Josef Szeiler
Encyclopedia
Josef Szeiler is an Austrian
theatre director. As co-founder of the group TheaterAngelusNovus he is first of all known for his experimental approach to texts by Heiner Müller
, Bertolt Brecht
, Homer
and Greek dramas.
. At the end of the 1970s he worked as guest assistant for Benno Besson
at the Volksbühne Berlin where he met the playwright Heiner Müller
, who became a life long friend.
Josef Szeiler’s first theatre project in Vienna
was Die Schlacht by Heiner Müller
. Out of this project arose the group TheaterAngelusNovus which focused on a continuous reflection of theatrical aspects (“Selbstverständigung”) rather than producing small packages of ready made performances that could be consumed in a traditional setting. Still there were regular projects that were also publicly accessible, like the reading of the Iliad
in its entire length which was held 1986 at the Vienna Künstlerhaus
. The text was read in German in parallel tracks both by members of the group and visitors and also by scholars in the original Greek version. The doors were open during the entire production; people could come and leave, sleep, eat or participate in the readings.
After the split-up of TheaterAngelusNovus in 1988 Josef Szeiler conducted several projects without formal group, such as „FatzerMaterial. Vom Theater ist daher zu Sagen, was man vom Körper sagt“ with Monika Meister at the Institute for Theatre Science at the University of Vienna
which focused on aspects of theatre documentation; or HamletMaschine.TokioMaterial, a production of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine in Tokyo
which ran in parallel to a Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
.
In 1995 Szeiler produced Heiner Müller
’s Philoktet with the painter and stage designer Mark Lammert
at the Berliner Ensemble
, which was the last theatre production Heiner Müller
saw.
In 1998 Josef Szeiler co-founded the group Theaterkombinat Wien, which in 1999-2000 produced MassakerMykene at the abattoir St. Marx in Vienna, working with Bertolt Brecht
’s Fatzer Fragment
and The Oresteia
by Aeschylus
.
One of his latest production was in 2006-2007 with the group „Konfiguration – Jenseits des Todes“ at the „Stadt des Kindes“ in Vienna which worked with all antique related texts by Heiner Müller
as partial realization of a project involving all texts by the author, which was originally planned for 1996 but was not realized then following the death of the Author.
’s Learning Play
approach. However, in contrast to the work of Augusto Boal
or Reiner Steinweg, who focus heavily on the pedagogical aspects, it is aesthetical aspects that dominate in Szeiler’s work in which responding to architecture and working with the human body in the theatrical space feature heavily. Productions took place e.g. in a repair hall of the Austrian Federal Train services or the abattoir St. Marx in Vienna.
The German theatre critic Hans-Thies Lehmann identified the works by TheaterAngelusNovus and Josef Szeiler as important representations of what he termed postdramatic theatre
, in which no longer the representation of the dramatic text is the main focus, but rather self reflection of the medium theatre. Other examples of postdramatic theatre are Robert Wilson
, Jan Fabre
, Robert Lepage
, Frank Castorf
, La Fura dels Baus
and the Viennese Actionism
.
derived from the antique Greek tragedy. Other than with the musical choir
, which is usually directed by a central conductor, the chorus is envisaged here as a homogenous organism, which finds its position, rhythm and movement in spontaneous response to the given situation. This does demand the capability of the individual members to continuously and repeatedly synchronize themselves with the group and react to situations. Training includes refinement of perception and social understanding.
The approach in concrete productions was likened to the ones of soccer players who practice positions and movements in training which may or may not work the same way in a match and rely on the capability to adapt to situations at hand.
With TheaterAngelusNovus (1981 – 1988)
Samuel Beckett, Endspiel
Heiner Müller, HamletMaschine
Aischylos, Prometheus (1983)
Bertolt Brecht, FatzerMaterial – Fragment (1985)
3-Year-Project ORESTIE (1986-1988):
Part 1 – HomerLesen
Part 2 – Tod des Hektor
Part 3 – Wien/Moskau/Chabarowsk/Moskau/Wien (Theater project in the Trans-Siberian Railway
)
Without Specific Group
FatzerMaterial –Theater/documentation project at the Institut for Theatre Science at the University of Vienna (1988/89).
Menschenmaterial 1. Die Maßnahme . Theater project at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1990).
Heiner Müller: Hamletmaschine. Theater project von in Tokyo (1992).
Heiner Müller: Philoktet (Berliner Ensemble 1995).
With Theaterkombinat Wien
MassakerMykene (1999 – 2000)
With Konfiguration – Jenseits des Todes
Jenseits des Todes - hm3 (2007)
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
theatre director. As co-founder of the group TheaterAngelusNovus he is first of all known for his experimental approach to texts by Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
, Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
and Greek dramas.
Overview
Josef Szeiler was born in Sankt Michael im BurgenlandSankt Michael im Burgenland
Sankt Michael im Burgenland is a town in the district of Güssing in Burgenland in Austria ....
. At the end of the 1970s he worked as guest assistant for Benno Besson
Benno Besson
Benno Besson was a Swiss actor and director. He had great success as director at Volksbühne Berlin, Deutsches Theater and Berliner Ensemble in East-Berlin, where he went by an invitation of Bertolt Brecht in 1949...
at the Volksbühne Berlin where he met the playwright Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
, who became a life long friend.
Josef Szeiler’s first theatre project in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
was Die Schlacht by Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
. Out of this project arose the group TheaterAngelusNovus which focused on a continuous reflection of theatrical aspects (“Selbstverständigung”) rather than producing small packages of ready made performances that could be consumed in a traditional setting. Still there were regular projects that were also publicly accessible, like the reading of the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
in its entire length which was held 1986 at the Vienna Künstlerhaus
Vienna Künstlerhaus
The Vienna Künstlerhaus is an art exhibition building in Vienna. It is located on Karlsplatz near the Ringstraße, next to the Musikverein....
. The text was read in German in parallel tracks both by members of the group and visitors and also by scholars in the original Greek version. The doors were open during the entire production; people could come and leave, sleep, eat or participate in the readings.
After the split-up of TheaterAngelusNovus in 1988 Josef Szeiler conducted several projects without formal group, such as „FatzerMaterial. Vom Theater ist daher zu Sagen, was man vom Körper sagt“ with Monika Meister at the Institute for Theatre Science at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
which focused on aspects of theatre documentation; or HamletMaschine.TokioMaterial, a production of Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
which ran in parallel to a Japanese adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
.
In 1995 Szeiler produced Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
’s Philoktet with the painter and stage designer Mark Lammert
Mark Lammert
Mark Lammert , is a German painter, illustrator, graphic artist and stage designer. He lives and works in Berlin.- Biography :...
at the Berliner Ensemble
Berliner Ensemble
The Berliner Ensemble is a German theatre company established by playwright Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel in January 1949 in East Berlin...
, which was the last theatre production Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
saw.
In 1998 Josef Szeiler co-founded the group Theaterkombinat Wien, which in 1999-2000 produced MassakerMykene at the abattoir St. Marx in Vienna, working with Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
’s Fatzer Fragment
Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer
Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer is an unfinished play by Bertolt Brecht, written betyween 1926 and 1930. Der Untergang des Egoisten Johnann Fatzer, is translated as Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer or Demise of the Egotist Johann Fatzer and often called the Fatzer Fragment, or simply...
and The Oresteia
The Oresteia
The Oresteia is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus. When originally performed it was accompanied by Proteus, a satyr play that would have been performed following the trilogy; it has not survived...
by Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
.
One of his latest production was in 2006-2007 with the group „Konfiguration – Jenseits des Todes“ at the „Stadt des Kindes“ in Vienna which worked with all antique related texts by Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller
Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...
as partial realization of a project involving all texts by the author, which was originally planned for 1996 but was not realized then following the death of the Author.
Postdramatic Theatre
An important aspect of Szeiler’s approach to the theatre is his use of time, based on the understanding that the usual rhythm of theatrical production (2-3 months of preparation followed by 2 hour evening performances) serves more to confirm the social status quo than helping to raise questions. Apart from that his work is characterized by the abolishment of the divide between actors and visitors as a consequent continuation of Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
’s Learning Play
Lehrstücke
The Lehrstücke are a radical and experimental form of modernist theatre developed by Bertolt Brecht and his collaborators from the 1920s to the late 1930s. The Lehrstücke stem from Brecht's Epic Theatre techniques but as a core principle explore the possibilities of learning through acting,...
approach. However, in contrast to the work of Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal
Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...
or Reiner Steinweg, who focus heavily on the pedagogical aspects, it is aesthetical aspects that dominate in Szeiler’s work in which responding to architecture and working with the human body in the theatrical space feature heavily. Productions took place e.g. in a repair hall of the Austrian Federal Train services or the abattoir St. Marx in Vienna.
The German theatre critic Hans-Thies Lehmann identified the works by TheaterAngelusNovus and Josef Szeiler as important representations of what he termed postdramatic theatre
Postdramatic theatre
The notion of "post-dramatic theatre" was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his 1999 book with the same title, summarizing a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the 1960s...
, in which no longer the representation of the dramatic text is the main focus, but rather self reflection of the medium theatre. Other examples of postdramatic theatre are Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson (director)
Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...
, Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp...
, Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage
Robert Lepage, is a playwright, actor, film director, and stage director from Québec City, Québec, and is one of Canada's most honoured theatre artists.- Life and work :...
, Frank Castorf
Frank Castorf
Frank Castorf is a German theater director and since 1992 the artistic director of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz...
, La Fura dels Baus
La Fura dels Baus
La Fura dels Baus is a Catalan theatrical group founded in 1979 in Barcelona, known for their urban theatre, use of unusual settings and blurring of the boundaries between audience and actor. "La Fura dels Baus" in Catalan means "vermin from the sewers"....
and the Viennese Actionism
Viennese Actionism
The term Viennese Actionism describes a short and violent movement in 20th century art that can be regarded as part of the many independent efforts of the 1960s to develop "action art" . Its main participants were Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. As "actionists",...
.
Theatre as the Art of the Social
Another important aspect of Szeiler’s work is the development of the theatrical chorusGreek chorus
A Greek chorus is a homogenous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action....
derived from the antique Greek tragedy. Other than with the musical choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, which is usually directed by a central conductor, the chorus is envisaged here as a homogenous organism, which finds its position, rhythm and movement in spontaneous response to the given situation. This does demand the capability of the individual members to continuously and repeatedly synchronize themselves with the group and react to situations. Training includes refinement of perception and social understanding.
The approach in concrete productions was likened to the ones of soccer players who practice positions and movements in training which may or may not work the same way in a match and rely on the capability to adapt to situations at hand.
Projects
Heiner Müller, Die SchlachtWith TheaterAngelusNovus (1981 – 1988)
Samuel Beckett, Endspiel
Heiner Müller, HamletMaschine
Aischylos, Prometheus (1983)
Bertolt Brecht, FatzerMaterial – Fragment (1985)
3-Year-Project ORESTIE (1986-1988):
Part 1 – HomerLesen
Part 2 – Tod des Hektor
Part 3 – Wien/Moskau/Chabarowsk/Moskau/Wien (Theater project in the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...
)
Without Specific Group
FatzerMaterial –Theater/documentation project at the Institut for Theatre Science at the University of Vienna (1988/89).
Menschenmaterial 1. Die Maßnahme . Theater project at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (1990).
Heiner Müller: Hamletmaschine. Theater project von in Tokyo (1992).
Heiner Müller: Philoktet (Berliner Ensemble 1995).
With Theaterkombinat Wien
MassakerMykene (1999 – 2000)
With Konfiguration – Jenseits des Todes
Jenseits des Todes - hm3 (2007)
External links
- Reiner Steinweg: A 'Theatre of the Future'. About the Work of TheaterAngelusNovels at the Example of Brecht and Homer
- There Won’t be Acting! How the Viennese theatre director Josef Szeiler (didn’t) stage Heiner Müller’s “Philoktet” at the Berliner Ensemble.
- theatercombinat wien: massakermykene
- Enemy of the Stage: POSTDRAMATIC THEATRE, Day 1
- Kattrin Deufert (Frankfurt am Main), Josef Szeiler (Wien): Nicht(s)-Tun im Theater. Gespräch am 11.08.2000 im Bristol Hotel Frankfurt am Main
- Barbara Freitag: Ohne Bühne, Rolle und Kulisse. Theorie und Praxis des „postdramatischen Theaters“
- Project page "Jenseits des Todes - hm3"
- Video: Press conference CONFIGURATION HM1. Théâtre du Grütli, Geneva, Nov 2008
- TheaterAngelusNovus Archive at the Goethe University Frankfurt a. M.