Im Auftrieb

Various approaches to staging Goethe's »Faust« undertaken in the 1990s are discussed here in a series of individual analyses. Following on from an engagement with the play from a largely ideology-critical perspective in the preceding decades, the decisive new frame of reference, notably amongst the representatives of Regietheater (productions by Wolfgang Engel, Einar Schleef, Christoph Marthaler), proves to be the question of (theatre-)historical reception. In complete contrast to this - and to one another - are (a) Stephan Müller's Zurich version of »Faust II« and its total preoccupation with shifts of perception, and (b) Peter Stein's mammoth, programmatic attempt to achieve textual fidelity by staging every single syllable of the play uncut. In his Milan version, Giorgio Strehler essays an interpretation of »Faust« as the expression of a common European heritage. By contrast, the 'outside perspective' represented by »Faustus in Africa!« (Handspring Puppet Company Johannesburg, William Kentridge) casts a radical culture-critical light on Europe.