Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe

Heinz-Uwe Haus

Heinz-Uwe Haus was the first renowned director from the German Democratic Republic to (be allowed to) direct in the USA. This book presents relevant material written in relation to his productions, specifically of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. This includes Haus’s notes for his casts, announcements of the productions in the media, newspaper reviews and academic articles about the productions, conference contributions, and reflections by cast members (both professional actors and university faculty) and designers (set, costume, light, music). The material on the productions is then discussed in the contexts of approaches to directing, actor training, the academic debate of Brecht in the USA, and historical and biographical dimensions. A conversation with Haus as the final chapter of the book further contextualises the material brought together here.

Directing and Training Experiences

Heinz-Uwe Haus and Brecht in the USA

The late 1980s saw the dissolution of the Iron Curtain and the development of democracy in Eastern European countries that had been oppressed by a range of varieties of communist totalitarian regimes. In Germany, this development led to the abolition of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the re-unification of Germany. Heinz-Uwe Haus was one of the leading voices of the movement credited with being instrumental in the collapse of communism in the GDR. In addition, as a leading theatre director in GDR times and beyond, his thinking and action have always combined politics and theatre and the arts overall. In this book, Haus provides a unique narrative of the context before German unification, unification itself, and the aftermath of unification across the decades since. He explores the difficulties on the way, from the perspective of the insider. Haus then widens the context from post-unification Germany to encompass issues of broader current relevance, such as Europe, America and Islam. Theatre provides the conceptual framework for this wide-ranging debate.

Heinz-Uwe Haus on Culture and Politics

This book presents to the reader a selection of the considerable amount of material written and published in relation to Heinz-Uwe Haus's productions of Brecht’s plays and Brechtian productions by other dramatists, especially ancient Greek drama, in Cyprus and Greece since his production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle marked the launch of the Cyprus National Theatre in 1975 after the country’s political turmoil that had culminated in the Turkish invasion. This includes material written by Haus at the time for his cast, announcements of the productions in the media, newspaper reviews and academic articles about the productions, conference contributions, and reflections by cast members (both professional actors and university faculty) and designers (set, costume, light, music). His work in Cyprus and Greece led to further collaborations on productions of ancient Greek plays across the world.

Heinz-Uwe Haus and Theatre Making in Cyprus and Greece

David W. Lovell

In March 2014, the University of Delaware’s Resident Ensemble Players staged the first Part of Goethe’s Faust, adapted and directed by Heinz-Uwe Haus, which forms the centrepiece and raison d’être of this book. This book tracks the creative process of Haus’s adaptation of the play and his attempts to elicit responses from his international networks to his question: how is Goethe’s Faust relevant today? It brings together comments from stage and costume designers as they brought their own creativity and understanding of the audience to bear on the play, and presents a brief record of the production itself, through stage directions and the photography of Bill Browning. The book then explores the reactions the production has elicited amongst some of its audience.

Heinz-Uwe Haus

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