Berlin Stories (5 page)

1910

The theater is a like a dream. In the Greek theater, things might have been different; ours is mysteriously, exotically enclosed in a roof-covered, dark building. You go inside, and then a few hours later you emerge again as if from a peculiar slumber, returning to nature and to real life, and the dream is dispelled.

In this dream, the images rising up before the eye—which might be the soul's eye—have something sharp and firmly sketched about them. Natural spatial perspectives, actual ground beneath one's feet, and fresh air do not exist here. You inhale bedroom air while striding across mountains like the man with Seven League Boots. In this dream, everything is reduced in scale but also becomes more fearsome; faces generally bear unsettlingly fixed expressions: terribly sweet when the face is sweet and benevolent, and terribly repulsive when it's a horror- and fear-inspiring one. In dreams we experience the ideal dramatic foreshortening. A dream's voices possess a bewitching pliancy, its language is eloquent and at the same time well-considered; its images show us the magic of the enchanting and unforgettable because they are hyperreal, simultaneously genuine and unnatural. The hues of these images are at once sharp and soft, they cut into the eye with their sharpness like whetted knives slicing into an apple, and then are gone the next moment, so that you often—even while still in the midst of your dream—feel sorry to see certain things vanish so swiftly.

Our theater is like a dream, and it has every reason to become even more like one. In Germany everything wants to be enveloped and enclosed, everything wants to have a roof. Even the poor, pompous works of sculpture in our gardens are dreams—but for the most part these dreams are frozen. It's a well-known fact how bad we are at public monuments. Amid the wafting breezes of freedom, we find ourselves devoid of talent. We'd rather step into a dear, dreamlike, strange building where we encounter our true breezes, our true nature. Why are we so skilled at hosting Christmas festivities, why are we happy to sit in a warm room and watch as it snows, gusts, blusters, or rains outdoors? We so like to spend time in dark, introspective holes. This penchant is not itself a weakness; our weakness is that we feel ashamed of it.

Are not works of literature also dreams, and is the open stage anything other than their wide-open mouth speaking as if in sleep? During the taxing day, we drive our business interests and useful intentions before us through the streets and various establishments, and then we assemble in these narrow rows of seats, like narrow beds, to gaze and hear; the curtain—the lip of this mouth—springs open, and we find ourselves being disconcertingly yet also intimately addressed, roaringly, hissingly, with flickering tongues and smiles, which fills us with a frenzy we wouldn't wish to subdue, nor would we be able to; it makes us writhe with laughter or else tremble with heartfelt tears. The images blaze and burn before our eyes, the figures in the play move before us like unnaturally large, unfamiliar apparitions. The bedroom is dark, only the open dream is resplendent in the bright lights—dazzling, speaking—and we are compelled to sit there with open mouths.

How melodious are the colors in a dream! They seem to be turning into faces, and suddenly a color threatens, sobs, sings, or smiles; a river becomes a horse, and the horse is about to climb a narrow staircase with its hoofed feet; the knight is forcing it, he is being pursued, they intend to tear his heart from his body, they are getting closer, in the distance you can see the murderers racing toward him, a nameless fear seizes you—the curtain falls. An earthquake strikes a municipal square, the buildings sink and tilt, the air appears to be splattered with blood, fiery-red wounds are hanging everywhere; people are firing their rifles, meaning to compete with nature in murderousness; all the while the sky is a sweet pale blue, but it lies so childishly above the buildings, like a painted sky. This bleeding is like small roses being thrown about; the buildings keep falling and yet they stand, and constantly there is a horrific screaming and the crack of rifle fire and yet there is none. Oh, how divinely this dream is playacting! It presents incontestably pure images of the horrific, but also of sweetness, oppression, melancholy, and anxious remembrance. It instantly paints settings to match sentiments, persons, and sounds, supplementing the sweet prattling of a virtuous woman with her face, giving snakes the strange weeds from which they horrifically slither forth; the cries of the drowning the dreary evening landscape of river and shore; and a smile the mouth that expresses it.

Amid dark-green bushes, white faces lean out, each with a request, a plaint or with hatred in its horrifically clear eyes. Sometimes we see only features, lines, sometimes only eyes; then the pale features come and frame these eyes, then come the wild black waves of hair and bury the face; then once more there is only a voice, then a door opens; two figures charge in, you try to wake up, but the inexorable charging-in continues. There are moments in a dream whose memory stays with us as long as we live.

This is the effect of the theater too with its figures, words, notes, sounds, and colors. Who would wish to see a delightful love scene minus the opulently overgrown garden in which it occurs, a murder without the dark wall of the alleyway, a scream without the window through which it rings out, the window without the delicate and feminine white curtain that makes it a window, lending it magic and yet also naturalism? Snowy landscapes, nocturnal ones, lie upon the stage in such a way as to make one believe they extend and stretch for miles; a train with red-shimmering windows passes by, quite slowly, as though it were wending and winding its way far off into the distance, where the swift does not insist on receding swiftly from the eye. The distant and the near lie side by side in the theater. Two scoundrels are always whispering too loudly; the noble gentleman hears it all, and yet he pretends utter ignorance. This is what is so dreamlike, so truly untrue, so poignant, and in the end so beautiful. How beautiful it is when two men whisper to each other at the top of their lungs while the expression of the other one says to us: how quiet it is all around me!

Such things are like the gruesome and beautiful stories in dreams. The stage does its utmost to terrify; it does well to have such aims, and we do well to foster that something within us that allows us to be receptive to the pleasure and frisson this terror brings.

1907

What plays will be put on this winter, what protagonists will walk the stage, what manner of authors will be heard from, and with the help of what sorts of wires will performances be launched in all the theaters of the capital? That is the—once again, as it appears to me—not entirely uncrucial question. Probably there will be a play by Hauptmann, one by Sudermann, and one by Wedekind, and
apropos
one by Hofmannsthal, and I must confess that it didn't cost me much mental exertion to be compelled to trumpet out all of this. But will there also be some new name emerging from the vast shadows of as-yet-unknownness, will novelties be served up? Let me venture to assume so and to believe that we shall have sparks rained down upon us by luminaries in the southeast. What will Reinhardt be putting on? Will he have some good trumps to play, and what are our best-known critics currently up to? Are they still sitting at the edge of the woods reading books or smoking pipes? Soon they will have to come flitting this way at a proper clip, for things here are about to heat up, and we shall have heartfelt need of this cooling fire brigade. What are the actors doing? Where are their not yet burnt-out Vesuviuses of creative verve to be found? Be careful there with your sunshiny high spirits and flames of enthusiasm! People are already standing here in formation with their pointy water hoses—i.e., pens—behind their ears, ready to give you a good squirting should you overestimate your own achievement. Where is youth, and where are the undiscovered talents, and where, if this query meets with approval, are the esteemed high- and lowborn dramaturges currently traveling? I believe I see one of them strolling up and down the lively streets of Copenhagen on the arm of a pretty wench. They should watch out or someone might take them down a notch. Soon this luxuriant summer world will, thank God, have come to an end, and what I meant to ask was: When is the first important premiere, on what day will it take place, and will it be thrilling? I do hope so, for I am of the sort who lick their lips at the prospect of premiere night, which they quite possibly expect to be a banquet. Not that I'd say I enjoy it when a playwright is hissed and decried, but I do enjoy it all the same, as there is always some enjoyment to be found in the lamentable.

When will the curtain rise for the first time to allow us to gaze down upon uplifting scenes? Will there be much that uplifts? I'd like to hope there will also be, now and again, something degrading to be seen, something shameless, so to speak, since it must after all be reckoned among the secret pleasures of a theatergoer to be permitted to find sufficient grounds to blush. Things should prick and prickle a bit, otherwise it might get dull, and after all, there are always people who enjoy this, as well as some who are swiftly inclined to find everything tedious. Did the stage-set painters give their brushes a proper cleaning during the vacation? Is there oil in the lamps? Are there innovations with regard to the lighting? But this is perhaps significantly less important than the breathless question of how things stand with the actors' gestures. It's to be hoped that one or the other of the individuals in question has smoothed his rough edges a little, and as for the noble dexterity of tongue, we are expecting miracles this year:

 

 

Have the daggers been polished, buttons shined, stones hewn, benches cobbled together, curtains painted, moldings gilded, shirts pressed, manners scrubbed, heads washed, bodies steeled; are the senses fresh, the shoes free of holes, and all hearts in good fettle? Let's assume so. How will the gentlemen make their entrances? Clad in armor or suit jackets? And the ladies? Will they wear velvet gowns or else dress-reform garments? In the end it's a matter of complete indifference how they stand out, provided they know how to make a grand entrance—for this, I believe when I gaze innovatively into space as I am doing at this moment, is all that truly matters.

 

 

Lovely, isn't it?

1907

How ravishing, the Russian ballerinas from the Imperial Theatre in Petersburg. They dance very well, and now in Berlin they have garnered much acclaim and are enjoying great success that they are generally felt to deserve. Perhaps this is revealing, perhaps not, but in any case we were very satisfied, very pleased, and for the most part even enchanted. A few of the dancers dazzled us. Among these Russians there is one great artist, Anna Pavlova, a very conscious, very intelligent, and up to certain limits doubtless also brilliant artist. Local papers have dubbed her the queen of dance, and apparently that's what she is. She's just marvelous. Ah, this Berlin with its love and understanding of the arts, how peculiar it is in so many respects! And then success itself—how odd it often is! But enough of this. Let us speak of dulcet, dancerly things, and not of such foolish ones, such—I almost want to say—thickheaded, clumsy matters as success and its manufacture. Let us be merry, rich, light, earnest, courteous, virtuous, and well-mannered.

There's no doubt a touch of parvenu effrontery in this desire on the part of someone of my ilk, who has never studied dance, to engage in scribbling and scrabbling on the theme, topic, and subject of dancing. And yet my sympathies are so vibrant that I cannot possibly bring myself to say: “No, I shall not write.” And what harm does it do, when one's breast is filled with pleasurable sentiments, to make a bit of a fool of oneself? Yes, pleasurable sentiments, ravishing faces, lovely, beautiful gestures, dulcet memories, reasons for gratitude and veneration have all been bequeathed to us as a gift by the Russian ballet. There's one perfectly ridiculous piece:
Harlequin's Millions
. Anna Pavlova sits like a youthful regent upon a rickety, implausible, small balcony, gazing with wonderful gestures upon the crowd below—Italians apparently—who apparently are indulging in all manner of nocturnal, adventuresome, serenading, troubadourish pastimes. And perhaps daintiest, most dazzling, and loveliest of all was this magic spell of a balcony.

Clearly the play's burden is the triumph of tender love over greed and the attempts of old age to act foolish and young. Or something of the sort.
Item
, we then see this balcony splendor glide to the ground, and now she begins to dance sweetness and greatness. “Now that is dance,” a highly enthused person said to me during intermission. “No doubt,” I replied, and this dissembling dryness pleased me. “Stupendous,” a second person said. I couldn't help laughing. Oh, this Berlin when its enthusiasms are aroused. Naturally I am of the deeply felt conviction that it is quite nice, quite lovely to be capable of enthusiasm. Novelty enthuses. And these Russian dancers and danseuses struck us as utterly novel and unprecedented. Their traditional dances appeared bold, unique, and new. We were dazzled by an art that the mature and intelligent among us had believed dead and buried.

Is this ballet the future? For a dance to live on beyond the one tumultuous success, pieces must be written that correspond to our time and its spirit. As for the rest, it isn't at all necessary to understand the art of dance. We don't have to know what a certain delightful movement of the hand and arm signifies. All we have to do is feel it and see it, and for this reason thinking about the future of this dance that's been passed down to us is rather philistine. But often it's not a bad idea to practice a bit of philistinism.