Sophocles and Shakespeare (re)visited: Heiner Mueller, Bertolt Brecht and the issue of adaptation in East German Theatre
Abstract
The purpose of the present dissertation is to examine the concept of “adaptation,” as it was used by the most influential and most radical German playwrights Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller in their political theatre. An adaptation proved to be a useful disguise for both German dramatists at times of literary censorships, oppression, harassments and bans of state-directed cultural policies. Both Bertolt Brecht and Heiner Müller went twice through such difficult times, yet in a reversed order: Brecht first experienced the rule of National Socialists and then saw the first decade of the Socialist regime, while for his inheritor Heiner Müller the days of National Socialism came first and they were soon followed by a Communistic dictatorship in former East Germany. During these periods, instead of writing brand new plots, both dramatists chose to work on different originals of ancient Greek playwrights, or to rework Shakespeare's dramas. These adaptations provided them with adequate texts and performance scripts to relentlessly express critique of and their opposing ideas to the respective governments, that in their eyes were the sole responsible source of violence (“Staat als Gewalt”). These works would allow them to pass the censor. This study concentrates on one Sophoclean and one Shakespearean adaptation of each playwright, and shows in what ways both Brecht and Müller made the fullest possible use of the theatre machine in their adaptations, displaying how the average citizen was implicated in the horrors of the “fascist” and “socialist” states, in order to break through censorships, to defy the views of the contemporary government and to open the eyes of their readers/audience to the existing socio-political realities (e.g. every day terror, violence, suppression, lack of humanism) of their country.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Kirby, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Theater|Germanic literature|British and Irish literature|Classical studies
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