In place of an epilogue: My teachers

Summary

It seems fitting to offer some information about those who educated me in my youth, and to whom my work and my ideas remain indebted to this day.

Max Reinhardt

Reinhardt, naturally, wasn't my teacher – I was only eight years old when he died in exile in the USA. But it wasn't long afterwards that a magical book came into my possession: Reinhardt and his Stage, edited by his stage designer Ernst Stern and his dramaturge Heinz Harald. I devoured it, reading it over and over again, and couldn't get enough of it. It described Reinhardt's theatre in all its aspects, as vividly as could be. It explained how a production is developed, retelling all the details of several specific performances. Reinhardt's famous actors were presented to the reader in characteristic roles. Nor was the material aspect of theatre ignored – the revolving stage and other machines, what went on in the workshops, the role assigned to light and music, the make-up artists, the rehearsals with extras, managing the crowd scenes, and even the organization and administration of the whole complex business. And at the end of the book was a chapter entitled ‘Twenty-four hours at the Deutsches Theater’ that described a single day in Reinhardt's theatre, with sketches by Ernst Stern of the typical, daily activities there. It began at four in the morning with the night watchman and transport deliveries of the backdrops, then proceeded to the dismantling of the old scenery and the erection of the new, then there were the rehearsals, auditions, programme meetings, the bell for the evening performance, the applause and the night-time grind in the workshops until midnight came – the ghosting hour in the empty auditorium. And then, at the close, a picture of the outside façade of the theatre, everything dark except for a light in one window. The caption ran: ‘Two in the morning. All is dark; only the administrator is doing his sums.’ That was it for me: backdrops, rehearsals, actors, actresses, workshops, auditions, revolving stages and doing sums at night.