Dog Years (72 page)

And that's exactly how this character -- with hardly any musical trimmings -- sets up his show. Zander is wildly enthusiastic, all he can talk about is this "exciting new form of broadcast." From the start he detects -- "over and above the radio" -- possibilities for the theater: "Neither picture-frame nor three-dimensional stage. Orchestra and stage merge for all time. After a centuries-long monologue, man finds a way back to dialogue; nay, more -- this great Western debate warrants a new hope of exegesis and catharsis, interpretation and purification."

Rolf Zander points, in no end of articles, to the future; but the wisenheimer is thinking entirely of today. He isn't out to save the theater from subsidized stagnation, but to crucify Matern and dog. He is knitting a pitfall, but questioned as to his intentions, he lays it on smoothly, confidentially: "Believe me, Matern, with your help we will work out a valid technique for getting at the truth. Not only for you, but for every one of our fellow men, this is a matter of vital necessity: we must break through between master and dog, design a window that will give us back our perspective; for even I -- you can tell by my modest literary efforts -- lack the vital grip, the quivering flesh of reality; the technique is there but not the substance: I've been unable to capture the this-is-how-it-was, the substantial reality that throws a shadow. Help me, Matern, or I'll lose myself in the subjunctive."

And this play is enacted under trees. The fellow has even succeeded in scaring up some beeches and a cast-iron temple, in which the phenotype Johannes Gutenberg waits for his relief. For six weeks, not counting rehearsals, Matern with dog is squeezed to the last drop in the presence of a changing audience. The final manuscript, with which this wisenheimer and his Dr. Rudolf Zander have tinkered a bit, but solely for artistic reasons, reads as follows. Matern -- "You're an actor after all!" -- is expected to memorize the main part, so as to be able to speak, rumble, roar it on the specified recording date.

AN OPEN FORUM

PRODUCER:
West German Broadcasting Station, Cologne.

SCRIPTS:
R. Zander and H. Liebenau.

DATE OF BROADCAST:
(approximate) May 8, 1957.

PARTICIPANTS IN THE DISCUSSION:

HARRY L
. -- Discussion leader.

WALLI S.
-- Assistant with miracle glasses.

WALTER MATERN.
-- The Topic under discussion.

SUPPORTING ROLE:
Pluto, the black shepherd.

Thirty-two children and young people of the postwar generation participate more or less actively in the open forum. None is under ten or over twenty-one.

TIME:
Approximately one year ago, when the so-called miracle glasses, or knowledge glasses, were withdrawn from the market.

SCENE:
An oval clearing in a beech forest. To the right rises a grandstand in four tiers, on which the children and young people, boys and girls, take their places without formality. A platform to the left bears a table, behind which sit the discussion leader and his assistant. To one side a black board. Between grandstand and platform, but somewhat farther to the rear, a small cast-iron temple with chain garlands and a mushroom roof. Three granite steps lead up to the temple.

Inside the temple a cast-iron statue -- obviously of Johannes Gutenberg -- is laid on its side by movingmen, wrapped in woolen blankets, and finally carried away. "Heave-ho," the workmen call to each other. A hubbub among the younger generation.

The discussion leader spurs on the workers with such cries as: "We've got to get started, gentlemen. The old man can't be any heavier than a Bechstein piano. You can have breakfast as soon as the temple is clear."

Over it all the twittering of birds.

As the movers exit, Matern enters the clearing with a black shepherd.

Walli S., the assistant, a little girl of ten, removes a pair of glasses from their case, but does not put them on.

Matern's entrance is greeted by enthusiastic stamping on the part of the younger generation. He does not know where to go.

The discussion leader points to the temple and the younger generation explains, speaking in chorus: "Matern will have to stay in the printer's house today. In Gutenberg's old place Matern will show his face! Matern just loves to answer questions. A topic will be discussed, where stood old Johann in his rust! With man and beast, we'll have a discussion feast! Matern has come. Welcome! Welcome!"

The verses of greeting are followed by applause and stamping. The assistant toys with her glasses. The discussion leader rises, makes a gesture that sweeps away all sound except for the twittering of the birds, and opens the discussion:

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Fellow participants in this forum! Young friends! The word has become flesh again and has come to dwell among us. In other words: we have come here to discuss. Discussion is our generation's medium of expression par excellence. In former times discussions were carried on at the family board, in circles of friends, on playgrounds: they were secret, muffled, or aimlessly playful; but today we have succeeded in liberating the great, dynamic, never-ending discussion from the four walls that formerly confined it, and in putting it out into the open, under the sky, among the trees!

A BOY:
The discussion leader has forgotten the birds!

CHORUS OF BOYS AND GIRLS:
A discussion feast

with man and beast.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Yes indeed! They, too, the sparrows, blackbirds, and wood pigeons, answer us. Rookedykroo, rookedykroo! All speak! All demand to be informed. Every stone gives us information.

CHORUS:
What's the stone's name today?

Stones are people too, I say.

TWO BOYS:
If it's Fritz, let him go,

if it's Emil, let him blow.

Let Hans and Ludwig run away,

if it's Walter, let him stay.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
That's it! Walter Matern has come among us in order that we may discuss him through and through. And when I say "him" I mean the reality that casts a shadow and leaves footprints.

A BOY:
Has he come of his own free will?

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Because we are alive, we discuss. We do not act, we. . .

CHORUS:
. . . discuss!

DISCUSSION LEADER:
We do not die .. .

CHORUS:
We discuss death.

A BOY:
I ask again: Has Matern come of his own free will?

DISCUSSION LEADER:
We do not love. . .

CHORUS:
We discuss love!

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Consequently there is no topic we can not discuss dynamically. God and liability insurance; the atomic bomb and Paul Klee; to us the past and the provisional constitution are not problems but topics of discussion. Only those who welcome discussion are fit. . .

CHORUS:
. . . to be members of human society.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
Only those who enjoy discussion be come, through discussion, human beings. Therefore, to be a man is. . .

CHORUS:
. . . to be willing to discuss!

A BOY:
But is Matern?

CHORUS:
Is Matern willing to discuss

his kidneys with us?

TWO GIRLS:
We girls are curious to see

Matern's heart spout poetry.

TWO BOYS:
And Matern's spleen we fondly hope

to study through a microscope.

CHORUS:
Nibble nibble, crunch crunch,

from secret pockets let us munch.

TWO GIRLS:
Another thing we wouldn't miss:

to see how thoughts and feelings kiss.

CHORUS:
If Matern says: I'm willing!

it will be just thrilling.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
And so we ask you, Matern, are you willing to be open, uncoded, and dynamically aired? Are you willing to think what you say; are you willing to speak out what you have buried? In other words: Are you willing to be the topic of this dynamic open forum? If so, answer loudly and plainly: I, Walter Matern, welcome discussion.

A BOY:
He's not willing. I told you so: he's not willing.

A BOY:
Or he hasn't understood yet.

A BOY:
He doesn't want to understand.

CHORUS:
If Matern won't understand,

make him discuss by command.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
I must request you to give your comments a choral form or to state them in writing. Mob emotions cannot be permitted to erupt in a public discussion. -- I ask you for the second time: Walter Matern, do you feel the need of communicating yourself to us in order that the public. . .

(Whispering among the younger generation. Matern is silent.)

A BOY:
Close the temple if he's not willing.

A BOY:
I demand a compulsory discussion. The Matern case is of general interest and must be discussed.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
(to the assistant)
Members number fourteen to twenty-two are obstructing discussion and therefore barred from discussion.
(Walli S. takes down the numbers on the margin of the blackboard.)
In line with the dynamism we are aiming at, the chair has decided to take account of certain comments that have not been cast in the proper form. If the topic of discussion persists in his hostility to discussion, a state of compulsory discussion will be declared. In other words: our assistant will make use of a special device, the so-called knowledge glasses, and so provide us with the facts, for every discussion must be based on facts.

CHORUS:
If he keeps his secrets in,

glasses will see through his skin.

DISCUSSION LEADER:
And so for the third time I ask Walter Matern: Are you willing, in this cast-iron temple, which only a short time ago housed Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, to make yourself available as a topic of discussion, that is, to answer our questions? In a word: Do you welcome discussion?

MATERN:
Hm. . .
(pause)
Damn it!. . . I. . .
(pause)
In the name of Satan and the Blessed Virgin. . . welcome discussion!

(Walli S. writes on the blackboard: He welcomes discussion.)

CHORUS:
He says: I'm game,

he'll play our game.

MATERN:
As in the Last Judgment,

where everyone speaks,

I have, I was,

I touched a hair,

I shot at the mirror, twice, struck home.

I wakened the mirror from purblind sleep.

TWO BOYS:
He flailed at butter with a spindle,

till water gushed and cried: A swindle.

MATERN:
I dashed the pigeon from the tower steep,

I buried the worm in the earth down deep.

TWO BOYS:
Once when he'd stabbed an oven dead,

he saw an oven, he saw red.

TWO BOYS:
He choked his towel, he was fit to be tied.

His towel was always a thorn in his side.

MATERN:
I smothered the stone. I sweetened the salt,

I cut a goat's bleat out of her throat.

CHORUS:
He wrote with chalk on thekitty's house:

Death in disgrace to Mister Mouse.

MATERN:
And now I'm a topic of discussion;

being dragged to a foregone conclusion.

(The younger generation clap and stamp. The discussion leader rises and motions for silence.)

DISCUSSION LEADER:
With great pleasure and interest we have just heard that Walter Matern is willing to unburden himself. But before question and answer, beginning as a rivulet but soon swelling into a broad-beamed torrent, carry him and us away, let us pray:
(The younger generation and the assistant rise with clasped hands.)
O great Creator of dynamic and everlasting world discussion, Thou who hast created question and answer, who givest and takest away the floor, sustain us this day as we proceed to discuss the discussion-welcoming topic of discussion, Walter Matern. O Lord of all discussions. . .