Exploring the Depths of Ingeborg Bachmann’s ‘Malina’: A Stage Adaptation by Claudia Bauer and Matthias Seier at Volkstheater Wien

2023-08-30 03:21:10

That could be a very realistic assessment of the experienced director. First of all, despite all the justified optimism during the rehearsals, she was ultimately surprised at how much the Jandl evening, where you could “see everything I can, what I have worked on in almost 30 years”, “went through the roof is”, secondly, “Malina” is much heavier fare. Or, as Claudia Bauer puts it in an interview with APA: “A very long flower bed blooms between Jandl and Bachmann. It’s a completely different stuff with a completely different depth and heaviness.”

She has now realized that the Viennese audience will be watching her fingers very closely as she digs up this bed: “In Austria, ‘Malina’ is something like the ‘Magic Mountain’ in Germany. Everyone knows the novel. Making that one here in Vienna is a completely different statement than in Munich or Berlin. But that is also the appeal of it.”

Even with Jandl, some would have doubted that she would be able to do it as “Piefke”, says the 1966-born in Landshut with a smile. In addition to their Austrian origins, she has now discovered other parallels between Jandl and Bachmann, such as the examination of their own author and artist existence or autobiographical references in the work. Ingeborg Bachmann described her novel, published in 1971, as an “intellectual, imaginary autobiography”, but “Malina” is not easy to decipher and can safely be considered very well known but little read. The public has therefore agreed on the term “triangle story” as a code for the relationship between the nameless first-person narrator, her lover, the bon vivant Ivan, and her roommate, the military historian Malina.

In the stage version by Claudia Bauer and Matthias Seier, the plot of the “cryptic, labyrinthine, abysmal novel” is worked out particularly clearly, the director promises. “I resisted it for a long time because I found it a bit uncool, but actually I’m a storyteller,” laughs Bauer. “In this journey of the soul, too, there is a miniplot on which all of Bachmann’s thought bubbles are hung. Actually, Ivan is the story. He rescues the first-person figure from endlessly circling around himself. Malina is the doppelganger, the male counterpart, the imaginary roommate. But the only thing she experiences is with Ivan. It’s like Faust and Gretchen. She is a Faustin who is dragged out of her study by a down-to-earth, unassuming Greterich.”

Bauer’s occupation with Ernst Jandl was also very funny, despite all the seriousness. Does comedy also have a place with Ingeborg Bachmann? “Absolutely! The best comedy blooms in the abyss. I think dark, dark humor is the best. I also find Elfriede Jelinek incredibly funny. Jelinek would be unthinkable without Bachmann. I find ‘Malina’ very funny at times. But of course the darkness prevails.”

In the past, the situation of the Volkstheater was also regularly portrayed as gloomy. Claudia Bauer doesn’t understand that at all. “It’s a beautiful house with a good size, not a battleship, but so agile that you can do many things with it. I never felt this crisis mode that is attributed to the house, but always experienced a lively, open working atmosphere.” And Vienna, which she used to only know from short stays, is “the most beautiful city in Europe” for her, she enthuses .

It sounds as if you can count on your application in the call for tenders announced by the Volkstheater directorate for the fall? The otherwise refreshingly direct theater woman suddenly becomes reserved and thoughtful. On the one hand, she finds the Volkstheater an extremely attractive task and did not manage her first theater management in Jena (1999-2004) at the beginning of her career as well as she could today. On the other hand, she enjoys the freedom of her nomadic theater life to the fullest.

Claudia Bauer currently resides in Berlin. She recently bought a house on the island of Rügen. The linear distance between Rügen and Vienna is 720 kilometers, the shortest route is 972 kilometers. Probably too far to commute. So it’s about setting priorities. How will they look? Claudia Bauer responds to this question with a somewhat tormented smile: “Like Ingeborg Bachmann, I’m a very messed-up artist. The way Bachmann couldn’t deal with today is the same for me with the future: I don’t have the faintest idea!”

(The interview was conducted by Wolfgang Huber-Lang/APA)

(SERVICE – “Malina” by Ingeborg Bachmann, stage version: Claudia Bauer and Matthias Seier, staging: Claudia Bauer, stage: Patricia Talacko, costume: Andreas Auerbach, vocal compositions and musical direction: Peer Baierlein, with Evi Kehrstephan, Bettina Lieder, Nick Romeo Reimann, Uwe Rohbeck, Christoph Schüchner, Samouil Stoyanov, Friederike Tiefenbacher Vocals: Johanna Zachhuber Live music: Igor Gross Live video: Ulrike Schild, Volkstheater Wien Premiere: September 8, 7:30 p.m. Next performances: September 16, 27 ., Tickets: 01 / 52 111-400, .The Gartenbaukino will be showing Werner Schroeter’s “Malina” film on September 10 and October 8, which will also be screened on September 15 and October 9 as part of the film archive retrospective in the Metro On the anniversary of his death, October 17, the author Barbara Kaufmann and the Volkstheater ensemble will be performing the reading performance “Die Verhöre der Ingeborg Bachmann” at 8 p.m. in the Red Bar.)

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