Peter Wackernagel (director)

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Portrait of Peter Wackernagel during his time in Ulm, Neu-Ulm photo seal

Peter Paul Wackernagel (born April 10, 1913 in Leipzig , † July 26, 1958 in Ulm ) was a German director , director of several municipal theaters and, from May 1954 until his death, director of the Ulm municipal theaters . He was considered one of the most prominent artistic directors in the post-war period.

Life

Peter Wackernagel was born in Leipzig in 1913 as the son of the art historian Martin Wackernagel and the writer Ilse von Stach . From 1933 to 1939 he studied art history and theater studies in Cologne, Münster, Florence and Rome . During the Second World War he was used as a soldier in Africa, but was able to return to Stuttgart in 1943 , where he held a position as assistant director at the Stuttgart State Theater until 1945 . There then followed a time as a freelance director at the Landesbühne Esslingen and the Hamburg Thalia Theater . Afterwards he was appointed director of the Schauspielhaus Tübingen and the municipal theaters of Freiburg .

In Freiburg, Peter Wackernagel staged Paul Claudel's Seidener Schuh so successfully that in autumn 1949 he was appointed senior director under the artistic director Gustav Deharde to Ulm, where he staged the play again. In 1950 Peter Wackernagel founded the Podium , which was initially located in the Max-Wieland-Galerie with 150 seats and which was later integrated into the new building of the Ulm Theater in 1969. Here Wackernagel was able to implement his idea of ​​a theater as an arena in which players and guests form a community - a tradition that came back to life in the makeshift arrangements after 1945 and was implemented in an exemplary manner for Wackernagel by building the new double house for the Mannheim National Theater . After Deharde left Ulm, Peter Wackernagel was named as director's successor in May 1954.

His focus was on William Shakespeare , including performances of The Storm and A Midsummer Night's Dream , Heinrich von Kleist , including Das Käthchen von Heilbronn , and the more modern authors Thornton Wilder and Paul Claudel. In his productions, Peter Wackernagel sought the connection between the artistic and the spiritual with reference to religion and ethics. For this reason he valued pieces in which humans and the overworld are connected. In his time, he saw Christian theater as future-oriented, as a way of "bringing people who have lost their ability to make contact back to the ability to experience and thus to experience the mystery by fulfilling an external form."

Grave site at the New Cemetery in Ulm

Peter Wackernagel died in 1958 during the game break. He left behind his wife, the actress Erika Wackernagel , whom he had met in Ulm, as well as their children Sabine and Christof .

The surprisingly early death was felt to be very painful and prompted the city of Ulm to publish a memorial with some of his texts, several reviews and obituaries. Inge Aicher-Scholl wrote in her obituary in relation to Shakespeare's storm :

Consolation
You are not dead -
you are secluded
on a magic island
just like Prospero.

literature

  • Peter Wackernagel: Between dream theater and arena . Ed .: Herbert Wiegandt , Alexander Bergengruen. Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Ulm 1958.
  • Frank Raberg : Biographical Lexicon for Ulm and Neu-Ulm 1802-2009 . Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft im Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2010, ISBN 978-3-7995-8040-3 , p. 447 .

Web links

Commons : Peter Wackernagel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d Cf. Raberg.
  2. ↑ See Kurt Fried : Peter Wackernagel to commemorate . From Wackernagel, p. 31. Quote: "The most intellectual one and the most profiled among the artistic directors and game directors [..]"
  3. ↑ see entry in the German National Library.
  4. ↑ compare Wackernagel, p. 5; Raberg.
  5. ↑ compare speech by the mayor of Ulm, Theodor Pfizer am Grabe, p. 26 in Wackernagel.
  6. ↑ compare Kurt Fried: Peter Wackernagel in memory . From Wackernagel, p. 31.
  7. ↑ compare Wackernagel, p. 5 and p. 8.
  8. ↑ see Wackernagel, pp. 9–12.
  9. ^ Compare Herbert Wiegandt: Shakespeare's "Storm" in the city stage . From Wackernagel, p. 13.
  10. ↑ see Wackernagel, pp. 14–15.
  11. ↑ Quoted verbatim from the commentary by the editors of the memorial volume, p. 19. See also Kurt Fried, p. 31.
  12. ↑ compare Raberg, p. 446.
  13. ^ Inge Aicher-Scholl: Memories of Peter Wackernagel . From: Wackernagel, pp. 32–33.
personal data
SURNAME Wackernagel, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wackernagel, Peter Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German director and general manager of the Ulm City Theaters
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1958
Place of death Ulm