“Wilhelm Tell” in Zurich: Against Gessler and Bührle
The Bührle debate continues. This time on the stage of the Zurich Schauspielhaus. In Milo Rau’s new production of “Wilhelm Tell” the “extension of the Kunsthaus, in which the Bührle arms company shows its collection” is described as the new “Zwing-Burg”, “Hang the Bührle on a cord” is on a banner above the entrance read in a chapel, and from the lectern Irma Frei reports on having done forced labor in the Bührle spinning mill in 1958-61.
The 45-year-old Swiss director Milo Rau is considered one of the most radical thinkers in contemporary theater. His interpretation of the Swiss national drama, which premiered on Saturday, comes mainly from the head and goes little to the heart, is above all intelligent concept and dramaturgy work and offers hardly any theatrical images or moments that take you into the history of oppression and liberation, presumption and despair as told by Friedrich Schiller.
“The literal adaptation of classics on stage is forbidden,” writes Rau in his “Ghent Manifesto”, with which he took up his directorship at NTGent in 2018. “In every production, at least two different languages must be spoken on stage,” it says, or: “At least two of the performers who can be seen on stage must not be professional actors.” There are maxims to which the director also sticks to “Tell”, which is actually not very dazzling: lyrically you only get one or the other key scene from the original, and then only in rudimentary form.
The Macedonian stage manager Sascha Dinevski talks in his native language about his work at the theater (and about the fact that he is already working here under the ninth directorship), and nine other non-acting professionals are working with him. In addition to the former forced laborer Frei, who provides one of the most oppressive moments, there are the wheelchair-seated activist Cem Kirmizitoprak (“Cems Bond, the inclusion agent”) or the refugee from Eritrea Hermon Habtemariam, who in a film scene in the Wasserkirche in Zurich who marries officer Sarah Brunner in order to obtain secure residence status. “It’s not just about representing the world anymore. It’s about changing them,” says the Ghent Manifesto. However, the wedding shown was only “symbolic”, according to an accompanying text.
The production process WILL be disclosed. 400 people signed up for castings, with 40 speaking. “What is freedom?” was one of the questions, and “What does tell mean today?” The further development of the piece depended on them. Racism and inclusion, old fascisms and new inequality are now the themes and not war and crisis. The concept of freedom, which makes people protest against anti-corona measures, remains an astonishing blank in these 100 minutes, as does the militarization and armament of the present in the new East-West conflict, which is causing the share prices of weapons companies to accelerate.
Film and silent film are used several times, once the cinema massacre from Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” is quoted. But the theater also deals with itself. Michael Neuenschwander played Tell here ten years ago, and Sebastian Rudolph remembers his Hamlet in Christoph Schlingensief’s controversial production in 2001 at the Schauspielhaus, with which Schlingensief intervened directly in the city’s political events. This time Rudolph is playing Gessler in Nazi uniform – an allusion to the historical Tell production by Oskar Wälterlin from 1939. At the beginning and towards the end of Rau’s new production, a quote from the most important program is played on tape: “In a time when partisanship threatens to drag the world to the brink of the abyss, art has its meaningful place in a country whose meaning is neutrality. Not a neutrality behind which one anxiously entrenches oneself, but neutrality as impartiality, as the basis of truth, which we want to fight for in our district, the theater, as far as it is within our reach.
Admittedly, impartiality is the opposite of Milo Rau’s aspirations. Each of the amateur players can name their favorite scene from “William Tell”. For the young Meret, it is a scene at the end that is usually cut. In it, the emperor-murderer Duke Johann Parricida of Swabia turns to Tell for help. “He says: The Vogt is not the problem. But the whole system is the problem. The way we live together must be completely different,” she summarizes. “And Tell rejects him. The hero of the revolution. He doesn’t really want anything to change. (…) Very Swiss, isn’t it?” No protest, just polite, possibly approving, but by no means euphoric final applause. If this tell touched something, it certainly didn’t touch the hearts of the viewers.
(SERVICE – “Wilhelm Tell” based on Friedrich Schiller, staging: Milo Rau, stage and costumes: Anton Lukas, video: Moritz von Dungern. With Maya Alban-Zapata, Maja Beckmann, Michael Neuenschwander, Karin Pfammatter, Sebastian Rudolph and many others, Zurich Schauspielhaus , Next performances: April 26th, April 30th, May 1st, )