Archaeology of the Political Unconscious: Theater and Opera in East Berlin, 1967–1977

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Jennifer Williams

Archaeology of the Political Unconscious

Theater and Opera in East Berlin, 1967–1977

Jennifer Williams

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English

Routledge
03 September 2024

Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies

This book investigates the aesthetic and political dialectics of East Berlin to argue how its theater and opera stages incited artists to act out, fuel, and resist the troubled construction of political legitimacy.

This volume investigates three case studies of how leading East Berlin stages excavated fragmentary materials from Weimar dramatist Bertolt Brecht’s oeuvre and repurposed them for their post‑fascist society: Uta Birnbaum’s 1967 Man Equals Man at the Berliner Ensemble, Joachim Herz’s 1977 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Komische Oper, and Heiner Muller’s own productions of his trailblazing plays. In each instance, reused theatrical artifacts dialectically expressed the contradictions inherent in East German political legitimacy, at once amplifying and critiquing it. Illuminated by original archival research and translations of letters and artistic ephemera published in English for the first time, and engaging with alternative East German feminist epistemologies, this book’s critical investigation of culture and political legitimacy in the shadow of Germany’s fascist past resonates beyond the Iron Curtain into the twenty‑first century. Its final chapter examines how performative artifacts influence the process of political legitimation in more recent history, ranging from Checkpoint Charlie tourism to the January 6, 2021 US insurrection.

This study will be of great interest to students and scholars in theater and performance studies, art history, musicology, German studies, anthropology, and political science.

By: Jennifer Williams
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9781032105956
ISBN 10: 103210595X
Series: Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
Pages: 180
Publication Date: 03 September 2024
Audience: College/higher education , College/higher education , Further / Higher Education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Dedication Acknowledgements List of Figures Preface 1 | Unsettled Ruins: Political Legitimation and the Aesthetics of Reuse in East Berlin 2 | Broken Artifacts: Man Equals Man at the Berliner Ensemble 3 | Ruins and Their Shadows: Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Komische Oper 4 | Disruptive Excavations: The Theater of Heiner Müller and the Legacy of Bertolt Brecht Coda | Stolen Artifacts Appendix 1: GDR Timeline Appendix 2: East Berlin Theater Timeline Works Cited Index

Jennifer Williams is a Fulbright Scholar and opera director. She holds a PhD in theater and performance studies from Cornell University and an AB from the University of Chicago.