In early December 2024, Amwort, the speech formation institute in Dornach, began its new Theater Arts Course, and its first year group presented the production of their final project. The hall of the Carpentry Workshop at the Goetheanum was filled to capacity.
A stage pit. Spectators on the right and left. Front rows marked off. Movable cubes scattered about. The two outer flanks show scenery in muted colors. The audience will have to be active and follow the changing scenes with their powers of imagination. Courageous.
The lights go out. A shot rings out. A form appears and throws itself over one of the cubes. Lights on. The scene begins. A suicide—soon thought to be a murder. Soul entanglements are foreshadowed: father and daughter, daughter and lover. Guilt, suspicion, inner struggles, relationships, wrestling for the truth, feelings, and human understanding. The scene is cut off. The director wants a reading, which soon develops into a feminist debate about the roles of women in the play and elsewhere. A powerful opening.
These young performers spent a year studying the plays of Albert Steffen. They were surprised by the topical and spiritual dimension they found in his materials. So the students tackled the texts, began to question them, explore them experimentally, and connect them with their own reality. Gender roles, mainly in the plays but also in everyday life and society, became a central topic. Could a spiritual perspective contribute something new to the discussion? It seemed that Steffen’s characters would allow for this quite well. His tone became less all-knowing and lecturing and, instead, rather fresh and inspiring.
Playful and Real
While immersed in a collage of scenes developed within the framework of the plot, the audience is able to take a step back and perceive the actors within their process. The images are open-ended, inviting the audience to participate. Deep questions emerge about life, death, destiny, the soul, spiritual development, and after-death existence. Personal relationships between actors, conversations, human gestures, and the interplay of perceptions come to the fore. Space is created for authentic moments and genuine characters. These moments carry the play, and their questions shine through, overshadowing any imperfections of the budding actors.
Some of the characters are quite convincing: a person who returned traumatized from the war, having killed, and can no longer find his place in society. He commits murder for financial gain. Completely cut off from his feelings (played with a subtle, piercing coldness), his former lover, Christine, tries to help him understand his horrific deed through loving and understanding words. She tries to reach him and make him conscious of the spiritual consequences of his crime. But she doesn’t leave herself out of the picture, which allows this character to break free of becoming some kind of abstract idol. We can follow her inner processes and understand her surprisingly modern therapeutic approach. When the actors empathetically inquire about the well-being of others and open up to each other, it’s a touching expression of a culture of conversation inspiring hope. As short myths and poems by Albert Steffen are occasionally heard under the rhomboid light, they create their own concentrated and intimate moments. In his play Cry at the Abyss [Ruf am Abgrund], Albert Steffen unfolded enormously powerful ideological contradictions: the ethical dilemma of allowing a mother to die in order to give life to her twin children. The views of father and son clash mercilessly. The son dies in an avalanche without having forgiven his father and is prevented from entering the spiritual world. He, like the murderer in the first piece, is helped by the love of another human being and by spiritual beings.
In the three pieces of their play, Steffen is given the role of bringing in a spiritual dimension that directly affects and illuminates the plot, making visible the consequences of thoughts, feelings, and actions of the characters. The open stage design and costumes placed over everyday clothing support the relationship between plot and spirit. This is enhanced by eurythmy that blends well with the acting, achieving a pictorial strength, for example, as the flight of birds in the play at a birthday party or as wise magicians in the spiritual world. Well-directed lighting enhances the whole. The characters’ actions are thus able to go through and beyond the element of tragedy.
Young actors, in their first year of study, showed clearly that they found a deep connection with Steffen’s material and scenes—a poet who certainly does not deny his own individuality with his speech and style. Pictures were permeated with life and were able to unfold in the consciousness of the audience. Good luck with your second year!
More Bühnenkunst amwort
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Detail of the poster of the event
