“Stalinism was a formative event for Heiner Müller,” says theater director Stephan Suschke about the playwright and theater maker (1929-1995), whose assistant he was for many years. Suschke is now bringing Müller’s Shakespeare adaptation “Macbeth” to the stage at the Linzer Kammerspiele (premier: May 28).
Now what about Stalinism? Müller’s father worked in a district office in the GDR and had fled to the West because of Stalinism’s attacks on his life. Suschke: “The skeletons in the cellars of Stalinism, which were never cleared out, also have something to do with the causes of the current war in Ukraine.”
This concretes the foundation and the cross-connection to the present for Heiner Müller’s “Macbeth” (premièred in Brandenburg in 1972). Unlike Shakespeare, Müller allows his blood ruler no remorse and fabricates the pessimistic image of “politics is bloody,” as Suschke says. When Macbeth commits his first murder on his way to the Scottish throne, he suspects it won’t be his last. Suschke: “Shakespeare still had hope, Müller didn’t.” And so Macbeth slaughters his way through nobility and servants to retain power, without ever finding his way back to the light of virtue. Alexander Hetterle plays Macbeth, Theresa Palfi his lady, the stage frame of the carnage comes from Momme Röhrbein.
Kammerspiele Linz: “Macbeth” by Heiner Mueller, Premiere: May 28, Events until 5. 7.
Source: Nachrichten
