Theater | Claus Peymann: Legend and Dogkeeper

And suddenly I get an email. From Claus Peymann 's long-time partner and dramaturge. The subject line: "Thank you!" What did I do to deserve this, it flashed through my mind. It's been five years now.

Well, after a quick read, the case was clear. It was clearly a mistake. However, the last message, mistakenly addressed to me, had a rather graphic twist attached to it. It was the correspondence between Claus Peymann and his neighbor, which approximates the quality of a Bernhard-esque drama.

What was it about? Peymann had asked his neighbor for a friendly favor. The director was planning to try it out in Vienna and wanted his plants watered. The neighbor agreed. The request was followed by consent, which was followed by thanks and thanks. All of this, however, was in a beautiful language that hardly anyone speaks anymore.

Peymann soon makes it clear that if his neighbor ever finds himself in a similar situation, he too would be available. He adds: If necessary, he would even look after a puppy if the neighbor had one again. From what I gather from the correspondence, a new dog is indeed "in the works."

But he doesn't stop at such a non-binding offer. He wants to invite his neighbor and his wife to Vienna. Two days in what he describes as a good and comfortable hotel. He'll have someone organize it who knows which rooms are nice. He also offers two tickets to "The German Lunch" at the Theater an der Josefstadt (directed by Claus Peymann), or to "The Chairs" (directed by CP) at the Burgtheater, or to "The Trouser Purchase" (directed by CP) at the same venue, or a Bernhard reading (by and with Claus Peymann).

But, we read further, perhaps Peymann in Vienna will be enough for once. Peymann's thank you, the neighbor lets us know, has been received. And he declines the offer. Is this modesty, an effort to maintain distance, gentle remorse? The subtle punchline in this drama follows soon: The plants—they have all died.

With Claus Peymann, everything was theater. He himself was a great actor. Everything was beautifully staged. With wit and rhythm. A character like something out of a comedy.

I've often quoted from the misdirected email in conversations. It was always a cause for hilarious laughter. Just as Claus Peymann was often ridiculed by theatergoers of my generation who came to know him through his later work at the Berliner Ensemble.

The story of how, during his time in Stuttgart, he raised money for the dentures of the imprisoned Gudrun Ensslin is legendary.

It was this unconditional belief in the power of theater, his majestic demeanor, his self-dramatization, and his directing itself, which, despite all his skill, always had a somewhat dusty quality about it, that was comically irritating. Someone said he wanted to be the fang up the ass of the powerful, and then he transformed the Brecht Theater into a museum, in front of which tourist groups were unloaded every evening.

Despite all the quarrels with the theater legend Peymann, as she presented herself to us later generations in her later work and as a public figure, there was also a suspicion. The suspicion that he was truly serious about art. That one could rely on him politically. And that there must have been other times when he roused and revitalized West German and Austrian theater.

Born in Bremen in 1937, Claus Peymann began his directing career while still a student. From the University Theater in Hamburg, he moved to the Stadttheater in Heidelberg in the mid-1960s, then to the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt and then to the highly politicized Schaubühne in West Berlin (where Peymann didn't last long).

The successful director Peymann soon aspired to become artistic director. From the Stuttgart State Theater, to the Bochum Theater, he moved on to the Vienna Burgtheater and finally to the Berliner Ensemble. A career as a theater king in various realms from 1974 to 2017.

The story of how, during his time in Stuttgart, he collected money for the dentures of the imprisoned Gudrun Ensslin is legendary, which (not only) turned Baden-Württemberg's Christian Democratic, previously staunchly National Socialist, Prime Minister Hans Filbinger against him.

No less legendary is his support and promotion of great playwrights: Peter Handke's "Audience Insult," for example, marked the beginning of an intensive working relationship between author and director. Peymann also directed premieres of works by Elfriede Jelinek, Peter Turini, and, above all, Thomas Bernhard.

His years in Vienna were probably his most politically and artistically productive. A theater man managed to turn an entire country against him. That's no small achievement.

His self-aggrandizement—he spoke of himself as an enlightened monarch—provoked a few undeserved eye rolls. But it must be credited to him that he not only tolerated other gods alongside him, but attracted them: George Tabori, Peter Zadek, and Einar Schleef were able to work where Peymann reigned.

When the scandal-ridden director took over the Berliner Ensemble at the turn of the millennium, there was great disappointment that no artistic scandals arose. However, he gathered great actors around him here, as everywhere else. And he caused at least some excitement when he offered Christian Klar, who had just been released from prison, an internship.

The end of his Berlin directorship did not mean the director's career was over. He continued working at the Theater an der Josefstadt and elsewhere. One feels certain that this theater enthusiast could not have done anything else.

On July 16, Claus Peymann died in Berlin-Köpenick at the age of 88 after a serious illness.