ERNST TOLLER’S HINKEMANN

Heinrich George in the Berlin premier on 11.4.1924 in the Volksbühne, Theatre on Bülowplatz.

Ernst Toller (1893-1939) was a prisoner in the Bavarian fortress of Niederschonefeld, serving a five year term, when he wrote Hinkemann during the year of 1921-1922. The four plays he wrote while in prison were staged throughout Europe, Russia, Great Britain and the United States during Tollers’s years of confinement.  He was an internationally recognized playwright when he was released from prison on July 16, 1924.

Hinkemann is a play about a World War One German soldier’s life after he was wounded. In order to save his life, the surgeon emasculated Adam Hinkemann. He returned to civilian life as a lost individual in a hostile environment.  Hinkemann is faced with his fear of losing his young wife’s love and consideration while being confronted with poverty and political turmoil. 

Hinkemann is unusual in several ways. The drama combines some traits of expressionism with a modified realistic style. The genre of the play was in question until Dorothea Klein’s study in 1968-69 made the definitive case for its classification as a tragedy.

This three-act play is divided into scenes only in acts two and three. Toller’s wanted the scenery to “suggest” the locations of each scene rather than realistically representing them. Act One suggests a working-class kitchen-living room. Hinkemann, a kind and caring man, struggles to establish a relationship with his wife Greta. He does not want her to stay with him out of pity. He fears that she will ridicule him due to his condition. Their friend Paul comes to visit. When Hinkemann leaves to find work, Paul seeks Greta's affection.

Act Two, Scene 1 suggests the outside of a caravan for a traveling side-show. Hinklemann, is hired by the Showman who plans to use him in a repulsive, bloody side-show routine.  Scene 2 displays Greta disloyalty to Hinkemann.  Scene 3 suggests the noisy side-show. Hinkemann  stands on the platform wearing flesh-colored tights while his act is touted by the Showman.  Unbeknownst to Hinkemann, Greta sees him and laughs. Scene 4 suggests a small working-class bar.  Hinkemann learns that Greta saw him at the side-show and laughed. This information crushes Hinkemann.

Act Three, Scene 1 places a distraught Hinkemann on a street that same evening. He sees himself surrounded by a world of insensitive and cruel individuals. Scene 2 has a feverish Hinkemann return home. He waits for Greta. When she appears, she claims to regret her previous reaction. This play ends in death for the protagonist and his spouse.

Hinkemann addresses how ridicule can isolate a man in a world where no one cares about another individual.  Toller depicted Germany after World War One as a cruel environment. The character of Hinkemann reflects some of Toller's own disillusionment with human beings. This was a daring play for its time.

The first production of Hinkemann was staged at the Old Theater/Altes Theater in Leipzig. The play’s title was Hinkemann, the German (Der deutsche Hinkemann) and it opened on September 19, 1923. This production was staged by Alwin Kronacher (1880-1951) a significant theatre personality who staged new expressionistic plays.  Toller’s play drew rave reviews for the play and the playwright. The production ran for about fifty performances. It was a success and there was no comment about the play’s subject-matter being inappropriate.

At least three other productions were staged in German cities during 1923—Altenberg, Karlsruhe and Glauchaud.  Several Russian productions were also mounted—Moscow during autumn of 1923 and Leningrad in December, 1923 are two of the major ones. Toller’s script was translated into Russian in 1923 by Adrian Piotrovski (1898-1937) and it was published in Petrograd.

On January 17, 1924 a production of Hinkemann opened in Dresden, Germany. This date marked a turning point for the critical acceptance of this play. The play was suddenly considered to be a political statement against the current government.  Rioters disrupted the play's performance    The Dresden reviews concentrated primarily upon the disturbance and barely focused on the play itself.  However, this event called the “Dresden Scandal” changed the favorable reception of the play in Germany, but it did not stop additional productions. Cecil Davies mentions in his book The Plays of Ernst Toller (1996) that there were eleven German productions of Hinkemann in the year 1924. 

When Toller was released from prison, he went to Berlin to attend a special performance of Hinkemann played in his honor. It was the first time he saw one of the four plays he wrote while in prison performed on a stage. The Berlin production with Heinrich George (1893-1946) playing the role of Hinkemann opened to the public on November 4, 1924. The production was a success and Heinrich George became known for the role of Hinkemann.

During the rest of the 1920's, many of the innovative German theatre directors of the time produced Hinkemann. Edwin Piscator (1893-1966) who founded the Piscator-Buhne Theatre in Berlin, staged a production of Hinkemann.  It opened in March of 1928. Hinkemann continued to resonate for many German theatre practitioners and audience members despite the negative criticism it received from many critics. However, Hinkemann was not produced again in Germany after all of Toller's plays were publically burned by followers of Hitler during spring of 1933.

Hinkemann was first produced in England on June 6, 1924 at the Prince of Wales Theatre. It was titled Red Laughter (Der Deutsche Hinkemann; or Brokenbrow). The production was mounted by the Yiddish Art Theatre of America who was on a tour of Europe. The play was performed as a cockney English version. Maurice Schwartz (1889-1960) founder of the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City, also produced a Yiddish version on Broadway at the Forth-ninth Street Theatre in December of 1931. For this production he used the title Bloody Laughter (Hinkemann) and it ran for thirty-five performances.

The first production of Hinkemann created by a company of British actors was presented at the Gate Theatre in London. This theatre group was established in 1925 and the founder was Peter Godfrey (1899-1970) who was committed to presenting contemporary and classic foreign plays. Hinkemann opened on May 24, 1926.  The English translation of the script was done by Vera Mendel.  This company presented the play again on February 3, 1933. Peter Godfrey played the role of Hinkemann.

Hinkemann has sporadically continued to be staged. Two relatively recent productions that I read about were staged by the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubijana, Slovenia and the Grand Theater Company in Paris, France.  There is a short YouTube video dated September 24, 2014 that features the moments from the Slovenian National Theatre’s production. The Grand Theatre production was adapted and directed by Christine Letailleur. It was presented in Rennes, France in October, 2014 and in Paris during March/April, 2015 at La Colline-National Theatre.

NOTES:

          1.     The original script in German is different from the English translation by

           J. M.Ritchie that I read. This version is included in German Expressionism, a series

           edited by J.M. Ritchie titled Vision & Aftermath: Four Expressionist War Plays 

           and published in 1969.

2.   If you are interested in reading about another World War One play by Toller,
     please see my August 15, 2015 post titled TRANSFORMATION by
     ERNST TOLLER.

3. Image source:  http://www.akg-images.co.uk/archive/-2UMDHUHTHX4Y.html

TRANSFORMATION by ERNST TOLLER

Ernst Toller (1893-1939) began writing his first play in 1917, after having served in the German army and then being discharged as “unfit for active service”.  In 1914 he enlisted in the First Bavarian Foot Artillery Regimen and he was a patriotic enthusiast of the war effort. He served on front-line duty, which he volunteered for, from March 1915 to May 1916. It was this experience that initially altered his political beliefs and led him to write Die Wandlung (Transformation), an anti-war drama.

Transformation is a unique antiwar drama, since it is a multi-topic play that goes beyond the issue of ceasing the senseless slaughter of mankind. This play begins with the traditional type of direct anti-war message.  The issue grows beyond the suffering inflicted by war until it condemns many forms of human suffering. Finally the play segues into improving human conditions by making a political commitment to Socialism.

During the time Toller was working on this play, he was also going through his own transformation. His transformation mirrors that of the play’s protagonist, Friedrich. In 1918 Toller strongly believed that a radical transformation of German society was about to occur. 

Toller stated in 1917 that he considered the early draft of Transformation as a political pamphlet. He said that before he even finished writing this play he handed out scene five, “The Hospital”, and scene six, “The Maimed”.  He also read these two scenes at strike meetings in Heidelberg and Berlin to help spread his anti-war activism. He continued to hand out “The Hospital” into the beginning of 1918.  His motivation was to continue working for peace and civil liberties.

Gustav Landauer’s manifesto, Call to Socialism, was published in 1911. Toller read this publication during the summer of 1917 and his political thinking began to expand beyond antiwar demonstrations. Landauer, (1870-1919) a significant German theorist on anarchism, believed that it was the duty of poets and thinkers to help the rest of the population understand the need for a new political reality. Landauer’s ideas were in harmony with those individuals connected to the Expressionism movement. Toller, who was already an advocate for Expressionism, readily accepted Landauer basic ideas. 

Toller’s physical participation into the burgeoning revolutionary movement came after meeting other revolutionaries. It was Kurt Eisner (1867-1919), a German politician and journalist, who convinced Toller to participate in the Munich munitions workers strike.  After Toller’s experience in Munich and while he was in prison for his strike related participation, he expanded the thesis of Transformation to embrace his new Socialistic ideology.

Cecil Davies in his book The Plays of Ernst Toller: A Revaluation discusses how Toller’s new political views are incorporated into the play’s progression. Toller presses his antiwar message through the first seven scenes of the play.  Scenes eight through ten focus on Friedrich becoming more human rather than serving merely as a symbol. The rest of the storyline, scenes eleven through thirteen, portrays Friedrich becoming a political speaker and motivator for others to implement social change.  Davies states that Toller’s “pattern by which social change takes place is that an unusually gifted individual undergoes some kind of personal ‘conversion’ which he transmits to the masses.”  This concept, Davies asserts, is derived directly from Landauer. So the reader/audience experiences Friedrich’s transformation as it occurs in the script. Therefore, Transformation, the antiwar play, is also drama as political action.

This play belongs to an additional theatre tradition. Toller divided his script into thirteen scenes.  Instead of having these scenes separated into acts, Toller used the medieval religious dramatic tradition of having the play divided into “Stations” for its major units of organization.  The term “Station” harkens back to The Stations of the Cross. The use of Station as a dramatic unit comes with various associations such as Christ connection to Station Drama. It is also connected to Christ’s progression towards an understanding of his earthly activities and his growth as a religious figure.  Transformation is divided into six Stations.  Each Station is designated by its number while each scene is also assigned a number and often a specific title such as “FIRST STATION, Second Scene, ‘Troop Trains’”.  So the reader/audience member sees Friedrich’s advancement toward his enlightenment and newly acquired activism as akin to a religious understanding.

There is one more organizational element related to the structure of the play to be considered. Transformation has “A Prologue, which can also be thought of as Epilogue.” This section is titled “Barracks of the Dead”.  The title makes sense once the characters are identified by name—War-Death, Peace-Death and Skeletons and the location is revealed. The time is Night and the location is a vast Military Graveyard. The character names, setting as well as time of night are common to German Expressionistic plays of this era. The time and setting are similar to the beginning of Fritz von Unruh’s play Ein Geschlecht (A Generation) that I discussed in Post 19.

 I plan to continue the discussion of Toller’s use of Expressionistic characteristics in my next Post.  There will also be information regarding the production history of Transformation.

NOTE: Die Wandlung was sometimes translated into English as Transfiguration; however, it is more commonly known today as Transformation.

REFERENCE:

Toller, Ernst. Plays One. Trans. & Ed. Alan Raphael Pearlman.

 London: Oberon Books, 2011.  

(The above citation relates to the copy of Transformation that I read.  The introduction to each one of the three plays is helpful as is the additional commentary following the script. Pearlman translated the German word Bild as “Picture” instead of Scene.  On page 35 he clearly explains his rationale.)