Bitef

Gorki/Brecht Three figures stand in the dark and peer longingly through a glass wall into the light beyond. They are inmates of the »Night Asylum« in Roberto Ciulli’s interpretation of Maxim Gorki’s »The Lower Depths«, performed by the Theater an der Ruhr from Mülheim, Germany. The performance is as fascinating as it is self-willed, as Ciulli and his actors take Gorki's 1902 play completely out of its historical context and use it as an impulse for contemporary philosophical theatre, for meditation by means of theatre above all in this case with the surprising and sensual imagery, which (in spite of the enigmatic treatment) is gradually disclosed. □

This absorbing and stimulating production is an artistically difficult, even risky balancing act, but above all an expression of an unmistakable theatrical world-view, of the unique individuality of a troupe and of artistic potential. As with Mnouchkine, Brook, Bausch and other giants of the world theatre, this requires a specific combination of talents along with the resulting working method and organisational structures necessary to put them to optimal use. Completely different reflections on reality are possible and necessary, the organisational requirements of which must be derived, however, from the artistic objectives. It is this - nothing more and nothing less - which we can learn from Ciulli in the present debate over the future of the theatre. □ Wolfgand Ruf, »Die Deutsche Bühne«, Juli 1992.

The staging is inspired by Brecht’s verses »Some are in the dark and some are in the light«. Gralf-Edzard Haben houses Gorki’s refugees in »Night Asylum« those in »The Lower Depths«, the play’s original title - on the dark, trashstrewn side of the stage. They are separated from the light by a glass wall with a trap door in it. In the light, a tree beneath blue skies; out of the light come figures in white rococo dress. We are in the times of old class oppositions; in a mood of charity and avid curiosity the noble have come to visit the sub-human beings in their asylum. Roberto Ciulli and his dramatist Helmut Schäfer have left out about 80 percent of Gorki’i text; what remains is a penetrating study of people on the top and people on the bottom. Anyone who is alert to the present time, in which there are sufficient glass walls, will watch with anguish as the rich feed on Anna’s battle with death: misery provides

thrilling entertainment indeed. □ Eva Pfister, »Mannheimer Morgen«, 1. Oktober 1992.

What do Maxim Gorki and Bertolt Brecht have in common? »The Mother«, of course - the one as her narrator, the other as her dramatist. But what have Gorki’s »Nachtasyl« [»The Lower Depths«] and Brecht’s morality play »The Exception and the Rule« to do with one another? Dramatist Helmut Schäfer and director Roberto Ciulli have amalgameted them in the Theater an der Ruhr to a negative equation of how the refugees from »out of the depths« [Gorki’s original Russian title] become parvenus who, through the presentation of the morality play, are strengthened in the convinction that »the sick man dies and the strong man fights«. In order to achieve this critical parable, they denaturalise Gorki’s »The Lower Depths« by historically symbolising them and make concrete the abstraction of the morality play by presenting it as the completely contemporary here and now. This surprising combination of »Night Asylum« with »The Exception and the Rule« functions as applied negative dialectics, interesting the audience as much as it disturbs them. Thus it is itself an exception to the rule in theatre of providing pleasure without obligation. □ Ernst Schumacher, »Berliner Zeitung«, 18. Juni 1992

In this production, the Theater an der Ruhr succeeds in creating, a rare combination of pleasures - in performing, watching and contemplating. Nonetheless, the message of the evening is a painful one: that of a beautiful, new world of pleasure in which there is no place for knowledge or relief. □ »Mannheimer Morgen«

etTEF2T

a a Ьм I ■ IJiSr№' '

BÍTEF2Z

H H BH H Hll ШЁЁЁШг

ВПВР2Г