„Der Hofmeister“ by Bertolt Brecht
(The tutor)
Deutsches Theater (Berlin)
– IN GERMAN –
After returning from exile in 1949, Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel launch the Berliner Ensemble. As their theatre of choice at Schiffbauerdamm is currently occupied, the troupe is accommodated at the Deutsches Theater. It is there, in the Kammerspiele on 15th April 1950, that “The Tutor” celebrates its premiere. With his adaptation of the drama by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Brecht doesn’t just rediscover and breathe the life of the present into the hitherto largely forgotten Sturm und Drang poet: through his preoccupation with this ingenious outsider, he also expresses his objection to the cultural policy of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), which he considers bourgeois. “The Tutor”, writes Heiner Müller, “was the highpoint of the work of Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble.” At one of the performances at the time, photos are taken which are shot in short bursts and put together into a film – the focus of an evening that Tom Kühnel and Jürgen Kuttner first created at the Babylon Cinema two years ago. It is on this basis that they once more address the story of a teacher who castrates himself to become socially acceptable again.