence and other archive material, Petra Stuber shows how she was able to assert the interests of the BE again and again with compliments, persistence and skillful appearances in commissions and negotiations, right up to the end when she announced the rehearsal rooms after separating from the Deutsches Theater who could 'take away' from Reinhardstrasse.

Together with Brecht, she led the theater to an international reputation, which began in 1954 with a guest performance in Paris: for the three performances by Mother Courage at the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt , the ensemble received the 1st prize of the “Theater Festival of Nations”.

In 1950 Helene Weigel was a founding member of the German Academy of the Arts in East Berlin, for the SED she stood in 1954 as a candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives , and was awarded the GDR National Prize three times . In 1956 her husband Bertolt Brecht died.

After Brecht's death in 1956

Manfred Wekwerth , hired by Brecht as an assistant in 1951, was made chief director by Helene Weigel after Brecht's death. He reports about a great arrogance at the BE, about fierce competition between the directors and conflicts with the Weigel. In a conversation with Olga Fedianina, Wekwerth reported that Helene Weigel had already arranged the repertoire and theater organization during Brecht's lifetime. “Brecht hardly interfered.” Without her, Wekwerth believed that Brecht would not have been able to implement the idea of ​​his own theater.

In 1960 she was appointed professor and in 1965 was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold. The invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact states in 1968 made them despair of the GDR. Her last appearance was, as Vera Tenschert reports, four weeks before her death on April 7, 1971 in Nanterre near Paris in her star role as The Mother in the play of the same name.

Grave in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof, Berlin

She was buried next to her husband in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery (Dept. CAM) in Berlin.

Theatrical significance

Brecht repeatedly characterized the work of the Weigel in poems and texts. In 1952, under the title Die Props der Weigel , he describes the meticulous care they have taken when selecting props:

As [...]
the poet uses the right words, so
she chooses the things that
accompany her characters across the stage. […]
[…] Everything
selected according to age, purpose and beauty
With the eyes
of those who know And the hands of the bread-baking, net-knitting
soup- cooker connoisseur of
reality.

Sabine Kebir sees Helene Weigel's essential contribution to the European stage in the adaptation of exact Asian body language for German theater, the precision of which made plays understandable abroad without understanding the text, and her development of representational solutions for Brecht's Epic Theater . Manfred Wekwerth does not see a separate theater concept for the Weigel, as distinguished from Brecht:

“Weigel also had no ambitions to develop his own theatrical aesthetic or his own way of playing. She was shaped by Brecht, and what you see of her as an actress is worked down to the fingertips by Brecht - together with her, of course. "

- Olga Fedianina: A conversation with Manfred Wekwerth . In: Wilke, p. 285

Helene Weigel as an actress

Sabine Kebir emphasizes the Weigel's quiet play as an anti-totalitarian counterpoint to the demagogic speaking and shouting technique of politics in the first half of the last century and notes that in the GDR, the Weigel's language and distant play did not fit into the agitation concept for most functionaries. Dieter Wöhrle emphasizes the peculiarity of Weigel's voice. Her first characteristic in Berlin was certainly the “Viennese tone”. He quotes Wolf Biermann , who "can only hear the 'praise of communism' in the voice of Helene Weigel, who 'celebrated this text with her noble stage Bavarian'." Brecht's sympathy for Bavarian or Austrian tones on stage is well known. Helene Weigel was well aware of the importance of the voice. In an interview with Bunge in 1959, she stated that she became an actress because of the deep impression a recitation made, not because of the theater itself.

Manfred Wekwerth, who staged roles such as Volumnia im Coriolan and Frau Flinz by Helmut Baierl with Helene Weigel , remembers Helene Weigel as an actress with a high level of acceptance for hints and criticism. However, he describes the collaboration between Brecht and Weigel at the rehearsals as tense. Brecht had criticized the Weigel in part "rigorously and mercilessly" and particularly demanded "very quick acting solutions" from her. Above all, Brecht successfully fought two weaknesses of the Weigel, initially her tendency to transfer speech from one role to the other, but also a tendency towards sentimentality and crying, privately and on stage.

literature

  • Norbert Anzenberger: Helene Weigel - An artist's life in the shadow of Brecht? Fouqué Literaturverlag, Egelsbach and others 1998, ISBN 3-8267-4207-9 .
  • Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, Helene Weigel: Relentlessly showing the right thing, Helene Weigel (1900–1971). Foundation Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-88331-040-9 .
  • Werner Hecht : Helene Weigel. A great woman of the 20th century . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-41129-2 .
  • Werner Hecht (ed.), Siegfried Unseld (ed.): Helene Weigel on her 70th birthday. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1970, ISBN 3-518-04658-6 .
  • Werner Hecht: Directory of roles by Helene Weigel. In: Wilke, p. 121 f.
  • Christine Herold: mother of the ensemble. Helene Weigel - a life with Bertolt Brecht. Ars Vivendi, Cadolzburg 2001, ISBN 3-89716-230-X .
  • Sabine Kebir : Descent into fame. Helene Weigel. A biography . Structure, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-351-02501-7 .
  • Wolfgang Pintzka (Ed.): The actress Helene Weigel. A photo book. With texts by Bertolt Brecht and photographs by Gerda Goedhart. Henschel, Berlin 1959.
  • Marion Steiner: Actresses in Exile (1930–1945): Four exemplary résumés - Therese Giehse, Lilli Palmer, Salka Viertel, Helene Weigel. Vdm Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008, ISBN 978-3-8364-9759-6 .
  • Carola Stern : Men love differently. Helene Weigel and Bertolt Brecht . Rowohlt, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87134-411-7 .
  • Vera Tenschert: The Weigel. An illustrated book. Henschel, Berlin 1981. (New edition as: Helene Weigel in photographs by Vera Tenschert . Henschel, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89487-342-6 )
  • Helene Weigel, Stefan Mahlke: We are too famous to go everywhere. Helene Weigel Correspondence 1935–1971. Theater der Zeit, 2000, ISBN 3-9805945-9-9 .
  • Judith Wilke; Maarten Van Dijk (Ed.): Helene Weigel 100 (Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch). University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, ISBN 0-9682722-2-3 . (English and German)
  • Anita Wünschmann: Helene Weigel. Viennese Jewess, great actress of the epic theater. Hentrich & Hentrich Verlag Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938485-29-9 .
  • Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Weigel, Helene . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Sound recordings

  • Weigel reads Brecht. Sony Music
  • To those born later. Audiobook. 2 cassettes. The ocean flight. Saint Joan of the slaughterhouses. Speeches by Bertolt Brecht, Helene Weigel and Fritz Kortner, Dhv der Hörverlag 1997, ISBN 3-89584-277-X
  • Bertolt Brecht: Dramas. 10 CDs. The Audio Verlag May 2006, ISBN 3-89813-529-2

Radio plays

Movie

Filmography

See also

Brecht (film biography)

Web links

Commons : Helene Weigel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

Siglen :

  • GBA → Bertolt Brecht: Works. Large annotated Berlin and Frankfurt edition, edited by Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei, Klaus-Detlev Müller. 30 volumes and one index volume, 1998–2000
  • Hecht → Werner Hecht : Helene Weigel. A great woman of the 20th century . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-41129-2 .
  • Kebir → Sabine Kebir : Descent into fame. Helene Weigel. A biography . Structure, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-351-02501-7 .
  • Wilke → Judith Wilke; Maarten Van Dijk (Ed.): Helene Weigel 100 (Brecht Yearbook / Das Brecht-Jahrbuch). University of Wisconsin Press, 2000, ISBN 0-9682722-2-3 . (English and German)
  1. ↑ original family name was "Weigl"
  2. ↑ according to Kebir, p. 11 and p. 346, note 8, the error of the additional "e" occurred when the birth certificate was issued, according to Hecht, p. 295, by later "renaming"
  3. ↑ Small ads. [… Leopoldine Pollak, Siegfried Weigl, Vienna, fiancée. ] In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 10291/1893, April 18, 1893, p. 20, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  4. ↑ Werner Hecht: Helene Weigel. A great woman of the 20th century . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-41129-2 , p. 295; hereinafter cited as: Hecht p. 295.
  5. ↑ Kebir, p. 46.
  6. ↑ The editions of the address books always contain the population of the previous year.
  7. ↑ Babelsberger Strasse 52 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1926, VI., P. 1404. “Weigel, H., Actress” (the entry is missing in the previous year 1925/6064.).
  8. ↑ Helene Weigel-Brecht . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1931, I., p. 3643. "Actress Babelsberger Strasse 52".
  9. ↑ Helene Weigel-Brecht . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1932, I., p. 3588 (no longer an entry in the residents' part 1933).
  10. ↑ Bert Brecht . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1928, I., p. 369. "Writer, W50 Spichernstrasse 16" (In the previous year 1927 no entry in the residents' section.).
  11. ↑ Hardenbergstrasse 1a . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1930, VI., P. 1235. “Brecht, B., Dichter”.
  12. ↑ Hardenbergstrasse 1a . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1933, VI., P. 1069. "Brecht, B., Dichter and 19 other tenants" (Bert Brecht is no longer mentioned in the 1934 population.).
  13. ^ Plan of Berlin. Sheet 4241 ( Memento of the original dated November 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. X = 19340, Y = 2059: The apartment building at Hardenbergstrasse 1a was at the southwest exit of the Knie underground station and bordered on the corner building at Hardenbergstrasse 1 / Bismarckstrasse 116. It was 150 meters from the Schiller Theater, Grolmannstrasse 70/72. The entire street corner was destroyed in the air raids. After the ruins had been cleared, the property was incorporated into the newly designed Ernst-Reuter-Platz. The house at Spichernstrasse 16 and the houses following to the east were also destroyed and the ruins cleared. At the end of the 1950s, new buildings were built, and the memorial plaque is located on this new house 16.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / histomapberlin.de
  14. ↑ Werner Hecht: Brecht Chronicle 1998–1956. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 1998, p. 743.
  15. ↑ cf. Helene Weigel in conversation with Werner Hecht, in: Notate / 86, p. 9
  16. ↑ Kebir, p. 210
  17. ↑ see Kebir, p. 212
  18. ↑ Petra Stuber: Helene Weigel and her role as artistic director between 1949 and 1954. In: Wilke pp. 252–275
  19. ↑ Kebir, p. 218
  20. ↑ published by Stuber in Wilke, p. 268ff.
  21. ↑ a b c In Wilke p. 284ff.
  22. ↑ GBA 12, pp. 330f.
  23. ↑ Kebir, p. 9
  24. ↑ Kebir, p. 7f.
  25. ↑ Dieter Wöhrle: The voice of the Weigel . In: Wilke, p. 160ff.
  26. ↑ Wöhrle names Therese Giehse , Carola Neher , Paula Banholzer , Marie Rose Aman , Marieluise Fleißer , Marianne Zoff , Lotte Lenya . Dieter Wöhrle: The voice of the Weigel . In: Wilke, p. 162f.
  27. ↑ Helene Weigel in conversation with Hans Bunge (August 5, 1959). In: Wilke, p. 15
  28. ↑ Olga Fedianina: A conversation with Manfred Wekwerth . In: Wilke, p. 287
  29. ↑ Olga Fedianina: A conversation with Manfred Wekwerth . In: Wilke, p. 286
personal data
SURNAME Weigel, Helene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weigl, Helene (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress and director of the Berliner Ensemble
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1971
PLACE OF DEATH Berlin