Читать книгу Fritz Perls in Berlin 1893 - 1933 - Bernd Bocian - Страница 29

Perls’s experiences in the theater in Berlin had an early as well as lasting effect on him. Even as a child he was fascinated by the world of the stage, a fascination that was triggered at age four by falling in love with a circus rider, his »first goddess,« (Perls 1977, 281) and dreams of someday becoming part of her world that seemed so wonderful to him. In the narrower sense, he had his first experiences with theater in the living room of his own home. In bourgeois culture, art was not merely consumed but also produced (see Ottersbach 1992, 7). Chamber music in the home formed part of this, and was a daily occurrence in the domestic life of Lore Posner, for example, who was a talented pianist and would later become Perls’s wife – and then there were theatrical performances as well. Theo Freiberger, a neighbor’s son, was permitted to use the Perls family’s spacious living room for his performances. As a little boy, Fritz watched the rehearsals and was allowed to help out a little here or there. With the help of Perls’s Hebrew teacher, Theo Freiberger produced an opera, Verdi’s »Il Trovatore,« although it was a disappointment for little Fritz and he made fun of it.

Much like many other secondary school students, Perls later worked as an unpaid extra at one of the theaters in Berlin. »We loved the costumes and participation and getting acquainted with literature in a lively way« (Perls 1977, 282). At family gatherings, he regularly brought his favorite sister, Grete, and his grandparents’ domestic servant to laughter when he theatrically recited and parodied the lofty poems and ballads of Schiller and Goethe (see Gaines 1979, 2).

At approximately the same time that his father attempted to induct him into one of his Freemason lodges – Perls thought the »performance« staged there for him was ridiculous – he established contact with the theater directed by Max Reinhardt. It was 1910 or perhaps 1911, and he was about 18 years old at the time. In addition to unpaid jobs as an extra in the conventional theater, which was occasionally also attended by the Emperor, Perls became a paid extra at the Deutsches Theater which had been under Reinhardt’s direction since 1905. Perls referred to Reinhardt, who hailed from Vienna and whose actual Jewish name was Goldmann, as the »first creative genius« (Perls 1977, 282) he ever met. Faced with a naturalistic theatrical tradition where actors donned costumes and »presented the playwright’s words in audible form« (Ottersbach 1992, 9), although without awakening the characters to life, Reinhardt demanded truth and authenticity, which Perls absorbed in his personal life and also integrated into Gestalt therapy in a most radical manner. For Reinhardt, this was also associated with a critique of the bourgeoisie for training its young to adhere to convention and hide their feelings: »As is sufficiently known, this results in repression and hysteria, the illness of our age, and ultimately in the empty acting that fills life« (Reinhardt 1993, 52). This naturally brings Freud’s early cultural criticism to mind, and in that sense Reinhardt was indeed working with therapeutic tools without labeling them as such (see Ottersbach 1992, 6). As an extra, Perls was present at the rehearsals of Reinhardt’s important productions. This gave him an opportunity to observe in detail Reinhardt’s style of directing and his dealings with the actors. In addition to that, according to the recollections of Lore Perls, he appears to have participated in »Max Reinhardt’s famous acting classes« (Sreckovic 1999, 20). His sister Grete Gutfreund confirms this: »When he was a teenager, enrolled in the Gymnasium, he saw that Reinhardt was giving classes. He signed up, and had small parts in plays. Once he played Mephisto for Reinhardt« (Gaines 1979, 3).

Based on Perls’s own recollections, during his secondary-school years he participated in »Oedipus the King« (Hugo von Hofmannsthal, following Sophocles) and Hofmannsthal’s »Everyman. The Play of the Rich Man’s Death.« The plays premiered in the 1910 and 1911 respectively and were produced in Berlin’s Zirkus Schumann which Reinhardt had rebuilt for the purpose: it seated an audience of 5,125. Theatrical productions in a circus were a revolution for conventional theater and were part of Reinhardt’s idea of restoring the vitality of theater. Reinhardt viewed theater as a total work of art. He collaborated with dramatists and composers, introduced three-dimensional sets and revolving stages, and experimented with light, music, mass scenes, and inclusion of the audience. In short, he laid the foundation for modern director’s theater. But Reinhardt’s central focus always lay on the creative personality of the actor and on bringing the classics up to date. He put modern people on the stage, and the audience could relate to their conflicts. The version of the ancient Oedipus story that he developed together with Hugo von Hofmannsthal impressed and may also have influenced his contemporary, Sigmund Freud (see Lorenz 2000).

In addition, Perls mentioned his participation in Goethe’s »Faust,« Part 2, which debuted on March 15, 1911, at the Deutsches Theater, and in »A Midsummer Night’s Dream,« which opened Reinhardt’s famous Shakespeare cycle on November 14, 1913.

Perls’s love of the theater was so strong that he seriously considered becoming an actor. He acted under contract at an open-air theater, which in turn provided enough money to finance his acting classes and also buy a motorcycle. Up until then, he had obtained his money through private tutoring and, since he received no allowance, by stealing from his mother’s purse. In the summertime, when the open-air theater was in operation, his daily routine ran like this: in the morning he did his homework in the streetcar on the way to school; after school he took a streetcar home again for lunch and then rode his bicycle to performances at the open-air theater. Following that, it was either back home again for a quick meal, or he headed directly to a performance at Deutsches Theater, which generally lasted into the night (see Perls 1977, 282). His sister Grete recalled that his coming home late often led to conflict with his father who sometimes simply locked him out; he would have had to spend the night outside if his mother hadn’t secretly let him in (see Gaines 1979, 3).

Together with Theo Freiberger, a neighboring boy who in the meantime apparently had a theater group of his own, of which Perls was also a member, he would travel to the small towns where the group performed (see Perls 1977, 281). Looking back, he did not describe himself as a good actor, although he was very adept at imitating the voices of many famous stage personalities.

Max Reinhardt had a profound influence on Perls. »Characters out of touch with their co-players had to go. Nothing was left untouched, until a play transcended into a world of reality, yet left enough room for the audience’s fantasy« (ibid., 282). The memories³⁵ of these stage productions which he committed to writing late in life still testify to his unwaning appreciation and continuing enthusiasm for what he experienced (ibid., 282).