Classical German Drama on the British Stage: Schiller'sWallensteinat the Chichester Festival

Abstract

The steady stream of adaptations of foreign plays for the British stage in recent decades has grown to include those of Germany's greatest classical dramatist, Friedrich Schiller, whose plays have been adapted by the British stage writer Mike Poulton. This article considers Poulton's adaptation of Schiller's Wallenstein, his largest-scale and arguably greatest work for the theatre, against the background of earlier attempts to create a one-part version for the stage. It undertakes a close comparison of the original with the modern English version, showing that Poulton has skilfully simplified, compressed, or transposed elements and sharpened aspects of the play to compensate for the British audience's lack of familiarity with the Thirty Years War. It analyses structure and characterization, language, gesture, and the staging of the Chichester Festival production of the adaptation (2009).