Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the German Theatre by David Barnett

Abstract

298 Reviews experience as theprecondition forcomplex questions of how life is transformed into art and atwhat cost. Sara Lennox forcefully reminds us of theCold War context of the Todesarten texts and analyses the female protagonists as 'captives of hegemonic ideologies' (p. 237), unable to comprehend their situation. It behoves the feminist scholar to change theworld thatproduced themurderous social relations thatBach mann describes. Finally Iwould like tomention Sebastian Kiefer's challenging ana lysisofBachmann's early poetry as 'arrangierteRauschmomente in fremdenZungen' (p. 2 I8). He argues that theauthor's shift toprose demonstrates her increased aware ness of theneed fordistance ifherwriting was not to fall into cliched representations of 'Augenblicksverziickung'. Overall this is a thought-provoking collection of essays. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON STEPHANIE BIRD Rainer Werner Fassbinder and the German Theatre. By DAVID BARNETT. (Cambridge Studies inModern Theatre) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2005. Xii+30? pp. /5O. ISBN 978-0-52I-85514-3. Since his death in i982, and particularly since unification in I990, there has been growing interestwithin theworld of theatre in Fassbinder the playwright and the atrical director, as opposed to his better-known work as a film-maker. As David Barnett points out, however, this is an area thathas been woefully neglected by com mentators. Barnett's study admirably fills this gap in Fassbinder scholarship. The book begins by painting a picture of the West German theatre system,which, as the author notes, was the envy of the Western world because of the exceptional level of public funding it received (and indeed continues to receive post-unification) as well as its regional diversity. By the I960S, however, the systemwas, like somuch ofWest German society, being questioned by a post-war generation which was unwilling to accept what it saw as the continuation ofNational Socialist authoritarian structures into the FRG. In the theatre thismanifested itself in the counter-cultural challenge of theKellertheater, which questioned the hegemonic position of the state theatres' Intendanten. It is onto this scene that Fassbinder enters 'stage leftish' (p. 30) as a member of action-theater, forwhich he firststaged a number of plays thatwould later be reworked as films (Der amerikanische Soldat, Katzelmacher). He also forged there important alliances with Peer Raben and Hanna Schygulla, beforemoving on to found his own company, themore radical antiteater. Then, at the turnof the decade, we findhis reputation growing and with ithis integration into themainstream, cul minating inhis taking over of Frankfurt's Theater am Turm forone season in I974. However, fromBarnett's account it is clear that thiswas never a comfortable pro cess, since the collectivist principles ofMitbestimmung thathe developed during his timewith the antiteater became increasingly difficult to sustain as he was forced to understand the constraints thatbudgetary limitations place on art. The fascinating story of Fassbinder's life in the theatre,meticulously pieced to gether from thewealth of archival material now available through the Fassbinder Foundation, aswell as a remarkable array of interviewswith all thekey protagonists, isplaced against a detailed and sophisticated reading of all hismain theatricalworks. Here Barnett offersboth a series of analyses of the individual textsand, more impres sively, a very convincing evaluation of Fassbinder's place within twentieth-century European drama, highlighting his post-Brechtian aesthetic, which rejects the explo ration of thepsychological motivation of his characters, preferring instead toexamine themeta-theatrical mechanics of performance, defining his figures as unstable 'social being[s] in constant interactionwith a set of changing circumstances' (p. 254). Par ticularlyworthy ofmention in this regard isBarnett's reading of Fassbinder's most MLR, 103. 1, 2oo8 299 controversial text,Der Mull, die Stadt und der Tod, a play that continues to cause scandal by itsportrayal of 'The Rich Jew'.While Barnett gives a full account of the debate that surrounded the firstfailed attempt to stage the play after the author's death, he goes beyond this togive a fascinating and unique examination of the text as a piece of theatre. This book is amajor achievement. It is an important addition toFassbinder scho larship and more than fulfils itsstated intention of introducing the reader 'to the im pressive diversity' of the artist's theatricalwork 'and enthus[ing] him or her enough to read theplays' (p. 262). My one slight complaint is theuse...