eJournals Forum Modernes Theater 26/1-2

Forum Modernes Theater
fmth
0930-5874
2196-3517
Narr Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel, der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/0601
2011
261-2 Balme

The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen

0601
2011
Aneta Mancewicz
fmth261-20007
The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen: Intermediality in Stefan Pucher ’ s The Tempest (Münchner Kammerspiele, 2007) Aneta Mancewicz (Bydgoszcz/ London) William Shakespeare ’ s The Tempest abounds in transits, transfers, and transformations. The play explores the Early Modern fascination and fear connected with sea voyage and newly discovered civilizations. It also exploits intersections of science, sorcery, and stagecraft in the portrayal of Prospero - a scholar, a conjurer, and a director in control of the island and the stage. Parallel to various forms of knowledge transfer - scientific, linguistic, or cultural - The Tempest involves examples of magical transmutation, from the eponymous sea storm, which sets off the action, to the masque celebrating the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand. Moreover, the play ’ s finale is ambiguous, if not alarming: Prospero ’ s decision to renounce magic and return to Milan as a vulnerable old man leaves him at the mercy of his former enemies. Unless we accept the possibility of redemption and forgiveness, we might feel that, rather than concluding with a happy ending, the play closes on the onset of a tragedy. The structure of The Tempest as a play examining themes of transformation and transition within a meta-theatrical framework encourages an intermedial style of staging. Intermediality, understood as a productive and self-conscious application of media in performance, opens the possibility of investigating inter-relationships and interexchanges of theatre with other arts. Stefan Pucher ’ s production of The Tempest (Münchner Kammerspiele, November 2007), which stages the Shakespearean text through a range of theatrical, literary, cinematic, and musical genres, not only exemplifies, but also expands the possibilities of intermediality, while reflecting on the relationship between the stage, the page, and the screen. Pucher ’ s staging exposes transfers and transformations inscribed within the play, as well as metamorphoses and modifications involved in the tradition of its performance. The production exploits intersections of media, in order to address textuality, authorship, and adaptation; those notions are fundamental for The Tempest, but they also underlie other of Shakespeare ’ s plays. Shakespearean works frequently function both in popular imagination and in scholarly studies as literary shrines, rather than play scripts that encourage the act of transformation in the course of staging. Pucher transforms The Tempest by means of dramaturgy, stage performance, film, music, and pop art, intertwined to create an intermedial performance, in which new technologies are integrated with more traditional means of staging, in order to expand the themes of the play. The mixture and multiplicity of media in the Kammerspiele production reflects the range of registers and styles co-existing in the tradition of Shakespearean staging and in contemporary performance in general. The incorporation of digital technologies and the mixing of media have revolutionized performance practice in the last decades. It has resulted in “ new modes of representation; new dramaturgical strategies; new ways of structuring and staging words, images and sounds; new ways of positioning bodies in time and space; new ways of creating temporal and spatial interrelations ” . 1 The study of Forum Modernes Theater, 26 (2011 [2014]), 7 - 19. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen new technologies and media interactions in theatre and performance has, in turn, led to new ways of conceptualizing relationships between the page and the stage or the onstage and the onscreen appearance of performers, particularly when such research has avoided fetishizing the significance of either liveness or mediatization. When in The Tempest, new technologies are used to represent the sea storm as cinematic act, the scene immediately marks the staging as a reflection on adaptation and authorship. The production incorporates innovative stage devices in order to suggest analogies between digital and print culture and to show the pervasiveness of literary models in Shakespearean reception. The design of the stage as an intermedial book with moving walls as pages frames the performance as the process of reading. The Kammerspiele version exemplifies the opportunities of intermediality in performance, not merely because Pucher applies a mixed range of media, but because he appropriates them in a meta-theatrical and self-conscious manner. Performance as a Videotext The Kammerspiele Tempest interweaves video clips, popular songs, and pop art allusions. Such an intermedial style has defined Pucher ’ s staging from the beginning of his career in the mid-1990 s. After a brief collaboration with a media-oriented group, Gob Squad, Pucher continued experimenting with new technologies within institutional theatres, becoming one of the leading “ popculture directors ” in Germany. 2 Since the turn of the century, he has been staging plays by Anton Chekhov and Shakespeare, establishing himself as an ingenious interpreter of classic drama. Several of his productions have been invited to Theatertreffen in Berlin, confirming his high reputation in the German-language theatre world. In 2008, The Tempest not only opened Theatertreffen (as the fifth production by Pucher to be invited to the festival), but was also recorded for the German ZDF-Theaterkanal, under the direction of Peter Schönhofer. 3 The transition from a stage event to a video recording testifies to the cultural importance of this production, as the performance has been turned into a more accessible, fixed and permanent format. The filming of a theatrical event also reflects the prevailing reception patterns of recent decades, with digital technologies enabling efficient and economical ways of sharing and transferring data. Increasingly, a video registration functions as a modern equivalent of a text. Douglas Lanier notes: Even as we have hailed the death of the monolithic text in favor of performative variants, the technological apparatus has encouraged this theoretical revolution - the VCR - has been subtly re-establishing, at another level, a new monolithic and stable “ text ” - the ideal performance, recorded on tape, edited and reshaped in post-production, available for re-viewing. 4 The technological advancement has, thus, reinforced textual patterns of reception in performance studies, offering a polished version and repeated, wide access in place of a live, exclusive event. A DVD recording, “ the ideal performance ” , has been the only form in which I have been able to access Pucher ’ s production. The medium has affected my experience of the play as a videotext - a fixed performance, whose spatial, temporal, and social context has been removed. Rather than watching The Tempest as an event involving the presence of actors and spectators in shared time and space, I have been “ reviewing ” it as a videotext that might be fast-forwarded, rewound, paused, stopped, 8 Aneta Mancewicz and played an infinite number of times. Such a manner of accessing the production has inevitably affected my experience and interpretation of the performance, which finds its reflection in the following analysis. The ensuing examination of The Tempest does not include references to the venue, the experience of watching the play in a specific time and place, or to the audience sitting in the playhouse, except for the penultimate paragraph, which touches upon the production as a stage performance conceived at Münchner Kammerspiele and aimed at its audiences. The analysis focuses on the ways in which intermediality expands on transformations and transitions within The Tempest, and, more specifically, on the function of text and textuality in performance. In Pucher ’ s production, the stage is simultaneously transformed into a page and a screen. The metamorphosis occurs through the rewriting of Shakespeare ’ s script, the choice of the stage design, and the incorporation of video and music. The performance makes meta-theatrical and meta-medial references to the functions of drama, video, cinema, and pop music on stage, raising questions regarding authority, fidelity, and originality in appropriations of Shakespeare ’ s plays. Page Staging The Tempest, Pucher commissioned a new translation from Jens Roselt, who subsequently supplied him with German versions of other Shakespeare plays: The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, and Antony and Cleopatra. Roselt ’ s translation of The Tempest not only modernized the text, but also emphasized its meta-theatrical character. Working with this version, Pucher has rewritten the play with the assistance of the Kammerspiele dramaturge, Matthias Günther. The script has been compared to Samuel Beckett ’ s Endgame in its emphasis on monologues and repetitions. 5 Significantly, Endgame is a play that Pucher recently staged in Zürich Schauspielhaus (2011), confirming his interest in the Beckettian language and performance style. In the Kammerspiele Tempest, the Shakespearean scenario is modernized, cut, and altered. Several lines are added, not only in German, but also in English. Pucher frequently includes English excerpts in staging Shakespeare; for instance, in the Zürich production of A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream (2000), the characters speak the key lines from Shakespeare ’ s script both in English and German. Other German-language directors have been recently relying on this strategy as well, for example, Karin Henkel in Macbeth (Münchner Kammerspiele, 2011) or Erich Sidler in Hamlet (Stadttheater Bern, 2011), not necessarily to facilitate the communication with the audience, although it might be important in the case of such internationally touring productions as Thomas Ostermeier ’ s Hamlet (Schaubühne Berlin, 2008), but rather to make evident the transition between languages, registers, and historical periods inscribed in translations and transformations of Shakespeare ’ s plays. A bilingual script of Pucher ’ s The Tempest reminds the audience that what they hear is a translation and adaptation, so that they should not become attached to the idea of “ the original ” or “ authentic ” Shakespeare. Despite controversies over the authorship, date, and language of Shakespeare ’ s plays, as well as centuries of editing, translating, and rewriting, the Shakespearean oeuvre still tends to be perceived by many text-orientated scholars as the solid rock of Western drama. However, it is precisely because Shakespeare ’ s plays are porous and fragmented that they can be adapted to changing historical and cultural conditions. The Kammerspiele Tempest foregrounds the adaptability of Shakespeare ’ s plays by 9 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen making apparent the involvement of the translator and the dramatist, as well as that of the author and the director. The performance centers on Prospero and Ariel as artists manipulating the action, and it frequently comments on the art of illusion. The act of authoring and directing the Shakespearean text is one of the themes of the production, with several episodes identifying Prospero (Hildegard Schmahl) and Ariel (Wolfgang Pregler) as theatre-makers reworking the Shakespearean script and addressing the audience. The first conversation between Prospero and Miranda (Katharina Marie Schubert), which in Shakespeare ’ s drama allows for an exposition of their story and which establishes the relationship between the characters, in Pucher ’ s staging becomes a soliloquy. Schmahl ’ s captivating speech places her at the centre of the action. Seated majestically on a chair made of two stuffed tigers, she appears as a colonial ruler. Moreover, as she explains the motives and the aims of the storm directly to the spectators, Schmahl makes them complicit in the intrigue. Invited to play the part of Miranda, the audience members might be asking precisely those questions that the girl poses to her father in Shakespeare ’ s script. This early scene establishes an intimate relationship between the performers and the spectators, contributing to a meta-theatrical framework of the play. The meta-theatrical relationship between the actors and the audience is reinforced by the portrayal of Prospero and Ariel as artistic collaborators. Throughout the performance, Schmahl, a renowned actress of Münchner Kammerspiele, enacts Prospero as a masculine figure. She does not transform the exiled Duke into a woman, as it is the case with Helen Mirren in Julie Taymor ’ s film version of The Tempest (2010). Rather than altering the gender of the protagonist, Schmahl plays the part as a breeches role, similarly to Vanessa Redgrave, who was cast as a male Prospero in the Globe Theatre production (2000). In an analogical manner, Schmahl interpreted King Lear in George Tabori ’ s rewriting of the play, Lear ’ s Shadow, staged in Bregenz and Vienna (1989). In Pucher ’ s The Tempest, her performance marks the play with the bitter wisdom of somebody who has seen enough of the world not to be deceived by illusion, and who knows enough about the world to create illusions for others. Schmahl ’ s portrayal of Prospero as a master of illusions is mirrored by Pregler ’ s interpretation of Ariel. The actor is more her collaborator or even alter ego than a servant. The similarity in age and appearance (white longish hair, dark suits and white shirts designed by Annabelle Witt, who regularly works with Pucher) suggests that Prospero and Ariel are closely connected as artists and magicians. Moreover, both of them explore the performative potential of masculinity and femininity in transgressing their gender. Performing Prospero as a man, Schmahl not only relies on the association between power and masculinity, but also evokes such charismatic interpreters of the part as John Gielgud, Ian Richardson, or Patrick Stewart. Pregler plays Ariel as a male character except for two instances. In the scene where Ferdinand (Oliver Mallinson) mourns his father, Ariel watches him, dressed in white as a fairy with white lilies. His appearance seems slightly grotesque but also poignantly beautiful; he achieves a similar effect in the banquet scene, when he enters in black, enacting the harpy as a drag queen (Photo 1). In both cases Ariel ’ s female transformation coincides with the execution of magical tricks, suggesting that gender, like magic, is an act of performance. Most of the time, however, Pregler plays Ariel as a middle-aged, experienced man, endowed with irony and insight. Pucher ’ s casting choice defies the tradition of a slender and swift spirit - the tradition that persists on stage and screen. Recent examples of 10 Aneta Mancewicz ethereal interpretations of Ariel include Tom Byam Shaw in Trevor Nunn ’ s staging at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London (2011) and Ben Whishaw in Taymor ’ s film. What is equally important, in the Kammerspiele version Ariel enjoys more power than is customary in the productions of The Tempest, where he is often portrayed as a slave of ( or at best a subject to) the ruler of the island. In Pregler ’ s interpretation, Ariel is not only Prospero ’ s collaborator, but also his critic. Commenting on the effects of the sea storm, Ariel says to Prospero in English, “ Excellent, you have done a great job ” . The compliment is reciprocated after the banquet scene, when Prospero praises Ariel, also in English and almost in the same words, “ Great, you did a great job ” . Apart from suggesting equality between the protagonists, the flattering remark reveals that they are aware of an artistic value of each other ’ s work and that they pursue their projects to please the audience. One scene in particular demonstrates Ariel ’ s authority, as well as his sense of responsibility towards the audience. When Sebastian and Antonio (Jörg Witte and René Dumont) plan to take over power in Naples, they suffocate Alonso and Gonzalo (Walter Hess and Peter Brombacher). It is precisely Ariel who brings the king and his counselor back to life, claiming that their death would put a premature end to Prospero ’ s scenario. For a moment, the episode suggests that Sebastian and Antonio have the ability to alter the course of the events, yet Ariel soon corrects the departure from the Shakespearean plot. The importance of this scene lies in drawing the attention of the spectators to the authority of the playwright that is con- Photo 1: The Tempest dir. by Stefan Pucher, Münchner Kammerspiele 2007, with Hildegard Schmahl (Prospero), Wolfgang Pregler (Ariel), Walter Hess (Alonso), Jörg Witte (Sebastian), René Dumont (Antonio), Elinor Eidt, Julia Schmelzle, and Anja Thiemann (Iris, Ceres, and Juno). Photo courtesy of Arno Declair © 11 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen fronted in staging dramatic texts. The power of the author is especially evident in performing the works of Shakespeare, who, since Romanticism, has been elevated to the position of an unerring genius, a virtuoso of language and human characterization. The iconic status of Shakespeare has turned him into the ultimate instance of interpretation. Consequently, critics and scholars frequently expect that the artists staging Shakespeare will strive to represent his “ authentic ” authorial intention, rather than freely expand the meanings in the plays. In the performance tradition of The Tempest, the function of the author is particularly prominent. It has been customary among artists and critics to define this drama as the last play of Shakespeare, disregarding his subsequent collaboration with John Fletcher on Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen and on the lost play Cardenio. Prospero ’ s final soliloquy, in which he breaks the staff and drowns the book, renouncing the magic power, has been frequently interpreted as the playwright ’ s farewell to stagecraft, a message addressed directly to the spectators. Most German critics reviewing the Kammerspiele staging have evoked the myth of The Tempest as Shakespeare ’ s last play, an artist ’ s manifesto that revisits and recapitulates the themes from his earlier works. Christina Tilmann described the drama as “ William Shakespeare ’ s farewell to Elizabethan stage ” , 6 suggesting an analogy between Shakespeare and Prospero as artists at the end of their careers. Examining Pucher ’ s production, numerous reviewers noted the portrayal of Prospero as a theatre-maker, implying that he might stand for Shakespeare as an active member of a stage company. Peter Hans Göpfert claimed that, in the Kammerspiele version, Prospero is first and foremost a theatre director. 7 Similarly, Ines Botzenhard and Jeanette Neustadt described him as an author and director, 8 whereas Sabine Dultz compared the relationship between Prospero and Ariel to that between a stage director and an assistant. 9 These overlapping descriptions suggest that, Prospero and Ariel in the Kammerspiele production appear as artists playing with words and images. They not only entertain themselves and the spectators, but also comment on each other ’ s artistic achievements. A self-conscious rendition of these two protagonists turns the play into a reflection on the very nature of authorship and adaptation. These themes are fundamental for The Tempest - a play which lends itself particularly well to a meta-theatrical interpretation; as Jan Kott suggests, “ All that happens on the island will be a play within a play, a performance produced by Prospero ” . 10 In Pucher ’ s staging, this meta-theatrical framework is established in an intermedial manner; after all, Prospero ’ s performance is also a play within a book and a play within a film. Stage The most striking example of an intermedial approach to authorship and adaptation in Pucher ’ s The Tempest concerns the stage design by Barbara Ehnes. She has created sets for all productions of Shakespeare directed by Pucher, except for the first one, A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream at the Schiffbaum Atrium, which was designed by Michael Simon. Since 2000, Ehnes has been regularly collaborating with Pucher, creating sets for Henry IV (Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2002), Richard III (Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2002), Othello (Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, 2004), The Merchant of Venice, (Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2008), Measure for Measure (Münchner Kammerspiele, 2009), and Antony and Cleopatra (Burgtheater Vienna, 2009). For the Kammerspiele Tempest Ehnes designed a set reminiscent of a book, with 12 Aneta Mancewicz the moving walls resembling pages that turn with the change of a scene (Photo 2). The actors perform between these pages, reminding the spectators of their origin as dramatic characters. At times, the walls frame and confine them, at others, they close upon them or push them into the back of the stage. The set evokes the book as Prospero ’ s attribute - a source and symbol of his magic power, an indirect cause of his ruin, and then the chief reason of his rise to prominence. Engrossed in the study, the Duke bestows the duties of a ruler upon his brother, the library being a “ dukedom large enough ” for him (1. 2. 110). 11 Antonio soon takes over power in Milan, banishing Prospero and Miranda. It is thanks to the wisdom contained in the books, however, furnished for him by kind Gonzalo, that Prospero becomes the master of the island and eventually revenges himself on Antonio and Alonso. Drowning the book at the end of the play, the protagonist forsakes all power and returns to Milan, unguarded and unprotected. The range of implications inscribed in the representation of the book in The Tempest is typical of Shakespeare ’ s playwriting strategy. It consists in multiplying diverse contexts and juxtaposing analogical situations, in order to explore a given problem from several perspectives. “ Shakespearian dramas are constructed not on the principle of unity of action, but on the principle of analogy, comprising a double, treble, or quadruple plot, which repeats the same basic theme ” , yet in different contexts. 12 In The Tempest, the coup d ’ état is presented in three distinctive configurations: Antonio ’ s deposition of Prospero from the throne of Milan, Antonio and Sebastian ’ s scheme to murder Alonso and Gonzalo to seize power in Naples, and finally, there is Caliban ’ s conspiracy with Photo 2: The Tempest dir. by Stefan Pucher, Münchner Kammerspiele 2007, with Oliver Mallinson (Ferdinand) and Katharina Marie Schubert (Miranda). Photo courtesy of Arno Declair © 13 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen Stephano and Trinculo, who plot to kill Prospero and rule over the island. All these are examples of intrigues within a family or a household. Each of the episodes, however, represents a distinctive convention: from Prospero ’ s sad and vengeful tale, through a dramatic exposition of Machiavellian politicians, to a grotesque row of three drunken servants. Ehnes ’ set conveys the multiplicity of perspectives in Shakespeare ’ s playwriting visually on stage. As the reviewers Christine Dössel and Jeanne Neustadt have aptly noted, the book form opens the possibility of exploring the ambivalent nature of events in the play. 13 It divides the protagonists into parallel parties separated by the walls as pages, encouraging the audience to juxtapose their situations. Moreover, the set continuously reminds the spectators of the dramatic text underlying the actors ’ performance and reveals the tension between the page and the stage - the tension that has been crucial for the development of Shakespeare performance tradition. The book design recalls the authority of the Shakespearean text, which, contrary to the growing popularity of performative approaches to drama, continues to govern the staging and criticism of Shakespeare ’ s work. As William Worthen notes: Although the desire to reproduce either the dramatic or the theatrical circumstances of Shakespeare ’ s plays has perhaps waned in the past century, contemporary discussions of Shakespeare and performance have in many ways not surmounted this turn-of-the-century problematic: the desire to authenticate performance as a reproduction of the text, of ‘ Shakespeare ’ . 14 Despite the growing importance of nondramatic tendencies in performance practice and research, which have been inspired, among others, by the development of postdramatic theatre, there has been an ongoing emphasis on fidelity to the text and authorial intention within Shakespeare performance tradition and Shakespeare studies. Commenting on the authority of the Shakespearean script in the Anglophone theatre tradition, Worthen, nevertheless, recognizes that its status differs in productions staged in other languages. “ Productions outside the English-speaking North Atlantic orbit have, on the other hand, long taken the lead in applying innovative scenographic practices to Shakespeare production ” . 15 His words echo an observation by Dennis Kennedy in Foreign Shakespeares (1993), a collection of essays that constitutes an early attempt to investigate performances of Shakespeare outside English language and culture. Kennedy notes, “ English-speakers are apt to assume that foreign-language productions necessarily lose an essential element of Shakespeare in the process of linguistic and cultural transfer, and of course this is true. But it is also true, as I am suggesting, that some foreign performances may have a more direct access to the power of the plays. ” 16 Pucher ’ s staging with its “ innovative scenographic ” design seems to reflect ironically on Shakespeare ’ s status as a book in Englishlanguage culture, where the notion of the original, authentic text sets standards of performance for critics and playgoers alike. Such an interpretation may be justified by the function of English excerpts in the German text. It is particularly striking in such examples as Antonio ’ s paraphrase of Hermia ’ s line from A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream, “ Dark night, that from the eye his function takes ” (3. 2. 180), which in Pucher ’ s production becomes “ The night that takes away the function of the eye ” (in English). The line not only reminds the audience about the act of translation, but also about the process of rewriting and adapting the text which is inevitably involved in any transition between languages and cultures. 14 Aneta Mancewicz In the Kammerspiele Tempest, textual alterations are combined with references to popular culture; they bring the play up to date with contemporary spectators, but at the same time juxtapose Shakespeare ’ s times with ours. The appearance and performance style of Stephano and Trinculo (Bernd Moss and Stefan Merki) allude to Gilbert and George, performance artists residing in Britain. Among numerous pop references, the production features Miranda posing as Paris Hilton, Caliban (Thomas Schmauser) manifesting his anger in the style of the Rammstein metal band, as well as Iris, Ceres, and Juno (Elinor Eidt, Julia Schmelzle, and Anja Thiemann) as cheerleader-like girls singing a remake of Boney M. ’ s “ Sunny ” . As the allusions to popular culture suggest, Pucher approaches the Shakespearean book as a repository of images and interpretations, from which he both draws inspiration and to which he contributes. In the Kammerspiele production, the repository involves a range of media, with the stage functioning as a book and a screen at the same time. The projections make the walls seem like pages of a virtual book, a theatrical equivalent of a digital reader. Screen The Kammerspiele Tempest opens with a projection of the sea storm as a B-movie in the process of making. As Dössell notes, the play begins “ like in cinema ” , 17 yet the stage soon turns out to be a film set. The actors are filming the sea storm and the shipwreck in a blue box studio, applying simple effects, such as pouring water from buckets to imitate the waves. Another reviewer, Barbara Grenzmann, observes that the staging from the beginning reflects on the nature of illusion in The Tempest; the video reveals the storm to be a creative, artificial act, casting Prospero as a visual artist. The video introduction exposes the relationship between drama, theatre, and cinema in an intermedial manner, which is reminiscent of experiments with stage and screen poetics in the 1990 s. The video sequence, combined with scenography, evokes Peter Greenaway ’ s Prospero ’ s Books (1991), 18 in which the process of writing The Tempest frames the action of the film. By analogy, in Pucher ’ s staging, the process of movie making is interwoven into the performance, as the initial sequence reappears throughout the play. At the same time, a reflection on the nature of stage illusion in the Kammerspiele Tempest is similar to the intermedial projects of such Francophone directors as Arianne Mnouchkine or Robert Lepage. Similarly to Pucher, they have been celebrated for cinematic, intermedial stagings of Shakespeare, which have frequently exposed camera tricks of filmmakers to theatre audiences. The experiments of these directors have not necessarily depended on applying technological devices, but rather on framing a particular pattern of viewing - this has been particularly the case in Mnouchkine ’ s work. Such a staging strategy confirms the idea that intermediality is not necessary a matter of technology, but of perception. As Chapple and Kattenbelt have rightly noted, “ Intermediality is about changes in theatre practice and thus about changing perceptions of performance, which become visible through the process of staging ” . 19 The Kammerspiele performance achieves most interesting intermedial effects through the incorporation of video sequences, which have been produced by Chris Kondek. Before he began collaborating with Pucher in 2003, Kondek had worked with the leading experimental companies and directors in New York, such as The Wooster Group, The Builders Association, Robert Wilson, and Laurie Anderson. In Germany, Kondek has also worked with cutting-edge theatre directors, including Sebastian Baumgarten, Armin Petras, and René Pollesch. During the 15 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen last few years, he has successfully staged his own theatre productions. Having contributed to the most exciting theatre experiments of recent decades, Kondek advances an intermedial approach to the use of video in performance. He argues for the interaction of video images with other elements of staging, describing himself as a “ set designer ” rather than a “ video artist ” . 20 Claiming that video images might withdraw the attention of the spectators from the actors, he insists that video should be part of performance rather than its dominant element. In The Tempest, video sequences reflect on the nature of illusion and expand the semantic network of the play, confronting and complementing rather than competing with the action on stage. The opening images of the sea storm reappear throughout the production, mostly on a small screen in a living room. They echo the horror and beauty of Prospero ’ s artistic creation, while reminding the spectators that what they see is a work of art, created in front of their eyes. At times video sequences take over the whole space of the stage, drowning the protagonists in Prospero ’ s magic. Video images in the Kammerspiele Tempest are highly poetic, as they explore symbolical aspects of relationships between the protagonists, particularly if recordings function as flashbacks. When Prospero reminds Ariel of his imprisonment by Sycorax, the video sequence shows a sadomasochistic sequence, which suggests Ariel ’ s dependence on the sorceress as sexual submission. Sycorax in the Kammerspiele staging becomes Psycorax, a pop-cultural, pornographic figure. She is performed by Schmahl, whose onstage appearance as a grave and restrained Prospero contrasts with her vulgar onscreen image. The inclusion of video with Psycorax reveals that although the sorceress has been long deceased Prospero still manages to torment Ariel with stories of her cruelty. Since the two characters are played by the same actress, it is unclear, however, whether the airy spirit suffers more from the trauma of enslavement or from Prospero ’ s constant reminding him of it. What is more, the double-casting of Schmahl foregrounds analogies between Prospero and Sycorax. In the Kammerspiele production, both the rulers of the island are portrayed as malevolent magicians, capable of extreme cruelty. As well as providing insights into the psychology of the characters, video sequences expand on the themes of political conquest in The Tempest. The documentary footage of tanks, soldiers, and bombed buildings translates power struggles from Shakespeare ’ s play into war conflicts that are closer to contemporary audiences. Similarly, in Pucher ’ s The Merchant of Venice, the scenes from the film King Kong (1933) might be interpreted as allusions to Shylock ’ s alienation in Venetian society. In both cases, video sequences provide the spectators with clues, yet they do not determine the overall interpretation of the play. In the same vein, while numerous media interact in the production, none of them acquires a dominant position. Similarly to the application of video, the incorporation of music in the performance allows Pucher to explore the relationships between the characters, capturing their intimate, self-revelatory moments. Music (by Marcel Blatti, another regular collaborator of Pucher ’ s) is heard throughout most of the performance, in a manner similar to a film score in cinema; it includes several genres as diverse as pop, rock, metal, or classical music. Pucher has become known for his frequent and innovative application of music in theatre, also in his other productions of Shakespeare ’ s plays, beginning with the first one, A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream, where “ God is a DJ, and so is Shakespeare ” . 21 The Tempest is particularly suitable for the inclusion of music, since, as Caliban observes, “ the isle is full of noises ” (3. 2. 135). 16 Aneta Mancewicz In the Kammerspiele version, the “ noises ” are rendered not only by the music soundtrack, but also by music performances. The songs that are included in the production are mostly entertaining, but at times they bring sadness and sorrow - emotions that tend to be subdued in the speeches. According to Marvin Carlson, Gonzalo performing John Lennon ’ s song “ Watching the Wheels ” in the penultimate scene “ quite overshadowed Prospero ’ s famous resignation speech as the coda ” . 22 The shift of the emotional input from speeches to songs is owed to the fact that in the Kammerspiele Tempest the actors tend to direct their attention to the spectators more often than to other performers. When they occasionally engage in dialogues, their words frequently come across as comic. The courtship of Miranda and Ferdinand is, for instance, caricatured as sentimental and kitsch, while sincere and intimate emotions are rendered in monologues, videos, and songs. Similarly, in Pucher ’ s version of Othello, the actors do not explore their relationships through dialogues on stage, but exclusively in music performances and videos prerecorded offstage. The frequent replacement of dialogues with monologues, videos, and songs in contemporary German-language theatre continues the tradition of Bertolt Brecht ’ s Verfremdungseffekt. Pucher relies on this technique to reflect on the relationship between the character and the performer, as well as the actor and the audience. More specifically, he confronts the perspective of the Shakespearean theatre tradition that emphasizes the importance of the character with the postdramatic strand of performance that questions the very idea of coherent selfhood. The mixing of stage performances, songs, and videos results in intermedial interpretations of characters in the Kammerspiele Tempest; their portrayal depends on the effects of complementation, contrast, and irony that are often applied simultaneously. The clip with Psycorax, for instance, illustrates Prospero ’ s story, as well as juxtaposing the onstage and onscreen appearance of the protagonists. It characterizes the two magicians, exposes Ariel ’ s submission as S&M pornography, and represents Caliban as an adult turned into a child. The contrast between stage and screen leads in this case to ironic effects, complicating the audiences ’ understanding of relationships and themes in Shakespeare ’ s The Tempest. Conclusions Mixing and confronting diverse media in the Kammerspiele production, Pucher expands the themes from the Shakespearean text, introducing references to cinema, pop-culture, and politics. At the same time, the director confronts the spectators with the questions of authority, originality, and fidelity that continue to shape the performance and study of Shakespeare ’ s dramas. In the Kammerspiele Tempest, intermedial transactions become the very subject of the play, revealing a way in which performances, along with the media that they incorporate, may “ function as vital acts of transfer, transmitting social knowledge, memory, and a sense of identity ” . 23 After all, the cultural and political allusions evoked by Pucher are directly aimed at contemporary Germanlanguage speakers, and at Munich theatre audiences in particular. The last video sequence in the production addresses this “ sense of identity ” most strongly. The footage brings together images projected throughout the performance: they include the initial filming of the shipwreck, and the characters wandering around the island, as well as documentary images of the war. The scene occurs directly after Prospero ’ s coda, in which the protagonist announces to Ariel, “ our revels are now 17 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen ended ” (4. 1. 148). During the projection, Ariel nostalgically sings a paraphrase of John Donne ’ s poem, “ The Sun Rising ” to the soft accompaniment of piano. The actors on screen appear as pop-up book figures and puppets in a theatre made of paper. At the end of Ariel ’ s song, the theatre catches fire. When the camera moves away, it reveals a small-scale paper construction, burning in the courtyard of the Münchner Kammerspiele. The video emphasizes a range of roles that in Pucher ’ s production are performed by the stage. This confirms the observation by Chapple and Kattenbelt about theatre as a “ hypermedium ” , that is “ a space where the art forms of theatre, opera and dance meet, interact and integrate with the media of cinema, television, video and the new technologies; creating profusions of texts, intertexts, inter-media and spaces in-between ” . 24 In Pucher ’ s The Tempest - as a live performance, not the video recording discussed so far - the stage is a platform open to different temporal and spatial interpretations, as well as the here and now of a shared moment, experienced together by the actors and the spectators. It is a paper-made theatre and a pop-up book with characters constantly confronting themselves with the author ’ s design. Moreover, the stage is the space of the Kammerspiele, a physical venue in which Pucher rehearsed and performed The Tempest - a theatre institution immersed in the topography, culture, and economy of Munich. Finally, the stage functions as a screen, onto which Kondek projects video clips, and onto which the spectators project their own memories and emotions. These various incarnations of the stage co-exist in The Kammerspiele Tempest through a mixture of intermedial relationships. Applying an intermedial approach, Pucher confronts the conditions of contemporary stage practice with the themes and characters from the Shakespearean drama and with the tradition of The Tempest ’ s performance. The text of the play is simultaneously translated into a script, a video footage, a stage design, and a musical score. This intermedial format both reinforces and re-frames the transits and transformations within Shakespeare ’ s play and its stage tradition; most importantly, it reveals new possibilities of rendering the text on stage for contemporary directors, also in the case of non-Shakespearean productions. Acknowledgments This research was supported by a Marie- Curie-Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme - I am grateful for this support. I would like to thank Prof. Christopher Balme from the University of Munich for providing me with a DVD of Pucher ’ s The Tempest and to Ms. Marianne Korn and Mr. Jens Zimmer from Schauspielhaus Zürich for DVDs of other Pucher ’ s productions of Shakespeare. I would also like to express deep gratitude to Mr. Arno Declair, who has generously given me the permission to use his photographs in this article. I am also indebted to Dr. Bettina Boecker (Shakespeare Library, Munich), who has kindly supplied me with reviews of The Tempest and to Dr. Zeno Ackermann (Freie Universität Berlin), who has provided me with a critique of Pucher ’ s Merchant of Venice. Finally, I am profoundly grateful to Prof. Peter W. Marx from the University of Cologne for his inspiring insights into Shakespearean performance practice, which have contributed to my thinking about staging Shakespeare in contemporary theatre. 18 Aneta Mancewicz Notes 1 Freda Chapple und Chiel Kattenbelt. “ Key Issues in Intermediality in Theatre and Performance. ” Intermediality in Theatre and Performance. Ed. Dies. Amsterdam, 2006. 11. 2 Marvin Carlson. Theatre is More Beautiful than War. German Stage Directing in the Late Twentieth Century. Iowa City, 2009, 186. 3 Stefan Pucher und Peter Schönhofer. The Tempest. ZDF-Theaterkanal. 2008. 4 Douglas Lanier. “ Drowning the Book. Prospero ’ s Books and the textual Shakespeare. ” Shakespeare, Theory, and Performance. Ed. James C. Bulman. London und New York, 1996, 203 - 204. 5 Gunnar Decker. “ Multimediale Insel-Soap. Theatertreffen Berlin: München zeigt Shakespeares ‘ Der Sturm ’” . Neues Deutschland, Berlin. 05. 05. 2008. 6 Christina Tilmann. “ Der Rest ist Trubel. Klassik-Klamauk in München: Stefan Pucher verhackstückt Shakespeares ‘ Sturm ’” . Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin. 12. 11. 2007. (All translations in the text, unless otherwise stated, are mine) 7 Peter Hans Göpfert. “ Dieser Sturm is nur ein Stürmchen. Shakespeare-Klassiker aus München eröffnet das Berliner Theatertreffen ” . Berliner Morgenpost, Berlin. 04. 05. 2008. 8 Ines Botzenhard. “ Hand auf ’ n Tiger! ‘ Der Sturm ’ an den Kammerspielen ” In München - Das Programm-Magazin, München. 2007/ 24; Jeanette Neustadt. “ Shakespeare in 2D. Stefan Pucher entfacht einen Fantasie- ‘ Sturm ’ in den Müncher Kammerspiele ” . Die Welt, Berlin. 14. 11. 2007. 9 Sabinde Dultz. “ Prospero ’ s kleiner Horroladen. Shakespeares Leztes Drama: Stefan Pucher inszenierte an den Müncher Kammerspielen ‘ Der Sturm ’” . Müncher Merkur. München, 10. 11. 2007. 10 Jan Kott. Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. Trans. Boleslaw Taborski. London, 1994. 243. 11 Wiliam Shakespeare. The Tempest. Eds. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. London, 1999. 12 Kott 1994, 245. 13 Christine Dössell. “ Die Möglichkeit einer Insel. Stefan Puchers ‘ Sturm ’ an den Münchner Kammerspielen ” . Süddeutsche Zeitung, München. 10. 11. 2007; Neustadt 10. 11. 2007. 14 Wiliam B. Worthen. Shakespeare and the Authority of Performance. Cambridge, 1997, 36. 15 Worthen 1997, 33. 16 Dennis Kennedy. Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary Performance. Cambridge, 1993. 5. 17 Dössell 10. 11. 2007. 18 Decker 05. 05. 2008; Cathrin Elss-Seringhaus. “ Raus aus dem Guckkasten. Shakespeare als Punk- und Reality-Theater-Show: Eindrücke vom Berliner Theatertreffen ” . Pfälzischer Merkur. Zweibrücken, 10. 05. 2008. 19 Chapple and Kattenbelt 2006, 12. 20 Quoted in: Petra Hallmayer. “ Hüter der dienenden Bilder. Der Videokünstler Chris Kondek illustriert Shakespeares ‘ Sturm ’ , der heute an den Kammerspielen Premiere hat ” . Süddeutsche Zeitung. München, 08. 11. 2007. 21 Carlson 2009, 185. 22 Carlson 2009, 193. 23 Diana Taylor. The Archive and the Repertoire. Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham and London, 2003. 2 - 3. 24 Chiel and Kattenbelt 2006, 24. 19 The Stage as a Page and the Stage as a Screen