Dimiter Gotscheff: The Fine Art of Political Spectacle

Among the current crop of innovative directors working in the contemporary German theatre, Dimiter Gotscheff stands out for several reasons. The Bulgarian-born director is one of several foreigners who have made their mark on the German theatre. Gotscheff, who is 64, has worked steadily since the 1970s, but has risen to star status over the past decade with award-winning productions in Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bochum, and, most recently, in Berlin. His artistic success at such an advanced age resembles to some extent the career of the late George Tabori, another foreigner who has deeply influenced the German theatre; Tabori became a star director in the German theatre when he was in his late fifties and was still directing from his bedside at age 93. Gotscheff's work is distinct from that of other current German directors. He eschews the use of video that characterizes the work of directors such as Frank Castorf, Rene Pollesch, or Falk Richter, the musicality and inventiveness of Christoph Marthaler's productions, the brevity and the reliance on scenographic solutions in Michael Thalheimer's work, or the realist social critique that marks Thomas Ostermeier's work at the Berlin Schaubuhne. Instead, Gotscheff has championed Heiner Muller, redirecting and developing Muller's image space, interlacing of classic and contemporary texts, combination of genres, and exploration of the body. Born in the small Bulgarian town of Parvomei in 1943, Gotscheff moved with his family to East Berlin in 1962. Following his father's footsteps, he enrolled in a veterinary medicine program, but then switched to theatre studies at the Humboldt University. One of his inspirations for becoming a professional director was the Swiss director Benno Besson, whom Bertolt Brecht had invited to join the Berliner Ensemble in 1949. Gotscheff credits Besson with bringing a lighter touch to the Berliner Ensemble thanks to his focus on the precision of gesture and to his wonderful wit (Gotscheff). Besson's production of Aristophanes' Peace at the Deutsches Theater in 1963 proved so powerful that after the performance Gotscheff begged Besson to let him work on his productions (Simon). Besson, who was principal director at the Deutsches Theater between 1962 and 1968 and later artistic director at the Volksbuhne, also introduced Gotscheff to Heiner Muller's work through his own productions. Gotscheff's career began in the 1970s. He directed both in Bulgaria and in East Germany until 1979, when he left East Germany in protest against the expatriation of the political singer and songwriter Wolf Biermann. For a six-year period, he directed only in Bulgaria before he being invited to direct Muller's Quartet in Cologne (West Germany) in 1985. The Cologne invitation came as a result of Heiner Muller's own praise, presented in a public letter to Gotscheff, of Gotscheff's now-legendary production of Muller's Philoktet at the Sophia State Theatre in 1983. Since that successful production, Gotscheff has worked exclusively in the German theatre. He also held the administrative position of permanent in-house director at the Schauspielhaus Dusseldorf from 1993 to 1996 and at the Schauspielhaus Bochum from 1995 to 2000. He has received numerous awards, including the German Critics Award in 1991 and the 2005 Director of the Year award from critics surveyed by the journal Theater heute. Three of his productions have been selected over the past four years to perform at the annual Berlin Theatertreffen festival, the barometer for innovative productions in the German language theatre: Koltes's Black Battles with Dogs (2004); Ivanov (2006); and Tartuffe (2007). Most critics who enjoy Gotscheff's theatre agree with Norbert Mayer's assessment that his productions present the art of precise, political spectacle. Adopting a marked characteristic of Muller's work, Gotscheff often approaches a play as a ruin that needs to be explored or reconstructed through a new scenographic solution and by restructuring of character relationships. …