Shakespeare Exploded Guide: BLABLABLA

“The only Postmodernist I know of…was a modernist who worked in a post office,” replied Heiner Müller when asked to define Postmodern drama.

Buzzwords surround the work of Heiner Müller—postdramatic, postmodern, postwar, and, apparently, postman. Hamletmachine, Müller’s ironic appropriation of theater’s most famous text, has become an icon of postmodern theater, an emblem of paradox, parody, and pastiche. When Müller was accused of having a complete lack of hope in his plays, he retorted “I am neither a dope- nor a hope dealer.”   

With stage directions like “Hamlet steps into the armor, splits with the ax the heads of Marx, Lenin, Mao. Snow. Ice Age,” Hamletmachine intimidates all but the most stalwart directors.  Marcus Stern will take on the black beast of postmodernism in the fall for the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training.

— By Jenna Clark Embrey

In the following interview, A.R.T. Literary Director Arthur Holmberg speaks with Stern about Müller’s play.

ARTHUR HOLMBERG: Hamletmachine scares many directors.  Why did you want to do it?

MARCUS STERN: Because it’s an evocative Rorschach test. Because it’s so painful and lonely and concise and beautiful.  I like it because of its heart, the human heart behind these characters. The hurt and yearning and romance. The yearning for connection and wanting to be rid of the loneliness. It’s poetry theatricalized.

AH: What makes poetry theatrical?

MS: The writing evokes the image of tangible people inhabiting a space. When you read it, you want to see it live.

AH: Can you give me an example?

MS: Sure. The first two lines are: “I was Hamlet. I stood at the shore and talked with the surf. BLABLABLA.”  That line immediately brings you into an accessible, real person who is observing himself and talking to himself.

AH: And talking to the waves.

MS: Yes, talking to himself and to the waves in a way that feels grounded and real.

AH: Why do you think he says “I was Hamlet,” not “I am Hamlet.” Why the past tense?

MS: To me it suggests that Hamlet is so dissatisfied with his identity and behavior up to this point, that his survival depends on, not recreating himself, but re-identifying himself.

AH: Explain the distinction you’re making between recreating yourself and re-identifying yourself?

MS:  Recreating  is creating a new persona to please or succeed in the eyes of others. Re-identifying is locating the core person that is already inside of us, the one that provides a clearer internal compass, the self that is not so affected by fear or the need to please. It means changing our relationship with the world so that we are actors from a more honest and well-informed place.

AH: The end of the line: “BLABLABLA” always makes the audience laugh.  Do you think the line is mocking Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

MS: I looked at it as if Müller’s Hamlet is mocking his own self-pity as a way of trying to move forward from moaning into concrete action.

AH: You said your sound design would be like a film score.  What did you mean?

MS: I use sound as an orchestrating element the same way film uses sound to take you though the narrative and emotional moments.  Because Müller’s language is so compacted and the event so concentrated, it’s helpful if sound can illuminate and clarify the moments as they unfold.

AH: But film tends to use sound and music in a simplistic way to amplify emotions, telling the audience how to respond.  In contrast, an avant-garde director like Robert Wilson uses sound in a much more sophisticated way.

MS: Absolutely. Complicating or adding an additional layer. For me it’s both. At times it’s a direct reference and at times it’s a counterpoint. And at times it’s having an additional level of meaning. Sometimes sound is used to tug against the moment. Sometimes sound is used to go in the same direction as the moment and sometimes it’s used contrapuntally for humor or surprise or adding a question mark to a moment.

AH: What kind of music are you working with?

MS: It ranges from James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” to artists like Sufjan Stevens. Also Neusrat Fateh with Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam. So it’s that kind of music combined with a lot of looping and sampling of music with pedestrian sounds and recorded voices to carve a more interior landscape. It’s like the sounds and emotions that bang inside one’s head.

AH: Can you give me an example of the pedestrian sounds you’ll be using?

MS: Bells that toll for a funeral or the buoys on the sea. Blenders or theme songs from Johnny Carson.  Bird songs that have been processed and changed.

AH: What about Ophelia? I think she’s more interesting in Müller than in Shakespeare.

MS: She’s a great character in Hamletmachine.  As interesting as Hamlet, if not more. Maybe because she is more mysterious and keeps to herself.  Her anger is so white hot, and it’s fueled by somebody with great sensitivity and depth who can articulate so clearly the pain she’s dealing with. And she’s got a sense of humor. She’s quick-witted, and she’s more than a match for Hamlet.

AH: What makes her so angry?

MS: The poor behavior of the men in her life, the abuse she sees around her and her complicity in putting up with the difficulties she’s traversed with men.

AH: And what is she yearning for?

MS: A grounded connection with another human being.

AH: What do you think the major difference is between Müller’s Hamletmachine and Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

MS: Hamletmachine is a high-dose concentration, an elixir that evokes the high-concentration turmoil we wrestle with now.  It feels more high-potency.

AH: So it’s like Shakespeare on speed?

MS: Or Shakespeare extracted. Shakespeare squeezed into a tiny vial that’s very dangerous.

Arthur Holmberg is the A.R.T. Literary Director. Jenna Clark Embrey is the A.R.T. Literary Intern.