"The Leap, not the Step", Part one: Creating the Physical Score for a Production of Heiner Müller’s Quartett
"The Leap, not the Step", Part one: Creating the Physical Score for a Production of Heiner Müller’s Quartett

Summary/Abstract: This article is an examination of my physical approach to a production of Heiner Müller’s Quartett. It both describes the technique used to create the physical ‘score’ [choreography] for the performance, and also places the work in the context of contemporary theatre practitioners [such as Robert Wilson and Anne Bogart] whose ideas have influenced my methodology. „Mein Hauptimpuls bei der Arbeit ist die Zerstörung. Also anderen Leute das Spielzeug kaputtmachen. Ich glaube an die Notwendigkeit von negativen Impulsen.” [Suschke 2003: 220] „My main impulse in my work is destruction. That is, smashing other people’s playthings. I believe in the necessity of negative impulses.” [my translation] This quote from playwright Heiner Müller is an appropriate starting point for discussion of my production of his play Quartett, which takes as its protagonists two characters from Choderlos de Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses: the Marchioness de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. This source material is the examination of a destructive relationship, where the protagonists’ inability to be honest with each other leads to the destruction of Merteuil’s ‘plaything’, the very man she loves. To underscore the thematic of destruction, Heiner Müller sets the play in a „Timespace” of „Drawing Room before the French Revolution. Air raid Shelter after World War III” [Müller, 1984a: 106].

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