Propuesta:

.DESCRIPCIÓN DE UN ESTADO FÍSICO seguido de DESCRIPCIÓN DE UN CUADRO

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DESCRIPCIÓN DE UN ESTADO FÍSICO Antonin Artaud

Una sensación de quemadura ácida en los miembros,
músculos retorcidos e incendiados, el sentimiento de ser un vidrio frágil,
un miedo, una retracción ante el movimiento y el ruido.
Un inconsciente desarreglo al andar, en los gestos,
en los movimientos.
Una voluntad tendida en perpetuidad para los más simples gestos,
la renuncia al gesto simple, una fatiga sorprendente y central,
una suerte de fatiga aspirante. Los movimientos a rehacer,
una suerte de fatiga mortal, de fatiga espiritual
en la más simple tensión muscular, el gesto de tomar, de prenderse inconscientemente a cualquier cosa, sostenida por una voluntad aplicada.

Una fatiga de principio del mundo, la sensación de estar cargando el cuerpo, un sentimiento de increíble fragilidad, que se transforma en rompiente dolor, un estado de entorpecimiento doloroso, de entorpecimiento localizado en la piel, que no prohibe ningún movimiento, pero que cambia el sentimiento interno de un miembro, y a la simple posición vertical le otorga el premio
de un esfuerzo victorioso.
Localizado probablemente en la piel, pero sentido como la supresión radical de un miembro y presentando al cerebro sólo imágenes de miembros filiformes y algodonosos, lejanas imágenes de miembros nunca en su sitio.
La suerte de ruptura interna de la correspondencia de todos los nervios.

Un vértigo en movimiento, una especie de caída oblicua acompañando cualquier esfuerzo, una coagulación de calor que encierra toda la extensión del cráneo, o se rompe a pedazos, placas de calor nunca quietas.
Una exacerbación dolorosa del cráneo, una cortante presión de los nervios, la nuca empeñada en sufrir, las sienes que se cristalizan o se petrifican, una cabeza hollada por caballos.

Ahora tendría que hablar de la descoporización de la realidad, de esa especie de ruptura aplicada, que parece multiplicarse ella misma entre las cosas y el sentimiento que producen en nuestro espíritu, el sitio que se toman. Esta clasificación instántanea de las cosas en las células del espíritu, existe no tanto como un orden lógico, sino como un orden sentimental, afectivo.
Que ya no se hace: las cosas no tienen ya olor, no tienen sexo.
Pero su orden lógico a veces se rompe por su falta de aliento afectivo.
Las palabras se pudren en el llamado inconsciente del cerebro, todas las palabras por no importa qué operación mental, y sobre todo aquellas que tocan los resortes más habituales, los más activos del espíritu.

Un vientre aplanado.
Un vientre de polvo fino y como en foco. Debajo del vientre una granada reventada.
La granada expande un flujo de copos que se eleva como lenguas de fuego, un fuego helado. El flujo se agarra del vientre y lo hace girar.
Pero el vientre no da más vueltas. Son venas de sangre como vino, de sangre combinada con azufre y azafrán pero con un azufre endulzado con agua.

Sobre el vientre sobresalen los senos. Y más hacia arriba y en profundidad, pero en otro plano del espíritu un sol enardecido de manera que se podría pensar que es el seno el que arde. Y un pájaro al pie de la granada.
El sol parece que tuviera una mirada.
Pero una mirada que estaría mirando el sol.
Y el aire todo es una como una melodía gélida pero una extensa, honda melodía bien compuesta y secreta y colmada de ramificaciones congeladas.
Y todo construido con columnas, y con una especie de aguada arquitectónica que une el vientre con la realidad.
La tela está ahuecada y estratificada.
La pintura está muy prensada a la tela.
Es como un círculo que se cierra sobre sí mismo, una suerte de abismo
en movimiento que se parte por el medio.
Es como un espíritu que se ve y se ahueca, está modelado y trabajado
sin cesar por las manos crispadas del espíritu.

Mientras tanto el espíritu siembra su fósforo. El espíritu está seguro. Tiene un pie bien apoya do en este mundo.
El vientre, los senos, la granada, son como evidencias testimoniales de la realidad. Hay un pájaro muerto y hay un abundante surgimiento de columnas.
El aire está plagado de golpes de lápices como de golpes de cuchillos, como de esquirlas de uña mágica.
El aire está suficientemente alterado.
Así donde germina una semilla de irrealidad se dispone en células.
Las células se colocan cada una en su lugar, en abanico, rodeando el vientre,
delante del sol más lejos del pájaro y sobre ese flujo de agua sulfurosa.
Pero la arquitectura que sostiene y no dice nada es indiferente a las células.
Cada célula contiene un huevo donde se destaca el germen.
Repentinamente nace un huevo en cada célula.
En cada uno hay un hormigueo inhumano pero límpido,
las diversificaciones de un universo detenido.
Cada célula contiene bien su huevo y nos lo ofrece; pero al huevo no le importa demasiado ser elegido o rechazado.
Algunas células no llevan huevo. En algunas crece una espiral.
Y en el aire cuelga una espiral más grande pero como azufrada, de fósforo todavía y cubierta de irrealidad.
Y esta espiral tiene toda la relevancia del pensamiento más potente.
El vientre lleva a recordar la cirugía y la Morgue, la bodega, la plaza pública y la mesa de operaciones.
El cuerpo del vientre parece tallado en granito o en mármol o en yeso, pero un yeso endurecido.
Hay un casillero para una montaña.
Las burbujas del cielo dibujan sobre la montaña
una aureola fresca y translúcida. Alrededor de la montaña el aire es sonoro, compasivo, antiguo, prohibido.
La entrada a la montaña está prohibida. La montaña tiene su lugar en el alma.
Ella es el horizonte de algo que no deja de retroceder.
Produce la impresión del horizonte infinito.
Y yo describo con lágrimas esta pintura porque esta pintura me toca el corazón.
En ella siento desplegarse mi pensamiento como en un espacio ideal, absoluto, pero un espacio que tendría una forma posible de ser insertada en la realidad.
Caigo en ella del cielo.
Y alguna de mis fibras se desata y encuentra un lugar en determinados casilleros.
A ella regreso como a mi fuente,
allí siento el lugar y la disposición de mi espíritu.
El que ha pintado esa tela es el más grande pintor del mundo.
A André Mason lo que es justo.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE UN CUADRO Heiner Müller

Un paisaje entre estepa y sabana: en el cielo azul prusiano flotan dos nubes gigantes que parecen sujetadas por esqueletos de alambre, construidos en todo caso en un estilo desconocido, la izquierda, de mayor tamaño, podría ser un muñeco inflable de un parque de atracciones que se hubiera soltado de su cuerda, o un fragmento de Antártida que volara de vuelta a casa, en el horizonte una línea de cumbres achatadas, a la derecha en el paisaje un árbol, si nos acercáramos veríamos que son tres árboles, de distinta altura, con forma de seta, tronco con tronco, quizá de una misma raíz, la casa en primer plano es más industrial que artesanal, probablemente de hormigón: una ventana, una puerta, el tejado oculto tras la fronda del árbol que está delante de la casa y la supera en altura, de una especie distinta al grupo de árboles del fondo, sus frutos parecen comestibles, o apropiados para envenenar invitados, un frutero de cristal sobre una mesa de jardín, la mitad todavía a la sombra de la copa del árbol, y en el que hay dispuestos seis o siete ejemplares del fruto semejante al limón, desde la posición de la mesa, cuyas patas cruzadas son troncos de abedul joven sin tallar, tosco ensayo de trabajo manual, se puede concluir que el sol, o lo que quiera que arroje luz sobre este lugar, está en el momento del cuadro en el cenit, quizás el SOL esté ahí siempre y HASTA LA ETERNIDAD: que el sol se mueva es algo que el cuadro no puede demostrar, también las nubes, si es que son nubes, parecen flotar en su posición, el esqueleto de alambre las sujeta a un tablón de un azul manchado denominado arbitrariamente CIELO, en la rama de un árbol hay un pájaro perchado, la fronda oculta su identidad, puede ser un buitre, o un pavo real, o un buitre con cabeza de pavo real, la mirada y el pico dirigidos hacia una mujer, que domina la mitad derecha del cuadro, su cabeza divide la línea de cumbres, su cara es suave, muy joven, la nariz larga en exceso, hinchada en el puente, quizá por un puñetazo, la mirada hacia el suelo, como si no pudiese olvidar una imagen y o no quisiera ver otra, el pelo largo y desgreñado, rubio o de un gris blanquecino, la luz intensa no permite la distinción, va vestida con un abrigo raído de pellejo cortado para hombros más anchos, sobre una camisa fina y rala, probablemente de lino, de la manga derecha demasiado ancha y algo deshilachada alza un frágil antebrazo una mano a la altura del corazón o bien del pecho izquierdo, un gesto de defensa o del lenguaje de los sordomudos, defensa ante un espanto conocido, la bofetada el empujón la puñalada se ha producido, el disparo ya ha impactado, la herida ya no sangra, la repetición acierta en el vacío donde el miedo no tiene lugar, la cara de la mujer se hace legible si la segunda suposición es cierta, una cara de rata, un ángel de los roedores, las mandíbulas muelen cadáveres de palabras y basura verbal, la manga izquierda del abrigo cuelga hecha jirones como después de un accidente o el ataque de algo que desgarra, animal o máquina, llama la atención que el brazo no haya sido herido, o son las manchas parduzcas en la manga sangre coagulada, el gesto de la mano derecha de dedos largos al servicio de un dolor en el hombro izquierdo, cuelga el brazo tan débil en la manga porque está roto, o paralizado por una herida profunda, el brazo está cortado a la altura de la mano por el borde del cuadro, la mano puede ser una zarpa, un muñón (quizá costroso de sangre) o un gancho, la mujer se yergue de la nada, amputada hasta las rodillas por el borde del cuadro, o acaso crezca desde el suelo como el hombre sale de la casa y desaparezca en el suelo como el hombre en la casa, hasta que el movimiento incesante comienza, que revienta el marco, el vuelo, el mecanismo impulsor de las raíces haciendo llover trozos de tierra y aguas subterráneas, visible entre mirada y mirada, cuando el ojo VISTO TODO se cierra parpadeando sobre el cuadro, entre el árbol y la mujer la única gran ventana abierta de par en par, la cortina ondea hacia fuera, la tempestad parece provenir de la casa, no hay rastro de viento en los árboles, o acaso atraiga la mujer a la tempestad, o la provoque con su aparición, tempestad que la ha estado esperando en las cenizas de la chimenea, qué o quién ha sido quemado, un niño, otra mujer, un amante, o acaso sean las cenizas en realidad sus propios restos, el cuerpo prestado del fondo de los cementerios, el hombre bajo el marco de la puerta, el pie derecho todavía en el umbral, el izquierdo ya fuera sobre el suelo terroso manchado de hierba, abrasado por un sol desconocido, extendido el brazo, en la mano derecha tiene preso con gesto de cazador, allí donde se quiebra el ala, un pájaro, la mano izquierda, provista de dedos muy largos y torcidos que aletean, acaricia el plumaje erizado por el miedo a la muerte, el pico del pájaro se abre en un grito inaudible para el observador, mudo también para el pájaro en el árbol, los pájaros no le interesan, el esqueleto de su congénere junto a la pared interior veteada de negro, visible a través del cuadro de la ventana, pero invisible desde su posición en el árbol, no le podría transmitir ningún mensaje, el hombre sonríe, su paso es animado, un paso de baile, imposible de precisar si habrá visto ya a la mujer, quizá sea ciego, su sonrisa la precaución del ciego, él ve con los pies, cada piedra con la que tropieza se ríe de él, o la sonrisa del asesino que va al trabajo, qué pasará junto a la mesa de patas cruzadas con el frutero lleno y con la copa de vino rota volcada en la que flotan todavía los restos de un líquido negro, que se extiende por la mesa y por el borde goteando hasta caer al suelo bajo la mesa formando un charco cada vez mayor, frente a ella la silla de respaldo alto tiene un particular: sus cuatro patas están atadas con un alambre a media altura como para evitar que se derrumbe, una segunda silla arrojada en el suelo detrás del árbol a la derecha, el respaldo partido, la protección de alambre apenas forma una Z, y no un cuadrado, quizás un intento anterior de sujeción, qué peso ha roto la silla y ha dejado la otra inestable, un asesinato quizá, o un coito salvaje, o los dos en uno, el hombre en la silla, la mujer sobre él, su miembro en su vagina, la mujer todavía cargada con el peso de la tierra del sepulcro del que consiguió salir para visitar al hombre, del agua subterránea que gotea de su abrigo de piel, su movimiento al principio un suave balanceo, luego cabalgando cada vez más fuerte, hasta que el orgasmo hunde la espalda del hombre contra el respaldo de la silla que cede con estruendo, la espalda de la mujer contra el borde de la mesa, volcando la copa de vino, el frutero cargado de fruta comienza a deslizarse, y cuando la mujer se precipita hacia adelante sus brazos se aferran al hombre, los de él bajo el abrigo se aferran a ella, él hinca sus dientes en su cuello, ella los hinca en el suyo, el frutero se detiene junto al borde cuando la mesa recobra su posición, o la mujer en la silla, el hombre de pie detrás de ella con las manos pulgar con pulgar alrededor de su cuello, primero como un juego, sólo se tocan los dedos por delante, y entonces, cuando la mujer se encrespa contra el respaldo de la silla, le clava las uñas en los músculos del brazo, se hinchan las venas del cuello y de la sien, la cabeza se llena de sangre, la cara se va tiñendo de rojo azulado, sus piernas al contraerse golpean el tablero de la mesa, la copa de vino se vuelca, el frutero comienza a deslizarse, cierra el estrangulador el círculo, pulgar con pulgar, dedo con dedo, hasta que las manos de la mujer caen de sus brazos y el sordo crujido de la laringe o de la vértebra cervical marca el final del trabajo, quizá ceda ahora el respaldo de la silla bajo el peso muerto otra vez, cuando el hombre retira las manos, o la mujer cae hacia adelante, con la cara rojo-azulada sobre la copa de vino, y desde allí el líquido oscuro, vino o sangre, busca su camino hacia el suelo, o acaso la sombra deshilvanada del cuello de la mujer bajo la barbilla sea producto de un corte de cuchillo, los hilos de sangre seca de la herida ancha como el cuello, negros con costra de sangre también los mechones a la derecha de la cara, la huella del asesino zurdo sobre el umbral de la puerta, su cuchillo escribe de derecha a izquierda, lo necesitará de nuevo, abulta la tela de su chaqueta, cuando de los fragmentos de cristal se recompone la copa rota y la mujer se acerca a la mesa sin cicatriz en el cuello, o será la mujer, el ángel sediento, que le abre al pájaro de un mordisco la garganta y vierte la sangre del cuello abierto en la copa, el alimento de los muertos, el cuchillo no es para el pájaro, la cara del hombre tiene el color del suelo hasta la altura de los ojos, la frente y la mano visible, la otra que lo sujeta oculta en el plumaje, son blancas como el papel, parece llevar guantes para el trabajo al aire libre, por qué no en el momento del cuadro, y algo parecido a un sombrero para protegerse del astro ardiente que ilumina el paisaje y hace palidecer sus colores, cuál puede ser su trabajo, además del asesinato quizá diario de la mujer resucitada quizá a diario, en este paisaje, sólo aparecen animales en forma de nubes, sin mano que los sujete, el pájaro en el árbol es la última reserva, un reclamo lo atrapa, de nada sirve arrancar la hierba, la quema el SOL, quizá una multitud de SOLES, las frutas del árbol del pájaro se recogen rápidamente, acaso los dedos temblorosos del estrangulador han tejido la red de alambre alrededor de la línea de cumbres achatadas, de la que sólo sobresale aún no protegida una cima blanca como el papel, protección ante el desprendimiento de piedras provocado por los paseos de los muertos en el interior de la tierra, que son el pulso secreto del planeta al que se refiere el cuadro, protección quizá con perspectiva de duración, cuando el crecimiento de los cementerios haya alcanzado su límite con el pequeño peso del presunto asesino en el umbral, del pájaro del árbol rápidamente digerido, la pared guarda un sitio para su esqueleto, o el movimiento se invierte, cuando todos los muertos se reúnan, el tumulto de los sepulcros la tempestad de la resurrección que expulsa las serpientes de la montaña, es la mujer de mirada enigmática y la boca como una ventosa una MATA-HARI del inframundo, enviada que explora el terreno sobre el que dicen tendrá lugar la Gran Maniobra que revestirá de carne los huesos famélicos, la carne de piel, atravesada por venas que beben la sangre que procede del suelo, el regreso a casa de las vísceras desde la nada, o está el ángel hueco bajo el vestido, porque el banco de carne que se va reduciendo bajo el suelo no tiene más cadáveres que entregar, un DEDO MALVADO que los muertos levantan al viento contra la policía del cielo, precursora y ESPOSA DEL VIENTO, que les quita el viento en la carne a los enemigos naturales de la resurrección, el viento que habitan, sopla como tempestad y cae en la trampa, la flecha de la cortina señala a la mujer, también el asesino quizá sólo un muerto de servicio, la destrucción de los pájaros su tarea (secreta), el paso de baile realizado con dejadez indica que el trabajo finalizará pronto, quizá la mujer ya esté de vuelta en el suelo, preñada de tempestad, del semen del renacimiento de la explosión de esqueletos, huesos y esquirlas y tuétano, la provisión de viento marca la separación entre las partes, de las que quizá, cuando el aire de la respiración se haya asentado, el terremoto las reviente a través de la piel del planeta, se reúna TODO, el apareamiento de la estrella por sus muertos, la primera señal las nubes con su esqueleto de alambre, en realidad compuesto de nervios que preceden al hueso, o bien de telarañas de tuétano, como el trenzado sin raíces visibles que trepa por el bungalow y ha ocupado ya el espacio interior hasta el techo, o la maraña de alambre de las sillas, o la red que clava la línea de cumbres al suelo, o todo es distinto, la red de acero el capricho de un rotulador descuidado que le niega plasticidad a la montaña con un rayado mal hecho, quizá la arbitrariedad de la composición siga un plan, el árbol sobre un tablero, las raíces cortadas, acaso son los otros árboles al fondo setas de tallo especialmente largo, plantas de una zona climática que no conoce árboles, cómo ha llegado el bloque de hormigón al paisaje, no hay huella de transporte o vehículo, TE HE DICHO QUE NO DEBES VOLVER LO MUERTO ESTÁ MUERTO, ni huella de arrastre, acaso empujado a patadas desde el suelo, caído del CIELO, o dejado caer desde el aire sólo respirable por los muertos mediante una garra mecánica movida desde un punto fijo en el arriba llamado CIELO, es la línea de cumbres una pieza de museo, préstamo de una sala de exposiciones subterránea en la que se guardan las montañas porque en su lugar natural impiden el vuelo bajo de los ángeles, el cuadro una disposición experimental, la crudeza del boceto una expresión de desprecio hacia los animales de laboratorio hombre, pájaro, mujer, la bomba de sangre del asesinato diario, hombre contra pájaro y mujer, mujer contra pájaro y hombre, pájaro contra mujer y hombre, que suministra combustible al planeta, sangre la tinta que inscribe de colores su vida de papel, también su cielo amenazado de anemia por la resurrección de la carne, se busca: el hueco en el proceso, lo otro en el retorno de lo igual, el balbuceo en el texto mudo, el agujero en la eternidad, el ERROR quizá redentor: la mirada distraída del asesino cuando examina el cuello de la víctima sobre la silla con las manos, con el filo del cuchillo, sobre el pájaro en el árbol, en el vacío del paisaje, titubeo antes de la incisión, los ojos que se cierran ante el chorro de sangre, la risa de la mujer que afloja en lo que dura una mirada la garra del estrangulador, hace temblar la mano con el cuchillo, vuelo en picado del pájaro atraído por el destello del filo, aterrizaje sobre la bóveda craneal del hombre, dos picotazos a la derecha y a la izquierda, vahído y chillido del ciego salpicando sangre en el torbellino de la tempestad que busca a la mujer, miedo a que el error ocurra durante el parpadeo, a que la hendidura del ojo se abra en el instante entre mirada y mirada, la esperanza vive sobre el filo de un cuchillo que gira más rápido con atención creciente que deviene cansancio, el relámpago de la inseguridad en la certidumbre de lo terrible: el ASESINATO es un intercambio de sexos, EXTRAÑO EN EL PROPIO CUERPO, el cuchillo es la herida, la nuca el hacha, acaso la ausencia de vigilancia es parte del plan, a qué aparato está sujeta la lente que extrae los colores del cuadro, en qué cuenca ocular se despliega la retina, quién O QUÉ pregunta por el cuadro, VIVIR EN EL ESPEJO, es el hombre del paso de baile YO, mi tumba su cara, YO la mujer de la herida en el cuello, a la derecha y a la izquierda en sus manos el pájaro despedazado, sangre en la boca, YO el pájaro, que le muestra al asesino con la escritura de su pico el camino hacia la noche, YO la tempestad congelada.

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BILDBESCHREIBUNG (Descripción de un Cuadro) puede leerse como un sobrepintado de la ALCESTIS, que cita la obra NO KUMASAKA, el 11º canto de la ODISEA, los PÁJAROS de Hitchcock y la TEMPESTAD de Shakespeare. El texto describe un paisaje más allá de la muerte.

La acción es a voluntad, pues sus consecuencias son ya pasado, explosión de una memoria en una estructura dramática extinta.

viernes, 6 de junio de 2008

Entrevista a Muller

http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/~thesis/adt-NUN/uploads/approved/adt-NUN20060822.141833/public/02whole.pdf

http://muller-kluge.library.cornell.edu/en/video_transcript.php?f=120

The dramatist Heiner Müller heads the "Berliner Ensemble" / Theater, he says, manufactures narratability / It has the task of burying the dead / Misfortune must be repeated in the theater until this misfortune becomes tired / The thirteenth labor of Heracles-\-

Intertitle

On the way to a theater of darknesses / Heiner Müller on the statement: "The theater must bury the dead"

Kluge

What would you do if you had time to write?

Müller

I've started to write a play, and I would finish that, or rather I will finish it as soon as I have time, I work on it a little bit now and then. And naturally it's developing in my head. And then there's a problem, I've promised to write a libretto for Boulez, and that still doesn't exist. He's just turned 70, so it's rather urgent.

Kluge

Musical theater?

Müller

Yes, he'll need a lot of time to compose that. That takes longer than writing. It also takes longer in a purely technical sense. And I'm really preoccupied with it. At first I had the idea, we've already talked about this, of doing a version of the Oresteia. I'm no longer sure if that's worthwhile and if it's the right thing to do.

Kluge

In the form of a digest, a concentrated form.

Müller

Yes, and in the meantime I've returned to something that's preoccupied me for a very long time. The Heracles story, in the version by Seneca. And I've already attempted to work with that figure often enough. But I always had something like Heracles 13 in mind, the thirteenth labor of Heracles, the liberation of Thebes from the Thebans. And the metaphor for that is this story of how he kills his children in a fit of madness.

Kluge

Which is the reason he performs all his labors. He has to submit, like a slave, to the authority of a king in order to do penance for this act which, furthermore, he did not commit of his own volition. Hera puts it into his head as a form of madness.

Müller

There are notes about this from very early times. What always interested me was that there is, for example, a Heracles festival every year during which his labors are performed and acted out, represented, and suddenly he thinks that it's real, what's being performed there, and now he thinks every third Theban is the Nemean Lion, or the Erymanthian boar, or whatever.

Kluge

And he commits his acts of heroism against his own population.

Müller

And constantly discovers what are basically reincarnations of the monsters he has slain.

Intertitle

Madness as the final phase: Heracles as an intelligence of force.

Müller

That's really a whole bundle of things. You're familiar with this text in Zement, Heracles and the Hydra, in which it turns out that he is the Hydra. So identification with the opponent, with the enemy, the way one eats the enemy in order to become the enemy, and so on. The comic, optimistic GDR version in the Heracles play, with the Augean stables. But what I found more important was this madness as the final phase.

Kluge

He's not a devious hero, like all the others.

Müller

He's a dumb hero.

Kluge

An industrious, a productive hero. That also involves intelligence.

Müller

Yes, but it's a peasant's intelligence.

Kluge

An intelligence of force.

Müller

Yes, yes.

Kluge

He wants to do his labors well. That's a really difficult myth, difficult to understand. They say that he founded the Olympic games, which then extended until 1936. They say that he suffered a painful death.

Müller

That reminds me of something strange, since you mention '36. In Soviet mythology, if you want to call it that, posters, agitational texts, images, the figure of Heracles appeared all the time, Heracles as the embodiment of the proletariat, of the world proletariat, even in battle against the Hydra of capital or of imperialism. That's depicted on posters. It's completely inconceivable, that occurs to me with reference to '36, that the Nazis would have used such a figure. But why?

Kluge

Nowhere do the Nazis have a strong man who [unintelligible] a multi-faceted . . . .

Müller

They didn't use any figures from antiquity.

Kluge

Siegfried, yes. But not from antiquity. In France, by contrast, it would have been possible, without too much ado, to adorn a poster from 1936, "Our Steel Industry," with an ancient hero. The Nazis also didn't use Icarus, or Daedalus. But we have different heroes here. Wieland the Smith would work for us.

Müller

But no one is familiar with him.

Kluge

No one is familiar with him. But let's return to Heracles. He's a descendant of Alcmene and of Zeus, and already as a small child he kills important snakes, dangerous snakes. And the conflict is similar to the one in Wagner's Ring, the maternal goddess persecutes him with madness and punishments and crabs that pinch him on the heels, while the paternal god favors him. And this conflict remains unresolved.

Intertitle

"To what figure from antiquity would you compare Stalin?"

Kluge

Did Stalin know anything about any ancient heroes? Jason, Odysseus?

Müller

Yes, he knew about Zeus, and especially about Zeus's goal of creating a new humanity by exterminating the old one, which is also what the Biblical God wanted to do. And that, if you want to look at it that way, was Stalin's idea: One has to exterminate the old man, so that the new man can arise.

Kluge

Whom would you compare to Heracles?

Müller

Kirov rather than Stalin.

Kluge

Ah, yes, he gets killed. But united labor power, there's something to that. That's something that could be afflicted with madness, that could get tricked into donning a Shirt of Nessus so that it burns all over.

Müller

Would you like a water?

Kluge

Thank you. Now you have a second telescope, if you want to put it that way, named Seneca. You don't look at this material directly, it's not about how you, as Heiner Müller, see Heracles, or about the way you think Boulez can set that story to music, but instead you always see it through the lens of Seneca's adaptation. What did Seneca write? Has it been preserved?

Müller

The interesting thing about Seneca in relation to the Greek dramatists is that his plays were designed to be read, Seneca's plays, they were read aloud.

Kluge

They weren't performed, they were closet dramas . . .

Müller

And Elizabethan drama is actually based on the misconception that these dramas were written to be performed. They knew Seneca, but not Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. And in Seneca the atrocities take place on the stage, precisely because the plays didn't need to be performed. And in the Greek plays, they take place off stage. There are just reports by messengers about the violence. And that's the interesting thing about Seneca, that the violence takes place on an imagined stage.

Kluge

And that's the first thing that excites you.

Müller

Yes, yes. And there's something else. The events become total language in Seneca, for example, if you think of Seneca's Medea. The conclusion is Latin, Jason cries Medea's name after she has killed the children. And she says: Fiam.

Kluge

What does that mean?

Müller

"I will become it." That's an event that can't be represented, except in language.

Intertitle

"Down with tragedy\! / Long live drama\!" Victor Hugo

Kluge

There's a sentence by Victor Hugo: "Down with tragedy, long live drama." You write about Pushkin's short dramas here - what is that? - as a form that you could emulate.

Müller

Well, I think they arose out of the lack of a theater, or out of the difficulty of finding a stage for what he wanted to write. And that gives rise to this compromise, the laconism of these short dramas, which are of course influenced by the French drama, the tragédie classique and so on.

Kluge

. . . they originally lasted four hours, and he made one act plays out of them . . .

Müller

The Russian short form . . . That's a problem . . . I can't even tell you why, for one thing I get bored very quickly, especially in the theater. Almost every evening at the theater is too long for me, because too much time is spent on events that one could deal with in five sentences.

Kluge

And too little time is spent on the tableaus. Once one has achieved the feeling that a conflict has arisen and that the momentum is building, one wants to have a plateau.

Müller

And it's interesting, for example, that if you start with a structure like that of a Seneca play, you get to tableaus much more quickly, to stationary images. Then music is once again a means of letting images remain in place for a long time. That would interest me. Boulez, too, is primarily interested in the dimension of time when he composes.

Intertitle

Compromised time: Short dramas, tableaus, "stationary images"

Müller

Time can be stretched, it can be compromised through time-lapse techniques or slow motion, and those are the spaces in which music becomes important for drama.

Kluge

So that you really first have to write such a piece as a libretto, so that it lasts a certain amount of time, long enough that it's worthwhile driving to the theater from the spectator's perspective. After that you can turn things over to the music, form concepts, speeches and responses to these speeches unfold and remain in the tableau, in a stationary image, for a long time. And then one has to have a swan song at the end.

Müller

You know this story of Wilson's . . .

Kluge

No. The president? Ah, right, Bob Wilson . . .

Müller

. . . that he especially likes to tell when he's asked about the roots of his conception of the theater. Then he almost always talks about these experiments that American doctors or psychologists performed on women, mothers, who are holding their newborns in their arms. And if you run the films that they made in slow motion, you suddenly see that these mothers are eating, that this kissing and fondling and caressing is cannibalistic. You only see that in slow motion. It's a different process then, it's broken down into moments and it's a completely different picture.

Kluge

That's a mischievous observation. There's a film by Wertow, Lullaby for Lenin, and it consists entirely of mothers with their children. Occasionally there's a glimpse of Stalin. But really it's a picture about mothers and their children. And you say that that's cannibalistic in nature, as soon as one watches it at the right speed.

Müller

In slow motion.

Kluge

In slow motion, that would be the right speed, because time slows down during interactions between mothers and children.

Intertitle

The Shock of Brevity / Laconism

Müller

There are such different experiences. I would like sometime to do or to see a theater production that really only lasted a quarter of an hour or five minutes, that would be interesting. There was a performance by Schleef in Frankfurt, I think, it was a play by him, modeled on Gorky's Night Asylum, I don't remember the title, but it doesn't matter. It started with the final scene of Hamlet. Staged simply and very beautifully, with splendid costumes. The scene lasted for five minutes, and then there was an intermission. Then the play lasted two hours, or almost three hours. That was interesting simply as a shock effect, that was a completely different way of perceiving and a completely different experience of the theater because of this short first half and then the intermission. And then it lasted interminably long. That was interesting, that was a displacement, a transformation of perception.

Kluge

So that one experiences the three hours in the intensified time of this beginning, this first play.

Intertitle

Hamlet in Real Time / Beginning: Appearance of the Ghost around Midnight / End: The Break of Dawn

Müller

[It started] at around midnight with the appearance of the ghost and ended in the morning at around seven. Those were the best performances. People left the theater and it was morning.

Kluge

That means that Hamlet was performed in real time, if you want to put it that way, without omissions at the beginning, and that it lasted through the night.

Müller

Yes. There were three intermissions, and hence it was no longer theater. There was also a completely different audience, the audience naturally consisted almost entirely of young people, because people over forty don't go to the theater at midnight and leave at seven in the morning. Those were young unemployed people, for the most part, or people who could afford to do that sort of thing. And it was a completely different atmosphere, for the first time in the history of theater in the GDR people also drank and ate during the performance. At first there was a lot of excitement, because women, the cashiers, tried to prevent it, tried to prevent people from drinking a cola or whatever. It was impossible to enforce that, though, and then it was gradually accepted that one could do that, because it was lasting so long. And hence it was a happening and no longer a theater performance.

Intertitle

Luigi Nono's Project: Capital, an Opera in Five Acts

Müller

Nono had the idea of composing Capital, turning it into an opera.

Kluge

Marx's Capital?

Müller

Marx's Capital, yes.

Kluge

What does money sound like?

Müller

The problem is, what does money sound like, yes.

Kluge

So if you count bills . . .

Müller

How does capital sing, yes . . .

Kluge

So the commodity and the value of commodities and commodity fetishism, that can develop a high degree of coloratura. It can develop many overtones, many secondary tones. So it's very promising material.

Intertitle

Capital by Luigi Nono The first fragment of the libretto for Pierre Boulez: Heracles

Kluge

You mentioned the first fragment of this libretto, which can be an opera if Boulez composes it that way, but it won't be very long then?

Müller

What would interest me would be to have the scene from Canova as the first image. Heracles has killed his children, they're dead. And their grandfather still stands in a defensive posture, their mother also, and the next variation would then be that the children are alive again, and we show how he kills them. And we would show that maybe five times.

Kluge

So that you keep resurrecting the hope that they might not be killed, just as here at the Russian opening hope is really the dramatic point. The hope that the execution will not take place. A happy recognition as the highest tragic form, and then the tragedy occurs nonetheless.

Müller

Yes. You know that comes from Ambrose Bierce.

Kluge

No, I didn't know that.

Müller

I don't remember what the story's called. It's the description of an execution, someone is being hanged on a bridge. And he experiences what it would be like to survive, and then he hangs.

Kluge

The story takes place during the American Civil War?

Müller

Yes. That's where it begins . . .

Kluge

He experiences his entire rescue as if in a dream, swims away in the river, and then at the end he hangs?

Müller

Yes. The American Civil War is in any case a very decisive date, I think, for all European wars.

Kluge

And now it comes about that this madness grips Heracles repeatedly: Do you take a position on the issue of whether the goddess causes this madness? Where does it come from, this madness?

Müller

That doesn't really interest me, actually.

Kluge

That he has to kill that which is dearest to him.

Müller

Yes, my idea was really always that he, after he had killed so many enemies, monsters, etcetera . . .

Kluge

. . . he can't refrain from it.

Müller

. . . After he had freed Thebes from these enemies, he sees them everywhere, after his victory. They reemerge everywhere and . . .

Kluge

Just as, after working on an assembly line, one's muscles continue to twitch, so now, afterward, comes . . .

Müller

There's a Noh play that I always wanted to put on or adapt. It's a kind of model, Kumasaka I think it's called. It's the story of a very famous bandit who is constantly ambushing caravans, trade caravans that are passing through carrying whatever commodities. And these Noh plays always take place in the afterlife, they always deal people who have to finish something or work through something. And he has to constantly reenact the big scene in which he's slain by one of these traders, he has to constantly reenact that until he no longer has any desire to ambush the caravan and kill the people. He has do that until he no longer has any desire.

Kluge

In this way a catharsis comes about. The actor performs the same thing over and over, until he no longer has any desire . . .

Müller

. . . he has to do it until he no longer has any desire to do it.

Kluge

The audience enjoys watching this tragic art fully exhaust itself before the eyes of the spectators.

Müller

That would really be a task for music, this exhaustion.

Kluge

So that you are now no longer constructing a drama, like a good theater entrepreneur in the nineteenth century, but rather dismantling one.

Müller

That's really what I was getting at with my text Description of a Picture [Bildbeschreibung] Explosion of a Memory was the English title, because there was no English title for it. Description of a Picture is boring as an English title. And then Explosion of a Memory occurred to me as a title for the English version. For the French version it was something else again, it was Landscape under Surveillance. And it's really a matter of processes repeating themselves endlessly.

Kluge

And they repeat themselves with variations until they're reduced to zero, until I am able to remove a behavior the way one removes makeup.

Intertitle

Explosion of a Memory - Description of a Picture

Müller

Yes, Explosion of a Memory can be read as a reworking of Alcestis. It is also a play about Heracles that cites the Noh play in Kumasaka, the eleventh book of the Odyssey, and Hitchcock's The Birds. The text describes a landscape that exists in the afterlife. The plot is arbitrary, because the consequences are already past. The explosion of a memory in a dead, traumatic structure.

Intertitle

"In a dead, traumatic structure"

Kluge

A dead traumatic structure.

Müller

Yes, yes.

Kluge

When you say: Stalin's empire, Hitler's empire, could you use the repetition of an arbitrary plot dealing with past events to confront such an experience, in which the most painful thing is that the experience of history has disappeared along with history itself, so that there's no way to even talk about it any longer? Nothing has been dealt with, it's impossible to have understood it, one can't say that one has understood it all. And at the same time: It's impossible to narrate it. And this would be the reestablishment of narratability, because I now repeat it over and over in the form of arbitrary particles. One time with music, one time with sound, one time with speeches, one time with silence. So a part of the opera could be played by deaf mutes?

Müller

Yes, yes, yes.

Kluge

And an opera with deaf mutes would be an excellent opportunity for music. No voice would interrupt it. And the singers are united as members of the orchestra, buzz or hum and so on, and it sounds fascinating, but it's on an equal footing with the orchestra parts. Does it matter to you that people, as can be said about the case of Oedipus . . . People like Freud, who have interpreted that psychologically, say that Oedipus occurs in us. Orestes, too, could occur in us. The Trojan War is a war of extermination of the kind we're familiar with. What is Heracles? Is he a productive human being? Being Zeus's son is an imperceptible quality. Sailing with Jason, that's nothing exhaustive.

Müller

This Heracles figure is really only dramatically interesting in terms of the ending, if one takes this period of madness, this murder of the children, and his own suicide as the ending . . .

Kluge

. . . on the funeral pyre.

Müller

On the funeral pyre, yes.

Kluge

Whereby no one dares kill him. You have something like that in this Stalin text: Stalin orders: Kill me, and they would suspect a trap and not obey. That's one of the few cases in which they would not obey. And so no one obeys Heracles as he's lying on the funeral pyre and finds his wounds from the Shirt of Nessus unbearable. And he would like to die, and no one lights the thing. A dumb shepherd, who doesn't see the danger, is finally prepared to do it, allows himself to be persuaded, and he receives two gifts, the poisoned arrows and the Shirt of Nessus, which is to say that things are not going to turn out well for him. Would you interpret it that way, that that's Stalin in that case?

Müller

Yes, yes.

Kluge

Before the madness causes him to kill his own children, would you say that he built a kind of a dam there in the Ukraine, a kind of giant dam with marble and temples, that he built the garden ring and these high-rises, that he - and so on . . . Those aren't really evil deeds, but rather they are like the victory over this lion.

Müller

. . . the monster . . .

Kluge

. . . the monster.

Müller

Yes. It's like what Hitler said to Paul Wegener: My power does not consist in exhaling, but rather in inhaling. I inhale the crowd.

Kluge

Did Hitler say that?

Müller

Hitler said that, yes.

Kluge

He spoke with actors about professional matters . . .

Müller

Yes, he spoke with Paul Wegener about acting problems, yes.

Kluge

With regard to the difference between Stalin and Hitler . . . In your drama you deal with both of them, and as is fitting for a dramatist, you transform them into a kind of romantic couple, and also a couple bound to each other by hate. If you take the two industrial societies and interpret Germany in terms of Hitler as a medium and the Soviet Union or Russia in terms of Stalin, what's the difference, very generally speaking?

Müller

The strange thing is first of all that . . . perhaps it's something really dumb, but the first thing that occurs to me is that when one compares the two or looks at them in relation to industry, Hitler actually had a more archaic relationship to industry than Stalin. Stalin could use technology.

Kluge

It was new for him . . .

Müller

It was new for him, and it was a plaything. And for Hitler it was really something foreign.

Kluge

And something that he could actually reject, as in the case of chemistry.

Müller

I would think that Stalin would not have reacted in the same way to the discovery of nuclear fission. He would have understood it. And Hitler didn't understand it. Which was also a piece of good fortune. I think that that's a difference, Hitler comes from a Catholic world, perhaps that plays a role. And he's much more mother-oriented and much more determined by his mother than Stalin is. Stalin probably had a much more relaxed relationship to his mother than Hitler did. Fine, she sent him packages, but that was the normal relationship between a Georgian and his mother. But in Hitler's case it's much tenser, more neurotic. Stalin learned a great deal from Hitler, Kirov's murder and everything that came after it he actually learned from Hitler. Hitler, though, had learned it from Mussolini, he probably didn't come up with it himself. There's a story, you surely know it, that Mussolini instructed Hitler by quoting Machiavelli and Nietzsche to him: The first people you have to get rid of are those who brought you to power, those who helped you come to power, they must be liquidated first. That probably would not have occurred to Hitler, he learned it from Mussolini, by way of the education he received from Mussolini. And Stalin then learned it from Hitler.

Intertitle

"The final victor is death---" (Stalin)

Müller

The other thing I've always really liked is this statement that de Gaulle quotes. It's a favorite saying of Stalin's, and in this book by Malraux, Last Interviews with de Gaulle, de Gaulle cites Stalin to this effect. He says that Stalin told him: "The final victor is death." Or: "The only victor is death." That's a statement that Hitler could not have made.

Kluge

"The final victor is death." Why couldn't Hitler have said that?

Müller

Because Hitler's goal was basically to achieve everything in his lifetime. There was no future. Everything had to take place in his lifetime. And that's probably also why he fascinates a generation that is now growing up with the feeling that there's no future. Hitler was completely oriented towards the present, there's only the present, and afterwards there's nothing. Afterwards there's only the dead, and beforehand, too.

Intertitle

Text fragments by Heiner Müller: "Goebbels Appears as Medea" / Hitler's Final Words

Kluge

Here you have a text, I think you've brought it directly from your desk, in which Goebbels appears as Medea, who has killed her children, and Hitler appears with a rather long monologue, is it fair to say that?

Müller

Yes, yes. Really it's a speech. There was this scene in the Reich Chancellery when Hitler received the women who had worked for him to say his farewells . . .

Kluge

. . . his secretaries, Wolf, Junge . . . He says farewell.

Müller

. . . and there's also a report that they started dancing after he disappeared into his bunker, I found that really strange somehow, and that's what the text is based on.

Kluge

Could you read it aloud?

Müller

Goebbels: "Those were my children My future / I have slaughtered them They are gone / We leave behind what comes after us / The future our enemy Victory is ours." He dies. So Goebbels dies. And earlier Stalin had appeared, and there was a similar text, and Stalin exited laughing. Hitler: "Rattenhuber, the gasoline, and please ask the ladies to come to me." Rattenhuber exits, ladies, Rattenhuber with cans of gasoline. Hitler: "Ladies. I thank you all for the work you have loyally performed, what would life be without the loyalty of women, I will not speak about death for the sake of my service to Germany, which perishes with me." Stage direction: The sound of artillery, detonations. "You are hearing the triumph of the subhumans, who are entering their period of dominance. The subhumans have proven themselves to be stronger. Mankind may perish. I am, as you know, the overman. I have done what I could to exterminate mankind, which is overrunning the planet. After me, others will come and continue my work. I will leave this world, which has become too small for me, along with Miss Eva Braun, whom I married an hour ago, here is the marriage certificate signed by Mr. Richard Wagner." The registrar really was named Wagner, just not Richard, but I think that one can make this leap. "Signed by Mr. Richard Wagner, please examine his signature, so that heaven and hell cannot separate us, because your hands are clean and my hands are bloody just as the hands of all the great men of history are bloody. Alexander Caesar Napoleon Frederick the Great softly: Stalin. On a historical scale, blood is a better fuel than gasoline, it leads to eternity, and loyalty is the core of honor. I return to the dead who bore me. Jesus Christ was a son of man, and I am a son of the dead. I have had my astrologist shot, Mr. Friedrich Nietzsche, so that he will precede me in the Kingdom of the Dead, which is the only reality, and whose representative on earth I have been. My program will live on: Against the lie of life that is communism EVERYONE OR NO ONE the simple, folksy truth THERE'S NOT ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE. Against the lying palaver of the priests LOVE YOUR ENEMIES the honest commandment of my German catechism ANNIHILATE THEM WHEREVER YOU FIND THEM. I have chosen Europe as my funeral pyre. Its flame will release me from my duties as a statesman. I die as a private citizen. But the smoke of the burning cities will carry my fame around the earth and the ash from the crematories will darken the heavens. My monument, which the wind will carry after me to the stars. For the fame of the dead man's deeds lives eternally, as the Edda already says, the holy book, the Bible of the North. Long live the German Shepherd." Shoots his dog. Ladies: "Heil Hitler." Hitler exits, two shots. The ladies dance to Wagner's Twilight of the Gods before the backdrop of the burning capital.

Kluge

If you were now to see that acted out by Japanese actors, that would move into an enormous distance, and the moment it moves into the distance in this manner you can deal with it again, and it once again becomes this healing course that you repeat until Hitler really dies. Basically, he was never properly buried. He was really buried in the form of a radio report. And is it really necessary that someone in whom so many exaggerated hopes, but also so much real trust was invested, is it necessary that he should also really die and be buried according to a ritual? One has to place a stone on top of him, so that he can't, so to speak, become a leader of the dead.

Müller

Yes, yes. Basically, if you were to imagine we lived in Africa, then Hitler would be buried every year, we would bury a copy of Hitler or a Hitler doll every year. We would do it until it started to bore everyone, until no one came to this event any longer. That would really be the solution.

Kluge

That's really what the theater should do.

Müller

It has to bury the dead . . .

Kluge

It shouldn't artificially provoke the conscience, but rather bury the dead, bury the unsolvable traumatic experiences, not solve them.

Intertitle

A text from 1956: The Three Widows

Müller

Yes, clearly, clearly.

Kluge

There's a text by you in which you describe 1956. Could you describe that?

Müller

It's . . . Which one do you mean?

Kluge

The Three Widows. It's about Brecht, and it's outlined here.

Müller

Yes. It's a true story, it comes from Fritz Cremer. Fritz Cremer, the sculptor, did a death mask of Brecht and also made his coffin, Brecht wanted a coffin made of steel.

Kluge

He arranged for all of that in advance.

Müller

Yes. In his will he also requested that he be stabbed through the heart, like Nestroy and Raimund, I think.

Kluge

What do you mean by stabbed through the heart?

Müller

Well, so as not to be misdiagnosed as dead. So as to have a guarantee that he would not be buried alive. Apparently that has been a great fear of German writers since Schubart. You know, Schubart was in prison for I don't know how many years, twelve or so, on the Hohenasperg, or even longer. And when they cleared the cemetery much later, they discovered that his coffin had been completely scratched up from the inside, Schubart's coffin, that's really macabre, to be buried alive after having already spent twelve years in prison.

Kluge

And now there's this story here, the three widows are conferring, Harich has been arrested, what can they do?

Müller

And then Fritz Cremer comes, the sculptor who had made the first model of the steel coffin.

Kluge

. . . from the steel factory . . .

Müller

. . . it was made in the steel works at Henningsdorf. He came with two workers, he had forgotten to take measurements, he didn't know if Brecht would fit inside. You remember Wallenstein, whose legs had to be broken because the conspirators had not taken his measurements, they had a coffin for Wallenstein that was too short. Apparently Cremer knew this story too. In any case, he came to this assembly of the three widows with the first model of the steel coffin.

Kluge

One of the bearers, a worker, had to try it out?

Müller

And one of the workers, who Helene Weigel thought had approximately the same stature as Brecht, had to try the coffin out by lying in it.

Kluge

Was that while Brecht was still alive?

Müller

No, no, he was already dead, he was already dead by then. Harich was arrested after Brecht's death.

Kluge

Have you made such arrangements?

Intertitle

On the way to a theater of darknesses / Heiner Müller on the statement: "The theater must bury the dead"

Müller

No, not at all. Up till now I haven't had any interest in doing so.

Kluge

Do you know where you will be buried?

Müller

For the time being I couldn't care less. The Dorotheenstadt Cemetery is almost full, I think, that makes it very difficult. The best option might be to have my ashes strewn over the Baltic or over the North Sea, I think. That is still possible.

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