WILL ROCKETT
This essay is a sequel to a recent discussion in these pages (vol 8, no 2, Fall 1987) of the great popularity of Büchner's Woyzeck in the Canadian theatre. The author discusses his own 1985 production of the play, using a new translation prepared for the production, which was aimed at realizing the play as epic theatre in the round, emphasizing the cyclical and mythic nature of Woyzeck's dilemma.
Cet article poursuit la discussion, lancée dans cette revue à l'automne 1987 (vol 8, no 2), de la grande popularité sur les scénes canadiennes de la pièce Woyzeck par Georg Büchner. L'auteur de cet article dérit sa propre production de la pièce en 1985, pour laquelle il avait préparé une nouvelle traduction qui visait à en faire ressortir l'aspect théâtre-épique-en-rond, tout en soulignant les éléments cycliques et mythiques du dilemme que confronte Woyzeck.
If Georg Büchner did not invent the epic tradition of the theatre, he surely pushed it well beyond the limits within which it operated, from Euripides through the early Nineteenth Century. Only Strindberg's Dream Play and Ghost Sonata approached the explosive liberation of the moment and of the acting space implicit in Büchner's work (especially in Woyzeck), and which would be fully realized only with Brecht, Ionesco and Beckett in the Twentieth Century. Notably, Strindberg did this at the opposite end of the century from Büchner.
The translations of Danton's Death and Woyzeck I read some ten years ago when I first became interested in staging Büchner's work, were by Henry J. Schmidt. They read as if they would play reasonably well; however, his notes on Woyzeck made it clear that what I had before me was a reconstruction from the bits and pieces Büchner left us. It was very much a 'do-it-yourself' Woyzeck, as Schmidt himself would tacitly admit several years later in his version of Büchner's Complete Collected Works (1977).
The later version was unavailable to me at the time; had it been, I might have been content, since it translates all of the Woyzeck fragments with apparent faithfulness. However, I wanted more Woyzeck fragments with apparent faithfulness, and I wanted Woyzeck then --I wanted to do Woyzeck myself. And since German is my best second language, I took a crack at translating from Werner R. Lehmann's text (Schmidt's source as well). I also took the dramatist-director's prerogative of producing my own working version of the script-Woyzeck as I would have written and directed it, admittedly taking some liberties with Lehmann's version of the text (as had Schmidt in his version).
Such liberties were few, actually: like Schmidt, I included one scene (11-5) Büchner himself had apparently struck, but which seemed to me dramaturgically vital; unlike Schmidt, I interpolated some scenes and scene fragments from other drafts into the sequence of seventeen scenes usually identified as Büchner's fourth and last draft. Most important from the point of view of fidelity to Büchner, I tinkered with the order of those scenes. My greatest departure from Schmidt was that I followed the lead of Alban Berg's Wozzeck [sic] in suggesting that Woyzeck had escaped the hangman by drowning, as indicated in the words 'He drowns' which Emil Franzos added to the 'At the Pond' scene.
In 1984, realizing that the 150th anniversary of Büchner's death (19 February 1837) was fast approaching, I thought it would be worthwhile to produce Woyzeck once more, staging it in 1985 at Seton Hall University to establish my version's viability, and then attempt to bring it to the stage of Toronto's Graduate Drama Centre in 1987. However, when we began to discuss the Seton Hall staging, I discovered that a series of household moves had done to my script more than the rats and rain did to Büchner's-I had lost the whole text. I had to begin again with only the memory of the earlier script.
The Text
Besides Lehmarm's text, I now had recourse to Lothar Bornscheuer's edition, Woyzeck: Kritische Lese-und-Arbeitsausgabe. My only misgiving regarding Bornscheuer's version is that he fails to print those scenes Büchner allegedly struck out himself from the manuscript (now available in a facsimile edition from Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag of Wiesbaden, with a transcription and commentary by Gerhard Schmid). And since Emil Franzos had the original manuscript in his possession and is known to have monkeyed about with the text in a rather cavalier fashion (albeit from the best of motives), I think it possible that the striking of those scenes might be Franzos' doing. That possibility provided me with an admittedly thin justification for my own more modest monkeyshines.
My first concern was to produce a very playable script that would adhere to what I read as Büchner's intentions, reflected not only in the plays but also in his political tract (The Hessian Messenger) and in his letters. The one demands 'Peace to the huts! War to the palaces!,' while the other temporizes over the pointlessness of intellectuals attempting a revolution when the proletariat are clearly not prepared as yet to free themselves. His clear understanding of class struggle moderated by views akin to those of the Twentieth Century's Hannah Arendt (The only good revolution is the one you win) are as appropriate to the 1980s as they were to the 1830s.
While I used Büchner's fourth draft as the basis of my version, I introduced some lines from earlier variants of its scenes, integrating these into the last draft where they seemed to me to enrich the play in performance. Moreover, I included scenes from earlier drafts which Büchner omitted in his fourth draft, and I rearranged slightly the seventeen scenes of that last draft. This might disturb those who view that draft as not merely a last, but a truly final version, left unfinished but providing us with the true shape of the first two-thirds of the play. However, I felt the effectiveness of staging to be a sufficiently compelling reason to so tamper with the text.
This rearrangement was tied to my new approach to the overall form of the play: I departed completely from both Schmidt's translation and Berg's opera, as well as from my own version of a decade before. What I sought now to establish was the cyclical nature of the social dilemma, the spiral of historical struggle. If justification is required, I note that Büchner himself saw no simple answer to the problem of the endless struggle of that portion of humankind which populates Gorky's lower depths.
Moreover, I suspect Biichner found dealing with Woyzeck's inquest and beheading troublesome: we have just a fragment of a trial scene from the drafts, and he abandoned this line to go back to rework other material. This suggests to me that Franzos and Berg were not so unreasonable in resolving the dramaturgical problem by having Woyzeck drown; however, I wanted to avoid presenting yet another sacrificial victim of systemic violence, and while this conclusion is piquant, it does not meet what I see as the need to extrapolate from Woyzeck's personal pain to the collective pain of his peers.
I believe I have achieved this by closing the dramatic circle with a simple framing device: in my version, the lights come up to reveal the as yet unknown character Woyzeck, slumped in a chair, under the scrutiny of a Doctor and some students. Townfolk come rushing in to speak of a remarkable murder, and all save Woyzeck rush off to see the body. I then move immediately into the carnival scene, and the rest of the play. However, the same scene is repeated, at the very end of the play: this time, we know who the characters are, and we see the entire scene as Büchner's fragments give it. Woyzeck enters in the middle of a lecture by the Doctor, and becomes his subject. Again, all leave Woyzeck behind as they rush off to see what we now know is Marie's corpse. The effect is twofold: the cyclical nature of Woyzeck's dilemma is reinforced; and Woyzeck's insignificance and alienation are underscored. At the same time, I would venture that this device is in keeping with the epic nature of Büchner's text.
Because of that epic, episodic nature, I was able to eschew inventing dialogue to patch over the cracks between the scenes. After all, the abruptness of the transitions is inherent in such plays. My only elaboration of the text came in the stage directions, the result of the director in me emerging.
The language of my characters was earthy and blunt, like Büchner's own; I attempted to reflect the tenor of class with it, transposed in time but not in spirit. Moreover, this text was meant for a North American audience. Hence, while a German worker might swear even today, ('Er. Sie. Teufel'), a Canadian or American blue-collar worker or soldier would be very unlikely to say, 'Devil!' as a forceful expletive (although a decidedly-'U' Englishman might say, 'The Devil you say!'). Hence, my Woyzeck says. 'Him. Her. Shit.'
Nevertheless, I attempted to cleave as closely as possible to the original language; and while I claim only the most limited expertise in early Nineteenth-Century idiomatic German, I did my best to retain as much of the vocabulary as is possible: for example, Schmidt translates 'Hundsfott' as 'dog'; I clung to its meaning of 'scoundrel', given the class of the speaker.
One key problem that confronts the translator is the archaic form of the second person, namely the third-person masculine singular. My solution again resided in my understanding of the text: Büchner clearly grasped the notion of alienation as well in 1837 as did Max Weber in the first two decades of this century.
Schmidt and others consistently translate the 'Er' as second-person, direct address. But when we look at Scene Four of the fourth draft, and hear the Captain state, 'Wenn ich sag: Er, so mein ich Ihm, Ihn,' it seems to me perfectly reasonable to see the man as having been rambling on about Woyzeck in the third person, as if he were not there, and then turning round to tell Woyzeck that he is indeed the 'He' or 'Him' of whom the Captain is speaking.
To me, it is perfectly reasonable that the Captain and the Doctor speak of Woyzeck in the third person: he is not a human being to them, merely a member of the lower orders to the one. a lab experiment to the other-the alienation. Richard Schechner has called this 'pseudospeciation', suggesting that the nature of class structures in Büchner's Germany was viewed as being as strong as genetic and biological classifications. When the Captain speaks of Woyzeck as being 'a good man,' he is being truly condescending: for him, Woyzeck is no man at all. He is something altogether different, alien.
Staging
This text was prepared from the ground up with staging in mind; and while actor-managers recognized a century ago that Woyzeck could not withstand the rising and falling of curtains on a proscenium stage (one reason why it was not performed until 1913, the centenary of Büchner's birth), today we have the best of all possible alternatives at hand: production in the round. It was the intention of so staging it that informed my preparation of the text.
My feeling is that settings should be minimal: projections on various screens hung at different heights, a doorframe with a windowframe coupled to one side, a bed, a trunk-these are enough to establish place for the three playing areas within the general arena of a theatre-in-the-round. Costumes should be similarly simple, of coarse fabrics and primarily drab colours.
In the Seton Hall production of 1985, director Michael Hillyer gave set and lighting designer Daniel Grace and costume designer Natalie Walker quite free rein, and so there was more stage furniture and much more colour than I would have liked. However, in my own 1987 Drama Centre production, we staged the play in the round in the Centre's Rehearsal Space, a white room with black ceiling and grid, grey-carpeted floor and moveable seating. I established three playing areas within a triangular floorspace; platforms were built to fill these, providing corridors for movement all round the space and through it. Costuming followed my desire to use only blacks, whites and greys, with the red of Marie's blood as the only colour visible in the plan.
Since the Drama Centre space was a small one, and since I also wanted to design a very portable production which could be offered virtually anywhere, I gave some careful thought to developing a sensible doubling pattern, getting a cast that could run as high as twenty or so, down to fewer than ten actors. One 'triple' which I developed was to give to Granny the actions of Karl the Fool, and the Old Man who dances and sings in the carnival scene. I came to be exceedingly pleased with this, not only because of the excellence of the performance of Sally Jones of the Drama Centre, but because it added one more key element of continuity to the drama. Granny becomes an almost constant presence on the stage; her apparent knowledge and understanding (at some level) of what is going on between Woyzeck and Marie, and her acceptance of her inability to affect the events to come, reinforce Woyzeck's hopelessness and the cyclical trap of the dramatic situation. Additionally, while a 1975 production at the University of British Columbia apparently doubled Granny into Karl the Fool, I think the effect of doubling the other way was to lend dominance to Granny's warmth and kindness over Karl's Wise Fool aspects. Woyzeck is certainly a drama which benefits from every opportunity of introducing human warmth into it.
A final note on casting: I chose as my Woyzeck a much older actor than is usually cast, namely the late Geoffrey B. Spurll, who was sixty at the time. Woyzeck is usually cast as a much younger, more physically vital man; such was the case with the actor who portrayed him in the Seton Hall production. To me, there are several problems with such casting. First, Woyzeck has been weakened physically as well as mentally by a combination of overwork and the Doctor's peculiar dietary experiments. Second, the historic Woyzeck was 44 at the time of his death in 1824, a period when the life expectancy of a peasant-soldier was not much longer. I thought of Passolini's virgin, meeting her son on the way to his crucifixion: an aged crone, rather than the still-beautiful young Mary. It seemed right to me that Woyzeck appear to be older than his years, to modern eyes.
Moreover, I believe that casting a younger, more physically active man can lead to an over-emphasis on sexual jealousy as a motivation. I see Woyzeck's generalized alienation as more important to Büchner, and to the play. Since I do not see any reason to believe Christian is his own natural son, I question whether there ever was any real sexual relationship between Woyzeck and Marie (the historic Woyzeck had fathered a child by another woman a decade earlier than his murder of Mrs. Woost, the prototype of Marie). For me, Marie's rejection of the older, supportive and possessive but sexually inactive Woyzeck for a younger, sexually active man of higher rank becomes a simpler, more generalized act of rejection, thereby deepening Woyzeck's alienation.
Many critics have suggested this play should be a film (in fact, there are at least three Woyzeck films) but this is not really more true of Woyzeck than it is of, say, Henry V or Mother Courage. What I wanted to do in Toronto was to enhance the seamless, cinematic flow of the work by omitting the one intermission observed in the Seton Hall production; the running time is only about 70 minutes, which is not an inordinate demand upon an audience, provided motion and action are ceaseless.
The difficulty facing lighting designer Peter M. Reader (of Seton Hall) was to provide highly controlled lighting on the three playing spaces, so that I could effectively 'cut' from scene to scene and space to space, as if we were indeed viewing a film. I had hoped to strobe-light the set at the end of each scene to provide the audience with a lingering after-image as we moved on to the next scene, but this proved impossible. The selection of period wood-cuts which we projected at the apex of the triangle during the black-outs did provide some of the visual continuity which we desired.
There is one other aspect of contemporary cinema which can enrich a production of Woyzeck enormously: a musical score. This played an important part in my Toronto production.
Alban Berg's opera is Alban Berg's; there is no way to match his splendid work through the addition of music to the play. But music can serve to stitch together the patches of this work, so that they move one to the other with greater fluidity. This is particularly true from the onset of Woyzeck's jealousy when he sees Marie with the Drum Major: from that moment on, Woyzeck moves as if in a fugue state, almost totally disconnected from reality. The music helped create that world. Additionally, while set-changes were really minimal, and consumed only seconds, the music bridged the few moments lost from one point to another.
I turned to the West German group, Tangerine Dream, who have produced memorable soundtracks for such films as Michael Marm's Thief and The Keep, and the Canadian film, The Disappearance. I think their complex musical progressions peculiarly appropriate to this cyclical version of the play, as they weave deliberately round to where they once began. The music was selected to follow the general shape of the play, and the few miscellaneous sound cues required were dropped into the music live, during performance.
The link between Woyzeck and contemporary music will be underscored in early 1989, when Wings Theatre Company of New York will offer an off-Broadway production of my text-re-done as a rock musical, under the direction of Michael Hillyer, who oversaw the Seton Hall production.
In reflecting on this new version of Woyzeck, I am struck by how much my view of the play has remained essentially unchanged, although the way I got to it in 1987 differed considerably from how I got to it over a decade earlier. Like Büchner, I see Woyzeck caught on the cusp of the same nightmare from which none of us can awaken.
Will Rockett
State University of New York College at Fredonia