Juvencio Maeztu

IB Theatre Y1

Mr. Tickner

Thursday 23rd 2017

Hamletmachine by Heiner Mller

Hamletmachine is a postdramatic play by German playwright and theatre director

Heiner Mller. It was written in 1977; Mller bases this play on Hamlet by

William Shakespeare. Mller finished writing the text whilst in Sofia, Bulgaria,

after having been working on it for some time. Its world premire took place at the

Thtre Grard Philipe Saint-Denis, directed by Jean Jourdheuil in 1979. It is one

of Mllers most-performed plays, second only to Quartett; Quartet. Some critics

claim the play problematizes the role of people during the East German

Communism area; others argue that the play should be understood in relation to

wider post-modern concepts. The play, is not centered on a conventional plot, but

instead connects through sequences of monologues, where the protagonist leaves

his role and reflects on being an actor. The Hamlet Machine is notorious for its

complexity: most of the play lacks any character attribution, and when there is

any, it may be instantly questioned or undermined (Stumm, Alfred). The play

appears to have a cyclical structure, beginning and ending with a voice emerging

from a scene of massive destruction. It consists of five scenes of varying length.

Occasionally banned and denounced in East Germany during the decades before
he was hailed as its pre-eminent playwright, Mller was known when the 1970's

began as the author of bravely impressive but somewhat dour classical

adaptations, Brechtian ''learning plays,'' and realistic dramas about the problems of

building socialism.

Heiner Mller himself was born in 1929 in Germany, and in the early 1930s, the

worldwide Great Depression hit Germany hard, as unemployment soared and

people lost confidence in the government. In 1933, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler

came to power and established a totalitarian regime. Under occupation by the

Allies, German territories were split up into democratic West Germany and

communist East Germany. The Eastern German government fortified its western

borders and, in 1961, the communist party built the Berlin Wall. This complex

historical context of his region influences greatly his decision to produce this play.

Due to the strict nature of East Germany during the 20th century, Mllers plays

were censored for provocative and inappropriate behavior. During the time,

Germany had a powerful conservative society that admired plays like

Shakespeares, however despised the grievance of Hamletmachine. Hereby,

Mller decided to go against the societal expectations and norms, to fight against

the strict social conflict. He wrote this play as a symbol of German destruction and

a creation of renewed styles. The play re-enacts one of the most canonical works

in Western literature, Shakespeares Hamlet, which was written at the start of the
17th century. Hamlet follows the societal conventions of Germany in the 1600s,

and thus Mllers play uses Shakespeares famous work to revolutionize and alter

the way which common plays were written. Beginning with the title and through

to the end of the work, the play provokes many questions. Yet, as the ending

shows, the most revolutionary acts remain frozen or buried underwater. Hamlet is

a play that was much respected in society, and in turn, changed that play to protest

the disciplinary expectations of communist Germany. He created it with

inspirations from many of his idols such as Antonin Artaud, from Theatre of

Cruelty, and Bertolt Brecht. Mller also mentioned that he wanted recognition and

fame as a playwright, and therefore wrote this post dramatic work of art.

Antonin Artaud, was a French dramatist, actor, and theatre director, widely

recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the

European avant-garde, as the developer of theatre of cruelty. Bertolt Brecht was a

German (alike Mller) theatre director, also of the same contextual period, and

known for his influence to theatre. Mller was greatly inspired by the work of

them two, as like him, they pursued to change the manner which people viewed

theatre. Muller's risky habit during much of his career was to adopt the styles and

personas of other authors. This was one of many ways in which he was the heir of

Bertolt Brecht, who once coined the term Kopien for his own communistic attitude

of regarding others' writing as incentives to work rather than as private property.

Muller pushed the idea to an extreme, assuming the stance of a historically

subversive virus occupying the corpus of major writers, adopting their styles and

structures in order to explode the supposedly pernicious historical assumptions

behind their revered concepts of drama (Kalb, Jonathan). Theatre of Cruelty can

be seen as break with traditional Western theatre, and a means by which artists

assault the senses of the audience, and allow them to feel the unexpressed

emotions of the subconscious (Cash, Justin). This is what Mller attempts to

follow with Hamletmachine, as the traditional Western theatre was not only

broken, but it was re-enacted with a famous and honored play: Hamlet.

Furthermore the main character, Hamlet, is in constant feud with his subconscious,

and expresses his emotions when he finally turns insane. Ergo, Mllers work was

influenced vastly by various theatrical producers of his time period, as a revolution

towards the traditional European works controlled by political forces.

Muller suggests that theatrical beauty is found even when you represent horror or

atrocities and that this desire for beauty comes not only from the interpretation of

the theatre artist, but from the spectators as well. However, Muller provokes the

spectators desire for beauty by creating a play that demands exploration into the

dark and unfamiliar, a place where society uses technological progress to improve

its ability to torture and destroy itself. Moreover, when the play did finally receive

its West German premiere in Essen, the scene where a wheelchair-bound Ophelia
was mummified with gauze bandages, was reportedly so frightening to the

audience that some spectators rushed onto the stage to free the actress.

Haunted by the social and political state of Germany in the 1970s, as society

repeatedly integrates technological advances into our everyday life, Muller, insists

on our understanding how our desire for scientific improvement supports the cycle

of our own destruction. And that this desire for new technologies that Muller

suggests, with a nod to historical imperialism, has always been tested and

implemented against minorities also creates an open site for the theatre artist to

envision onstage. Hamlet and Ophelia that are doomed to behave as those before

them, like cogs in a machine, moving not forward, but continuously in repetition.

Theatre, caught in the continual reiteration of horror, cannot open new paths of

understanding or create a cathartic resolution.

When the play was written, in the German Democratic Republic of the late 1970s,

Mller was criticized for his pessimism. This was not an emotion supported by the

government at the time. The practitioners of Socialist Realism should write plays

to encourage the masses to pursue their dream of a utopian future. But Mller

would not support that approach. Instead he challenges us to rethink our

commitments and our traditions. As he assaults the canon, he questions us as well.

It remains to be seen what we can make of his challenge. The Hamletmachine is

a critique on society and of the self-ironic opposite facing mankinds intellect in

the Western world. Hamlet is presented as an identity seeker in his struggle to

make sense of Doomsday-like events, but ends as a tragic figure that capitulates

and denies love as well as the human species.

The performance of reiteration, as humanity continues to repeat its fascination

with the combination of war and technological progress, is where the horror exists

and the spectator is presented with an opportunity to understand their place as a

witness. Hamlet's schism builds up since he, in Jungian terminology, does not

acknowledge his own subconscious and fails to integrate intellect with emotion

(Stumm, Alfred). Carl Jungs, Swiss psychoanalyst, theory suggests that the ego

represents the conscious mind as it comprises the thoughts, memories, and

emotions a person is aware of. He realizes that his beloved classical philosophy is

not sufficient to create social change. This realization that human intelligence is

limited results in doubts of both his own identity and the survival of culture, and

perhaps even in the justification of his own claim. He circles down in a growing

turmoil which is split between the masculine and the feminine, mixed with

memory flashes (Kalb, Jonathan). Hamlet's split nature is a response to the

Western Canon's representation of the intellectual faced with revolutionary

changes, and becomes the central theme of the text. His debacle ends with a wish
for a fusion between man and machine. The text points also to the notion of the

age of technological opportunities, where concepts such as post-humanism, cyborg

bodies, virtual reality and robots can become a reality.

The play is considered to be a pioneer of postdramatic theatre, which has become

an increasingly important since the publication of Hans-Thies Lehmanns book

Postdramatic Theatre. When considered in terms of plays, postdramatic theatre

more specifically registers a dissatisfaction with dramas two fundamental

processes: the representation of the external world and the structuring of time. As

Lehmann said, Postdramatic Theatre refers to theatre after drama, (Lehmann,

Hans-Thies) and hereby alludes to a revolution of theatre in the time. Mller

produced what could be called open text, which allowed for the audience to have

freedom of thought. The spectators were no longer just filling in the predictable

gaps in the dramatic narrative but are asked to become active witnesses who

reflect on their own meaning. Mller once stated, The only thing a work of art

can do is awaken a longing for a different state of being. And this longing is

revolutionary. (Barnett, David) This quote exemplifies Mllers main purpose to

undertake an innovation in the theatre industry to allow spectators to arouse in

creativity and thought.

When staging this play, producers must be aware that it is different in both its anti-

naturalistic concept and its artistic quality. The piece is known for its dissolution

of the concept of identity, which is shown when different actors are involved in

the role of Hamlet within the same play. This performance is an exploration into

the place of theatre as a site of revolutionary change. In Mllers words, the

slogan of the Napoleonic era still applies: Theater is the Revolution on the march

(Stumm, Alfred). Hamletmachine has inspired many producers today, a multitude

of them who try to recreate the play on a stage in order to impose a distinct style of

theatre, which the audience is not accustomed to. It is a revolutionary style of

theatre that differs from the classical models, and spurs an innovative way to

entertain the audience whilst offering freedom to think of a psychological

meaning. The major reason for this development however is due the historical

background and cultural influences, which inspired Mller to create a play, so

revolutionary and meaningful towards communist Germany.

 Works Cited

Barnett, David, Dr. "Post-dramatic Theatre." Post-dramatic Theatre - Drama

Online. University of Sussex, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/genres/post-dramatic-theatre-

iid-2516>.

Cash, Justin. "Theatre of Cruelty Conventions." The Drama Teacher. N.p., 06

Nov. 2016. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.thedramateacher.com/theatre-of-cruelty-conventions/>.

Kalb, Jonathan. "A Postmodern Hamlet By a Driven Provocateur." The New York

Times. The New York Times, 14 Oct. 2000. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/theater/theater-a-postmodern-

hamlet-by-a-driven-provocateur.html>.

Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Trans. Karen Jrs-Munby. London

and New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Stumm, Alfred. "Hamletmachine." Hamletmachine. Universitt Tbingen, 24 Feb.

2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2017. <http://thehamletmachine.blogspot.in/>.