Do3 - Woyzeck

[french frank]

Sunday, 20 February: 8pm

"Büchner was a political radical and an academic in natural sciences; he set out to write a political play in that he placed the common man as the central character. The script evolved in tandem with Büchner's research on the nervous system and cerebral lesions, together with his annotations of Spinoza, which he pursued to the day of his early death. But the play is more than a test case. It is a pyscho-drama that abolishes the hierarchy of suffering. The anti-hero may be inarticulate and he commits the most heinous crime but he is presented as a victim whose actions demand to be examined and understood."

Followed at 9pm by Music for Büchner:

Excerpts from Berg's Wozzeck and the suite Dantons Tod by Gottfried von Einem

[aeolium]

"Büchner was a political radical and an academic in natural sciences; he set out to write a political play in that he placed the common man as the central character. The script evolved in tandem with Büchner's research on the nervous system and cerebral lesions, together with his annotations of Spinoza, which he pursued to the day of his early death. But the play is more than a test case. It is a pyscho-drama that abolishes the hierarchy of suffering. The anti-hero may be inarticulate and he commits the most heinous crime but he is presented as a victim whose actions demand to be examined and understood." [blurb from the R3 website]

Surely Danton's Death is also a political play even though the common man is not the central character. What does "abolishes the hierarchy of suffering" mean? Is there such a hierarchy?

I hope there will be at least a brief intro tonight explaining the sequence of scenes and what has been included and what left out (it looks from the cast list as though the Grandmother's fairy tale is not included which is a shame).

[DracoM]

Well, that was a bit mystifying.

I once stage managed an English translation of Woyzeck and to the best of my memory, it was quite a bit longer than this. Alack, I no longer have the marked script. Can anyone help? Grandmother's tale gone - as aeolium says up thread. What else?

Glad the intro warned us of its fragmentary nature, because that it most certainly was. Big claims made for it too - too big? IMO, the Berg opera is far more trenchant, politically fiery and tragic. This production felt a bit perfunctory.

Cast did as good a job as they could with it, and the music was nicely judged.

[aeolium]

I actually thought this was very good, an effective translation, well acted (especially the Doctor and the Captain) and the way the different sections were put together worked. The grandmother's tale was there, spoken by the character called Margret. I thought the music and sound effects supported the speech and action very well.

I will try and listen again, and comment further.

[DracoM]

Gosh, I feel chastened. I'd better listen again.

[aeolium]

Only my personal reaction, Draco

What I found confusing was that the children did not seem to be much in evidence for the telling of the fairy tale, and I didn't recall hearing the scene after the murder where Woyzeck is with Karl and a child (his child?) - this scene is often included. It is hard to listen to anyway because of the shortness of the scenes and the way the action flits from place to place. But then I think Berg's opera is also hard to listen to in that respect unless one is watching the action.

[french frank]

I have tonight lined up to listen.

Btw, although I copy a bit of the R3 website stuff as an entry into the work, I don't find their material very good. I cut out the last sentence because it had the air of Wikipedia rewrite.

[aeolium]

I listened again last night and still think that this was an impressive production, with good use of sound effects and music, and Lee Ingleby's performance in the title role was an understated and moving one. The hallucinations and voices in the head which assailed Woyzeck, especially later on in the drama, were powerfully conveyed - surely in part due to the debilitating diet of peas forced on him for three months by the Doctor. I am not sure about the claim at the end of the brief introduction to the play that 'Büchner's love for humanity shines through'; a lot of humanity is presented in a very grim light here, and it might be more true to say that it is B's sympathy for the poor victim of circumstance that shines through. It's telling that only the poor characters have names, the others are dehumanised (and dehumanising) archetypes. Büchner's extensive use of folk-song was also well brought out.

I can't agree that this play suffers by comparison with the Berg opera, which in any case is a false comparison. Büchner's Woyzeck was the first expressionist play, the inspiration for a whole genre of European expressionist drama in the first decades of the C20, the prototype for the mass of C20 literature and film in which the downtrodden victim is the centrepiece of the action. Yet few of those successors achieve the spareness, the conciseness of expression, the harshness of Büchner's text. Despite its fragmentary nature and uncertain conclusion, it still surprises me with its power though it is many years since I first heard it.

[french frank]

I listened last night and not being as familiar with the play as aeolium I only found it easy to follow because I knew the story of the opera. I shall need a second listen (and feel it's worth it) but wondered: is the play 'unfinished' only in lacking an ending or - I still wasn't clear on this point - do we only hear fragments? It seemed disproportionately affecting at the end, considering its length.

More on the play later - but I also thought the music particularly effective.

[aeolium]

I shall need a second listen (and feel it's worth it) but wondered: is the play 'unfinished' only in lacking an ending or - I still wasn't clear on this point - do we only hear fragments? It seemed disproportionately affecting at the end, considering its length.

It is unfinished in the literal sense that B died before a version could be prepared for publication, although he wrote in a letter only a week or so before his death that the play was virtually ready. However, what was left at his death has made it very difficult for future editors to work out how the finished play would have looked and it really needs a feature in itself with a Büchner specialist (not me ) to go through the various options.

Essentially four drafts remained - five double-pages in folio format (First and Second drafts), one page in quarto format (Third draft) and six double-pages in quarto format (Fourth draft), this last draft being B's revision of earlier work. However, the Fourth draft ends after the 17th scene, in the barracks - the scene just after Marie is berating herself for her infidelity. There are clearly scenes from earlier drafts which show action subsequent to that scene, and editors tend to produce a performing version which includes some of those scenes so that the play works towards a kind of conclusion, though no-one can be quite sure what conclusion B intended - Woyzeck drowning in the lake, or being tried and executed (as happened in the real-life case from which the play was drawn). I think it works best if some ambiguity is left at the end, as happened in this production.

[french frank]

Thanks for that. Nearly as complicated as the Shakespeare folios. My copy of All Büchner (almost) could arrive tomorrow. I may put off a second listening until I've read the introductory stuff. I shall then pose as an expert.

[french frank]

I didn't wait for the book to arrive, but listened again tonight.

I do agree that all the performances were good, but I thought Lee Ingleby was outstanding. There's quite a range of emotion from the demented/dementia, the repressed frustrations, the jealousy, the rage, the panic, all conveyed beautifully.

The trouble with the internet is that it confirms that most things have already been said, so googling 'Woyzeck' and 'absurd' returned quite a few hits. I thought the doctor and his experiments in particular had something of the absurd about them and that was one more element that Woyzeck had to suffer powerlessly.

Very good (BBC) production.

[aeolium]

Yes, quite a few scenes teeter between horror and absurdity, like a speech from a burned-out building by Colonel Gadafy

Did only we three listen to the play? Where's tony yyy?

[Mobson7]

I listened...just now...taped it as out on Sunday evening. I did not like the play...I found it cold and bleak. Sure there was nothing wrong with the production...the actors were all superb. There's enough grief going on around us at the moment; I want to be uplifted and given the promise of hope not despair!

[french frank]

I listened...just now...taped it as out on Sunday evening. I did not like the play...I found it cold and bleak. Sure there was nothing wrong with the production...the actors were all superb. There's enough grief going on around us at the moment; I want to be uplifted and given the promise of hope not despair!

Well, don't forget that it was written in 1837 so you don't have to feel depressed about what was going on then. It's a window on the past, on conditions at the time and how people felt about them which surely have a fascination of their own? (Um, yes, there are resonances with now, of course )

God preserve us from writers/artists who only want to cheer us up!