Review - Woyzeck - Malthouse

Army Fatigues
Woyzeck by George Büchner, the science geek who also wrote plays and stories in a style a century ahead of his time, is one of those watersheds in European art that, usually after a long time become hailed as a masterpiece. Büchner was by training a scientist; studying medicine, languages (becoming fluent in French, Italian and English) then specialising in animal anatomy and what we call Biology. His treatises on the nervous system of fish landed him, at 22, a Doctorate and a teaching position at the University of Zurich. His twin love of literature, especially drama, (although no account of his life uncovers a visit to a theatre) took up the rest of his time. Büchner died at 23 but had he lived and settled into his dual academic/dramatic existence, the form or content of Woyzeck would definitely not have appealed to a Biedermeier audience. His two completed plays, Danton’s Death and Leonce and Lenya, were never staged in his lifetime. Danton’s Death was published at the time, Leonce and Lenya was was staged in 1895, Danton’s Death was finally staged in 1902 followed by Woyzeck (after being assembled by guesswork and published in 1879) in 1913 to mark the centenary of Büchner’s birth. When Alban Berg composed his 1925 opera Wozzeck (the corrupt title taken from an incorrect edition of the play that had misspelled the title character’s name) the story was given an international boost and, thanks to the mostly ‘expressionist' styled productions of the opera, hailed as the precursor of the movement. In his introduction to his Oxford University Press translation of the three plays, Victor Price warns that Woyzeck “in method is not slice-of-life naturalism, nor larger-than-life expressionism, though it has been claimed as forerunner of both. Nor is it an anti-militarist tract … it is something far more complex than any of these, a unique work, organically conceived, which defies any attempt to put it in a category.” Bear in mind too that Büchner would have had little conception of ‘naturalism’, ‘expressionism’ or the artistic movement that claim Woyzeck.

The further away from Büchner’s time the more praise Woyzeck, with its brief, blunt dialogue, scenes and action, gets. In our own time that poverty of dialogue, but so essential in its poverty, have elevated it to a template of style. Add to that some magnificent imagery as he describes people and scenes; "you rush through the world like an open razor" says the Captain to the frantic Woyzeck. Music runs through the play, short snatches of folk song, marching band music, fairground music, again with an amazingly rich poverty. In this production some of the songs are set to music by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Peter Farnan and, as Woyzeck’s barrack companion Andres, Hamish Michael has come up with his music for his own songs which he performs, like extemporisations, on a guitar.

Even a play in an unfinished state like Woyzeck has a beginning, middle and an end. This re-working by Michael Kantor of a re-working by Gisli Örn Gardarsson has a beginning - and a good one - descending into more of a muddle than a middle before it reaches a good, if ambiguous, end. With the exception of the Drum Major's introductory song which has an awful lyric, the play and its songs goes well until the 'carnival' scene where it gets overburdened with references to office Christmas parties and karaoke and nearly doesn't recover. Scenes such as Marie (Bojana Navakovic) watching the Drum Major (Marco Chiappi) and his band parading through town emphasise, even in their heightened setting, the simple directness of Büchner's writing.

In this version Woyzeck's perilous mental state is presented (beginning with the second scene where Woyzeck is haunted by a vision of death and the gallows). Occasional bursts of gunfire from off-stage suggest too that this regiment is on active service. Socratis Otto as Woyzeck is incredibly moving with his disarmed and disarming smile of his joy when he sees his beloved Marie and their child. In the same way he is frightening in Woyzeck's terror as his psychotic visions overwhelm him. The casting and playing of the Woyzeck's tormentors, the Captain (Merfyn Owen), Doctor (Mitchel Butel) and Drum Major is good in the way they are modern counterparts of earlier theatrical expressionism. Mitchel Butel's performance as the Doctor degenerates into a drag burlesque during the Carnival scene from which it never recovers. Pity, as in his first appearance he wears a skeleton T-shirt and Mickey Mouse ears (as though 'Mickey Mouse' was used here in its derogatory sense). Changing the Drum Major's gift to Marie from earrings to roses also means Woyzeck's line about how lucky she is to find two (most people only find one earring) make no sense.The important 'cat' scene, where the Doctor demonstrates the results of his crackpot experiments on Woyzeck and when Woyzeck, his physical state beginning to crumble like his mental one, gets the shakes, is truly scary. Tim Rogers as narrator and, briefly as the Carnival Barker, becomes something like the balladeer from The Threepenny Opera. Armed with a mandolin he and the band even have a few songs that sound like they were from a Brecht play. Peter Corrigan's set also evokes German expressionism of the 1920s. Doctor Caligari-like the jagged and raised stage splits open revealing an inner chamber where the cause and effect of the play - Marie's betrayal of Woyzeck with the Drum Major and then her murder by Woyzeck - are performed, in this isolation chamber it appears to the audience in a different reality, like one of Woyzeck's visions.

Woyzeck (1837) by George Büchner adapted by Gisli Örn Gardarsson
English translation by Gisli Örn Gardarsson, Ruth Little and Jón Alti Jónasson
Woyzeck - Socratis Otto
Captain - Merfyn Owen
Doctor - Mitchel Butel
Drum Major - Marco Chiappi
Marie - Bojana Navakovic
Andres - Hamish Michael
Narrator/Carnival Barker/Knife Seller - Tim Rogers
Director - Michael Kantor
Set, costume and mask designer - Peter Corrigan
Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse
31 January - 28 February 2009
90 minutes (no interval)