Herbert König (director)
Herbert König (* 1944 in Magdeburg ; † September 3, 1999 in Düsseldorf ) was a German theater director and set designer .
Life
König studied distance learning at the theater college in Leipzig and then worked as a film critic and assistant director. He made his debut as a director in 1973 with the play Fräulein Julie in Magdeburg . Then he staged in Brandenburg (Havel) , Greifswald , Zittau , Karl-Marx-Stadt and Berlin .
The culture censors of the GDR quickly became aware of him, and his productions were considered “extravagant” and “unrealistic”. It became undesirable to hire him. Even in the provinces, König had to fight for a long time and often in vain for a staging option. His production of Carlo Goldoni's Der Impresario von Smyrna in Zittau saw two performances before it was canceled. After his staging of Lorcas Yerma at the Brandenburg Theater , he was accused of “biologism” and “counter-revolutionary ideas”. The last stop before he left for the West was West Pomerania Anklam , where Frank Castorf worked as senior director. Castorf had König staged the Lorca play Bernarda Albas Haus , which had to be painted after the dress rehearsal. In 1983 he was expatriated and deported with his family. If he had been able to continue working in the GDR province, König later said, he would certainly have stayed there.
In the West, König was “the tough guy from over there”, according to Der Spiegel . He hated it when the theater chased after television, he said in 1999. The whole "fun shit" was "really on his chains". His stagings were just as controversial in the West as in the East.
König worked in Munich , Essen , Basel , Bochum , Bremen , at the Berlin Schaubühne and repeatedly in Düsseldorf at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus . Under the management of Volker Canaris , König staged Beckett , the author "through whose glasses he had already looked in the GDR" and whom he has now made a mainstay of his work. Due to illness, König finally said goodbye to Düsseldorf, but still staged in Bochum and Bremen.
In 1996, König also reported back in the east of reunified Germany: he staged Euripides ' classic Die Bakchen in Leipzig . His last directorial work was Waiting for Godot in 1999 , also in Leipzig. In the program he wrote: “As a young director I wanted to improve the world, or at least socialism. My anger for change failed because of Beckett. "
He died in Düsseldorf at the age of 55. “The pathos of the time was alien to him,” headlined the Berliner Zeitung in its obituary.
literature
- The director Herbert König. A portrait and a conversation. In: Theater Today . No. 2, 1986, pp. 26-31.
- Thomas Wieck: Director: Herbert König - About the art of staging in the GDR . Theater der Zeit , Berlin 2019 ISBN 978-3-95749-198-5
Web links
- With Beckett to the new countries. Obituary in the Berliner Zeitung , September 8, 1999.
- Herbert König died . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1999, pp. 310 ( online ).
- Herbert König Archive in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b King's fiasco in Düsseldorf . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 1984, pp. 151 ( online ).
- ↑ a b c With Beckett in the new countries. In: Berliner Zeitung , September 8, 1999.
- ↑ I didn't want to leave . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 1987, pp. 240-244 ( online ).
- ↑ Culture timetable 1996 on Spiegel Online
- ↑ quoted from: Ralph Gambihler: Godot and the game show. In: Berliner Zeitung , January 25, 1999.
- ↑ Herbert König died . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1999, pp. 310 ( online ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | King, Herbert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German director and set designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Magdeburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 3, 1999 |
| Place of death | Dusseldorf |