Appendix 1: A footnote on "Macbeth"

When I learned that there would be a new „Macbeth“ film coming to the cinemas in late October I probably refused to become excited about it. I went to the cinema without any expectations – or rather with the vague expectation that it would probably be some kind of “Hollywood like” adaptation, with larger than life pictures of beautiful Scottish landscapes and a lot of gory fighting in it. And was very surprised – and pleased! – to find it to be something completely different. At least I HOPE that the people who recommended it to the “Games of Thrones” crowd have caused a great deal of disappointment! (Though I might be underestimating “Games of Thrones” and the people who watch it, of course, as it happens with “worlds” I don’t like.)

So, first of all, I was pleased to see something different. Even though the film contains, of course, beautiful Scottish landscapes and gory fighting. Which isn’t something I don’t like, as such. I was more surprised how much I liked the film despite its containing much of what I DEFINITELY don’t like: especially actors just speaking their text without acting it - apart from looking gloomy, or tragic, or shocked. (And I mean: all of them!) I don’t even think they were “encouraged” to act, and exactly this kind of dealing with the text – hacked to pieces and just kind of smashed on the big screen beside a dramatic landscape, significant faces and a superb soundtrack - developed its own poetic value. It is a really beautiful film, more of a “poetic” and subjective version of the story than an “epic” one. The way the camera closes in on people, and the ideas about bringing inner content on screen and finding additional motivation for the main characters, chiefly Macbeth himself, makes it more about their “souls” and their suffering than about what I usually want to see “in Shakespeare”: what exactly happens, and why, and why these characters behave the way they do. And this appeared to me as an interesting idea because I haven’t seen the play being “used” in that way – except in another film version: “The Tragedy of Macbeth” from 2012, which is rather good as well but no longer available, so I don’t have it on dvd. And both films show (like the “Hamlet” film with Ethan Hawke) that this approach certainly works.

But even though I liked the film, a lot!, it didn’t really “catch”. I even saw it twice because I wasn’t sure why I had liked it, but the second time wasn’t any more conclusive. I reckon this is because of my own, developing, version of “Macbeth” which is blocking the access to other versions. But I had an enlightening experience shortly after that, when I saw “Steve Jobs”, a totally amazing film – with Michael Fassbender, of course! (If it is not Colin Firth, it is Michael Fassbender these days.) And I thought: THIS is what I want to see when I see him. This is why I consider him to be one of the most significant and special actors I know. (Did, by the way, for quite a long time before there were at least two films with him every year!) And, “something like this” would even be a much more interesting version of “Macbeth” because, for me, a contemporary version of this play would be about somebody who violates his moral integrity – and WHO he is, as a person - because of his carrier. “Fame and fortune”, or whatever it is that most people think they want, of course. And then finds out the hard way that it wasn’t worth it. (This is not what “Steve Jobs” is about, by the way, but this kind of contemporary character fits my idea of what is interesting about “Macbeth” much better. On the whole, I always find the “acting” much more interesting than the suffering – more interesting and rewarding for the actors themselves, I suppose.) There is one thing though I totally agreed with, and which would be in my version as well: the amount of blood at the beginning and the end of it, and in between! (And this would even be the greatest disadvantage of a contemporary version: that you cannot SEE the blood!) In general I am not that “blood-thirsty”, but in “Macbeth” the blood is really significant.

And I came to understand only by and by why I had liked the film so much. Not because of the great acting, which OBVIOUSLY isn’t there! (To say that Michael Fassbender is one of the most significant actors I know doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen even some incredibly bad acting by him (in “Jane Eyre”) and some insignificant acting (in “Macbeth”), and in both cases it was probably not “his fault”.) And it wasn’t even because of the beautiful landscapes and powerful “aesthetics”. It was because of the determination to tell the story in a different way – NOT to deal with what Shakespeare has written. And this is even one of the benefits of film adaptations, compared to theatre productions where the opportunities of “avoiding” the text – just taking out of it what you please and put it wherever you like – are limited. There is much more room for telling YOUR OWN story – and this means to tell a version which is probably significant for the times we live in. And what makes “Macbeth” significant for our time appears to be that we cannot deal with the question which – obviously? - is at the centre of the play: How can it happen that somebody who is considered to be a “good person” by the people who know him – even “kind”, if his wife is to be believed who probably knows him best! – anyway exactly the kind of person that deserves trust and promotion, can turn into a blood-thirsty tyrant? This is so OBVIOUSLY what I read when I am reading “Macbeth”, and the interesting thing is that in only one of the nine versions I have on dvd people appear to be bothered by that question. And this is the contemporary tv version of “Shakespeare Retold” with James McAvoy as (Joe) Macbeth. As this is the only version where I can see that people have read the same text I read myself it is my favourite version, even though it has only “scraps” of “Shakespeare” in it. The other two versions where the “authors” were obviously bothered by that question to a point that they found it necessary to write a different story, where Macbeth – and Lady Macbeth – appear less guilty, are the two contemporary ones from 2012 and 2015 I have cited above. And this I find extremely interesting.

I still don’t know why “Macbeth” is my absolute favourite play, and, consequently, must be one of my absolute favourite “stories” as well. (Which is great, by the way!) But maybe this film has brought me a step closer to understanding it. My first conscious step in that direction was when I understood about the concept of “equivocation”, and what the “weird sisters” might be about – another great feature in “Macbeth” ABSOLUTELY NOBODY, apart from the authors of “Shakespeare Retold” (again!), shows any real interest in! And exactly this principle of “equivocation” which we find EVERYWHERE in Shakespeare appears to be extremely difficult for “us” to deal with. Whereas it is something I obviously understand, and love. And which is probably why I absolutely love “House of Cards”, and why the only bit from Goethe’s “Faust” I remember (and love) is:

“Alles, was entsteht, ist wert, dass es zu Grunde geht.”

(Everything which comes into being is worthy(!) of being undone)

(And there is a contemporary “version” by somebody called Nam June Paik I love even more: “Wenn zu perfekt, liebe Gott böse.” (If (something gets) too perfect god (becomes) angry.)

I know I am not even close yet, but - as, by the way, in “Hamlet”, “Lear”, and “Othello” - in “Macbeth” Shakespeare must have written something about ourselves, our lies and our lives which we absolutely DON’T WANT to deal with. Maybe the way we use the word “tragedy” in a contemporary context is an indication, because a “tragedy” nowadays is something horrible that happens to INNOCENT people. Whereas “tragedy” for the Greeks, and probably the Elizabethans as well, was a story about somebody who becomes guilty and is spending the rest of his time on stage DEALING with the consequences. And as I have this absolute horror of doing even the tiniest little bit of harm to anybody – I suppose not because of an unusual amount of “human kindness” in me, but because I couldn’t face the consequences! – this cowardice might even be at the root of my fascination with tragedy … What I absolutely loved about “The Crucible”, and found most appaling at the same time, is that practically everything that happens originates in this single moment of a single person losing control. (And, what makes Arthur Miller even more of a genius about telling the truth about human matters: He knew that, if something like this ever happened to me, my “guilt” would be the least of my worries …)

Some kind of epilogue

The leaves are definitely falling now – I mean, in late October when I wrote this – and the great „Shakespeare event“ of the year has come and gone: the National Theatre’s production of „Hamlet“ with Benedict Cumberbatch. When I am looking at the “ladies queue meter” – which, since “The Crucible”, became my scale for measuring the “fame factor” of these events - it was quite obviously THE theatre event of the year. Seeing “The Crucible” in February I was twenty minutes early and just made it. For “Hamlet” I was still earlier I think, but there was no chance. The queue had stretched out to the entrance … and, this time, I was definitely one of the elder “ladies”! - But, joking apart, as I said to myself concerning “The Crucible”: If “this” gets people into the theatre, even if they are almost exclusively women, and they see something really great then the part where the actor takes off his shirt – which Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t even have to do, if I remember this correctly – served its purpose.

And it WAS really great, by the way! I was especially gratified that I had been right about what I thought when I first learned that he was to play “Hamlet”. That, like Ian McKellen for Lear, he would be definitely THE actor to play “Hamlet” at this point in time. Contrary to what he himself said, I am not at all of the opinion that every actor might play Hamlet – or should! – because what I had seen until then were basically spectacular failures at playing Hamlet (by Derek Jacobi, Kenneth Branagh, even David Tennant). And there is probably no character in Shakespeare that raises so many unanswered questions and is so contradictory in itself as Hamlet. And often a very direct and uncomplicated approach, as in this case, serves best. Apart from Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet in the modern film version, this was the first time I actually “met” Hamlet. In any of the other productions I was just watching a great actor playing him. And the whole production is equally strong, as to who they cast for the other characters, even the women!, and as to how well all the actors understand and play their part.

But the “ladies queue meter” is certainly relative. For me it wasn’t THE event of the year. I absolutely loved watching it because the acting was generally so good, but it didn’t answer a single one of the many questions I had reading the play, and didn’t raise new ones. Contrary to the RSC cinema production with David Tennant which brought me to an understanding of what that play probably “is about”, at its most comprehensive level. I know I am still very far from having nailed it, but what I am getting out of it is basically about people lying all the time – mostly not because they are “bad” and devious but because their lie is so deeply embedded within their lives that it would destroy them if it was “routed out” – and about the ensuing havoc and destruction that results from this basic untruthfulness and incessant endeavour of burying and hiding the truth. There are a few moments where this production cut to the bone, I think, but in this case what Shakespeare wrote “goes down” so much deeper. And is partly so sophisticated that it is even impossible to have it out “on stage” or “on camera”. Because much of it is in the “odd bits” that you don’t even understand until you have read it very closely and thought a lot about it. And I know I haven’t (yet). I’d never had thought so, but maybe “Hamlet” is “getting me” after all … I absolutely planned, by the way, NOT to write a treatise about “Hamlet”. And I won’t. But the most intriguing example so far for what I just said was that I became aware that none of the productions I have seen elaborates on the reason why Ophelia becomes mad, or is in the least interested in it – even though Shakespeare wrote this story so carefully, in an ongoing process of hints and riddles and constant “equivocation”. I think from the first time I ever saw “Hamlet”, which was when I was between fifteen and twenty, when I saw the production by the BBC with Derek Jacobi on tv, I was disgusted and intrigued by the scene where Gertrude is reporting Ophelia’s death. Especially when she enumerates the flowers Ophelia is playing with, and, like Polonius earlier on in the play, I thought: “This is too long!” And I certainly still don’t understand every scrap of meaning that Shakespeare put into his “puzzle”, but it certainly IS too long for the purpose of just conjuring up this image of the beautiful dead girl floating in the water with all these flowers around her. At least when she comes to elaborating about the “dead man’s fingers” which “liberal shepherds give a grosser name”, which is now really hitting us on the head with the metaphor to make us realize that we don’t have the complete truth! And maybe not even the most important part of it …? - And I might write a similar story about Gertrude, or Claudius, who’s tale of lies is the most obvious, and other characters still, but the case of Ophelia is the most striking because she appears so “innocent” and sincere at first sight – but, even on a less sophisticated level, is not. There is no “good” and “bad”: Every character is deeply entangled in this web of lies, which not even Hamlet - who is in fact this strange hero-figure, as whom I knew Benedict Cumberbatch would play him, come into this world to “set it right” - stands any chance to unravel.

Okay, I have finally succeeded in tricking myself into writing this treatise nonetheless … At least it is very short. And, as I said, still it was not THE event of the year. There are even three productions now that would have to share this title because I liked them for different reasons. One of them certainly was “The Crucible” because of how perfect and perceptive and powerful it was, and because of the very unexpected impact it had on me. But top of the list for “just beautiful” is certainly the “Othello” production by the RSC, (which my September blog is about, and) which was even equally intelligent and perceptive. But the most striking and surprising thing I have seen – and where the “ladies queue meter” failed completely because there were about ten other people in Munich who have seen it – was the new production of “Titus Andronicus” by the Globe Theatre. Of course there would be a lot to be said about this, but I’ll just say how marvelous it was to see this orgy of blood and gore and slaughter being turned into something so enjoyable – even supremely funny at times. And that was because it is so important to PLAY every tiny part of it, not just stand there and say these lines!, to make us see, and enjoy, what is in the play. And there is, as usual, a treasure of “human content”, even though of the most questionable kind. I think this was even the best production by the Globe Theatre I have seen. I have now at least six or seven of them on dvd, and all of them are great!

But now about something completely different … which is some kind of epilogue because, as I said, I feel that this long chapter about Shakespeare is now drawing to a close. So I’ll tie up some loose ends and, at the same time, lead over to what will probably be my next “big issue”.

I think one of the most important things I have learned by dealing seriously with this kind of issues at uni, and which “came out” a long time after I had finished dealing with them, was that you cannot take something like theory of literature, or philosophy, or even what we call “history”, seriously. Which means you cannot make any of this a tool for finding your own truth. There is no “objective” way to separate truth from bullshit, but still “truth” is what matters most to me. And, accordingly, the greatest benefit of analytical/philosophical thinking is not that it helps you to “pin down” objective truths, but enables you to draw out YOUR truth systematically and see it more clearly, and, in that way, make it “work” better. Because what really matters is usually not what some kind of authority, not even science or whatever you believe in, has laid down as truth but what YOU believe in and can make work in your own life. And this is exactly what Schiller did, by the way, using transcendental theory to draw out what he believed in, “proving” to himself and others that it can work.

And, in the same way, trying to draw out the truth I had always felt to be in his treatise, I have clarified MY thinking about the big question: what reading means to me, and why, exactly, it is so important to me. And even probably why reading and “serious” playing is so important in general, not for everybody, but for people who have learned to use it and benefit from it. As the most “vital” part – which is probably contained in EVERY act of reading, although usually unknown to us – is the part about linking the text to our own personal experience. (Which doesn’t only contain our “real” experience, by the way, but the “fictional” part as well, and, most important, wishes, dreams, what we imagine ourselves to be.) It is the most secret part, mostly subconscious, and it takes a deliberate act – which I consider to be the act of “serious” playing on its most basic level – to make it conscious and, in that way, make it work to improve our lives. Living in a time where everybody is obsessed with the concept of working out to improve themselves– or rather with having a bad conscience about not doing it! – it frightens me that nobody ever worries about improving their minds as well as their bodies. Not being concerned at all about WHO WE ARE, besides what we can do and what we look like.

And I have also clarified another issue which bothered me much more than I thought it should, but it has to do with why it is so important to think about who we are and what we want to be. It has always bothered me why I have been obsessed with acting and actors from the moment I discovered theatre. Which was even a long time before I “discovered” film - as I just remembered, talking about these things with my sister and realizing how many significant memories I have about going to the theater a long, long time ago. So much happened since then, and I very rarely saw “proper” acting then, by the way, but it has doubtless shaped my taste for what I like now, and what I think is great. But, somehow, I have always had a bit of a bad conscience about being so obsessed with it without seeing a real connection to my own life – quite as I have a vague dislike for people who are watching football religiously, as if it was the most important thing in the world, and have never kicked a ball. I know this sounds snobbish, and it is, but I am very much in favour of this kind of elitism, and I’ll try to explain why. There is certainly nothing wrong with “just” having fun, and maybe not even with becoming obsessed with something, but, unlike the first, the latter, in my opinion, requires a good reason. And, lacking that, I had always suspected I had “questionable” motives, like jealousy – for something I wished to be and couldn’t – or, of course, some kind of compensation for what I couldn’t have, in real life. And, somehow, I think, at least at my age, this is “disgraceful”. For example my sister has a much better motive, in my eyes, to love theatre in that way because she played herself at school and would have continued with it hadn’t “life” interfered with all kinds of more “serious” things. Whereas I am the sort of person who couldn’t act a single sentence convincingly, and has never enjoyed being LOOKED AT, in the first place – which in any case must be a chief motive for becoming an actor as it is crucial to be overly conscious of what you look like and what exactly “comes across” at any moment. Otherwise you will never be any good. So it couldn’t have been “jealousy” because, if I had been jealous of anybody, it wouldn’t have been an actress but a writer. As this is what I always wanted to do, still trying to do, of course. - And compensating for what you cannot have in real life is certainly a motive that can never be underestimated in dealing with “artificial reality”, and, in my case, can become very important for what I am getting “hooked on”. (As I am certainly my best evidence for what the “ladies queue meter” is about. And I definitely enjoy the moment they take off their shirt!) But, on the whole, “this” explains next to nothing about what content I like, or what kind of acting and actors I like.

And now I have come to know exactly what is at the core of it, and how it “links” to my own reality. As this act of “serious” playing I have written about is a conscious part of the acting process. And you can SEE it, in many cases, and it is exactly what I had always been looking for and which is even “the heart” of my Shakespeare experience, I think. Because the reason why Shakespeare is so thrilling for me is exactly this “interface” between reading and acting. The way I don’t really understand most of the content until I see it acted or put up on stage or on a screen. In many cases understanding Shakespeare’s text for me is the same as to imagine how I want to see it acted or how I would want to see this scene displayed on stage. The most striking example for me being the continually developing “production” of “Macbeth” in my own head.

And this is now the moment to lead over to what I am planning to do next. As what I have written until now appears to me like this very long treatise, or documentation, about this ongoing experience, which is now drawing to a close. And it is so interesting that when I returned recently to what I had written about its beginning – which is basically a very long “summary” of my experience of watching the “Hobbit” films – I have discovered that I understand so much better now what I have written then. And so the next thing I’ll do will be to make some kind of “appendix” to my “treatise” by editing what I have written about “The Hobbit” and put it into my blog. Because it contains almost everything that became important later in the bud. This war how these issues first came up, and this is of course important and fascinating for me, even though I have written most of it much better in the meantime and it means breaking my promise because there will be an awful lot about dwarves in it. But there will be a lot about actors as well, and about stories of course, and even a not quite unsubstantial bit about Shakespeare. And, what intrigued me most, a really interesting bit about what will probably be my next “big issue” which will be about fictional worlds. I was amazed for how long this has actually been “here”, lurking somewhere “in the shadows”.

What has finally brought it out in the open is fascinating as well and has still to do with the ongoing experience about “serious” playing. Because, as this experience is so vital to many people, we are in fact very inventive about producing and recreating it. Which means that it can be brought on by all kinds of “texts”, which work differently for different people. What I mean to say is that it doesn’t matter, basically, if it is Shakespeare or “Star Wars”, provided there is something that can create this experience. Of course for the person I am it matters that it is Shakespeare because I have never experienced this kind of “peak” before. But for other people, at other stages in their lives, a very different kind of text might provide the same type of experience. Or rather exactly the type of experience they need. Because a big part of this experience, bigger than we think, we are creating ourselves. But - great wizards that we all are! – we cannot create any experience out of nothing. So there is “matter”, of course, which probably gets us to become “hooked on” something, and which in my case I have identified as some kind of relevant “human content” without which I am usually not interested. But for other people there are certainly different things they like to play with. And - and there Schiller is right of course - there has to be some kind of strong “artificial” structure – for example written or acted – which reduces contingency, makes the matter more important to us than what just happens in the “real world”, and provides all kinds of hooks, and motives, and pleasures we become used to play with. But this, as I said, can be provided by very different types of texts and fictional worlds.

I had a great experience about this lately, concerning my seven year old nephew Noah. He, as obviously many children of his age just now, is very much into “Star Wars”. But as he is an extraordinarily imaginative child – even beyond what I myself have been at that age, I’d reckon – and had even found already a way of expressing and “acting out” his relationship with this world by extensive playing of course, but also by drawing extremely imaginative pictures, this became so intense that his parents forbade him to play “Star Wars”. A rather extreme measure, which I fully understood, in this case, and approved of, but especially because of what happened as a result. Here the benefit of what parents today so seldom do – take deliberate measures to educate their children – manifested itself in an unexpected way, you might say by actually backfiring. With the result that I now know somebody who is in possession of his own fictional world called “Suwa”, and pronounced “Tsoua”, complete with nineteen planets and a growing population of strange inhabitants. My personal favourites at the moment are ice-dragons and a bounty hunter (Kopfgeldjäger!?) who is exactly 0,99 centimetres “tall”. Even two weeks ago he told me the first episode, and I typed it on my netbook. That was exciting! And, as far as I can judge, for a seven year old who has no experience with writing as yet, it is an amazingly clear and comprehensive story. I am planning on “publishing” it in my blog, if I can get permission, as an introduction to my “chapter” on fictional worlds.

But my next blog will become my first “appendix” which will probably contain a few remarks about the new “Macbeth” film with Michael Fassbender and a longer part about “Hamlet”. Because, as I have just experienced, having an unexpectedly profound conversation about that play with the person who gave me the idea of writing this blog, this play is definitely “getting” me. I have even ordered Dover Wilson – which is a significant breach with my own “method” of reading. But our conversation has made me aware of the fact that I have even less of a clue what really HAPPENS in “Hamlet” than I thought. Though I already have a fairly good idea why this might be so interesting …

The „big question“: about the aesthetical education of mankind

Maybe what I perceived to be such a success – that I was finally able to read Shakespeare - had made me overconfident because I decided to try my reading on a philosophical text for a change: “Über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen” (“About the aesthetical education of mankind”) by Friedrich Schiller. I had written a paper about it at uni, roughly twenty-five years ago, about which I remembered zilch. But a sentence from this text had popped up repeatedly when I was thinking about the “big question” – which might be put in many different ways, even, in my case, as simple as that: WHAT IS READING? And this sentence had haunted me already for some time.

The sentence – which to my astonishment I had remembered correctly from twenty-five years ago – was: “Der Mensch (…) ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt.” It doesn’t translate well, and I know I should write this part of my blog in German, but somehow I didn’t want to because everything that led to it “was” already in English. (By the way, in case anyone ever feels the inclination to comment on my blog: it doesn’t have to be in English!) And when I started to “translate” Schiller into English I found that there was even a big advantage. Because, at least philosophically, English is the language of practical good sense, and something you cannot really express in English might in fact be bollocks – or my own inability might be at fault, of course. In this case it is probably neither, just a rare instance of a sentence being simple and beautiful in German whereas it is clumsy and pedantic in English:

“A human being is only entirely human when he/she is playing.”

I’d never thought though that reading a philosophical treatise like this might be fun, and maybe it is not the right word for it. But it got much more exciting than I had expected. The first exciting thing that happened was totally unexpected and kind of disagreeable. Because the first impression I got reading the preliminary remarks became stronger and stronger and came to swallow up everything else until I came upon the expression “den gemeinen Charakter, den das Bedürfnis der Geschlechtsliebe aufdrückte, durch Sittlichkeit auslöscht und durch Schönheit veredelt” = “(to) delete(!) the common character which the natural sex drive gave to sexual love by “Sittlichkeit” (how the hell do you even translate this!) and to refine it by beauty”. (Horrible, though very “literal” translation!) And then I thought: No, I don’t really want to read this! And this was the moment I consciously realized how much fascism took root in idealist transcendental philosophy.

And I didn’t really want to think that because I knew there was a reason for me to read that text. And I even knew I was distorting it by letting one impression become predominant and taint all the rest. Then I stopped reading and started thinking about if I was right. I knew I was, but didn’t remember to have heard this opinion expressed before. But then I got ammunition from a totally unexpected quarter by accidentally listening to a radio feature about “Gulliver’s Travels”. Which brought to my attention that already Kant’s and Schiller’s “contemporaries” noticed this – even if they didn’t know about fascism yet. I had read “Gulliver’s Travels” in a children’s book version, and I even remembered I had disliked it, but they never got to the part about the fascist horses and the poor “yahoos”. Probably because it had ceased to be fun some time before that.

Of course I knew that Schiller himself would never have agreed with any kind of political fascism, on the contrary! Because his central political theme is freedom, and – which was the other distinct impression I got from that text already in the beginning - there is a strong dynamic quality, like an undercurrent, toward setting free the human being he is talking about from the moral and natural “necessities” which obstruct this freedom. And this is probably what made me read on. In the end I was even grateful that I had been able to pin down the “fascist” tendency of transcendental idealism in that way because it made me see with what I agreed and with what I disagreed in Schiller’s text so very clearly.

And this - knowing with what I agreed or disagreed - was the next thing I realized I had to deal with. And which makes a philosophical text much tougher reading than a fictional text. Even though I was surprised how “readable” I found it. Being a great writer, Schiller knows exactly how to “hit” the point, and it isn’t hard work to follow his argument most of the time. But, reading a philosophical text, you have to make up your mind about the “method” a writer used and actively use it yourself. And you have to make up your mind about if you agree or disagree with what he wrote, and why.

The good thing about method was that I had obviously read more of Kant than I remembered. In fact I didn’t remember anything, apart from the “categorical imperative” which I might have read about elsewhere. But the fact that I understood the method of thinking, the nature of Kantian concepts, and the basic preliminaries of transcendental philosophy so well told me that I must have read a great deal of original text. I think I probably read at least the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” completely. Which doesn’t mean that I “agreed” with it, or that I really understood how it is supposed to “generate” truth. But I knew it didn’t matter if I “believed” in it, and that I had to suspend my doubts about method because this is transcendental philosophy, and if I didn’t agree with the way it works I wouldn’t get anything useful out of that text.

So there was just no use in picking a fight here. And the first nice experience I actually had reading Schiller’s treatise was that I discovered how “basic” its basic preliminaries are, and that I could put up with them as well. (Maybe these are the moments I had loved reading philosophy for because, understanding the basic preliminaries of a philosophical system, and what they are used for, I experienced this (very short) moment when I actually felt I understood “everything”. As this might be the closest I will ever get to the experience of wielding absolute power …) Because, to understand transcendental philosophy in the first place, all you need is to grasp the concept that a human being is a being that is able to think AND feel, to receive impressions AND to produce concepts. And that is in fact so basic that it appears ridiculous even to mention it. But it is not, as it is the reason that transcendental philosophy had to be “invented”, as neither simple metaphysics nor crude empirism would ever be able to deduce anything meaningful about human nature. And I realized that I totally agreed with this.

What I totally disagreed with – and here the revelation about the “fascist” nature of the system of transcendental philosophy became a big help – is the hierarchy of concepts within the system, its “absolutist” structure. Maybe for me to determine the validity and usefulness of a philosophical system means to dig up the part where the “metaphysical crap” is buried. Of course in Kant’s opinion there is none because he thought that he deduced everything from “necessary” concepts about the nature of perception. I cannot judge if this is even true, but I don’t believe that you can “honestly” deduce from basic preliminaries about perception which concepts are “nothwendig” (necessary) and more important, and which are “accidental”. Maybe you can, but I had a strong hunch that this is somehow the place where the “interface” with some kind of outdated metaphysical system has to be. At least it was here that my continual struggle with Schiller’s text took place. But as he uses the transcendental method mostly to “transcend” these opposites and somehow close the breach between them dynamically, creating a new state of affairs, I felt that I was winning most of the time. Even if sometimes it felt a bit like winning by unfair means. And just when he had convinced me once again of the beautiful face of human nature under “idealist” rule one of these sentences popped up that made me detect the ugly skull underneath. Perfectly hideous example:

“Darinn also besteht das eigentliche Kunstgeheimnis des Meisters, dass er den Stoff durch die Form vertilgt; und je imposanter, anmaßender, verführerischer der Stoff an sich selbst ist, (…) oder je mehr der Betrachter geneigt ist, sich selbst mit dem Stoff einzulassen, desto triumphirender ist die Kunst, welche jenen zurückzwingt und über diesen die Herrschaft behauptet.“

(„This is the secret of the true artist: that he eradicates matter through form, and the more imposing, presumptuous, tempting the matter is in itself (…) or the more the audience is tempted to get involved with it, the more triumphant becomes the kind of art that reigns them in and establishes its rule over the latter.”)

Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant!? Does he really think if the natural sex drive is finally “deleted” and the “material” fun of the artistic performance successfully “eradicted” any human being which is not yet transformed into a transcendental concept will get anything out of the action? I wonder … Maybe I haven’t really understood all the other stuff he wrote before that!? - This was the kind of “philosophical” struggle I had with Schiller because I found the hierarchy offensive. But there is so much in his text to contradict this “absolutist” notion that I got over it every time I read something like this.

So it was tough reading until I finally came to the really meaty part, which was of course the one about PLAYING. When he introduces his new concept of “Spieltrieb” (= the natural inclination or “drive” to play) which is supposed to “mediate” between the realm of “life” and the realm of “ideas”, finally transforming the individuals into the HUMAN BEINGS they should be. And the first example he comes up with to show how this “Spieltrieb” is supposed to work I loved that much that I forgave everything I had hated – or would still come to hate - about his text on the spot. Because this example is actually about love! - And this was when something happened to me for the second time within the last two years which had never happened before in this way. The other example is already “hidden” somewhere within this blog, but this time it was with somebody from over two hundred years ago!!! It was as if our two minds had just clashed. As if somebody thought in the same way, or had exactly the same experience, about something really important that I have had. Because he says that the two “failed” instances of love are when you are either drawn sexually toward somebody you have to despise, or that you are compelled by circumstance to hate somebody you hold in high esteem. And not because of the failed relationship with this other person in the first place, but because of the fact that it makes YOU a failure as a human being!

The instant I read this a lot of things happened which made my encounter with Schiller’s text become very dynamic, and, in my appreciation, finally successful. Whereas before that I had struggled with it on the barren heath of philosophy and political thinking utterly alone, suddenly another text was drawn in and changed the landscape completely. In fact there were two of them. One I had been writing myself “with my own life” over some time, but had somehow “extricated” only recently through another text: “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller which I certainly have mentioned already to have seen in the cinema. I cannot really use this experience to explain anything here because I still refuse to read it. So I cannot go back to the text to verify what my experience had been about, which is a real pity. Especially because, in this case, I had the unique experience of comparing my reading of a text from roughly twenty years ago, when I saw the film, with the recent one: when I saw the production from the Old Vic in the cinema. Which issues I had with this text already then, and how they – and I myself – were changed! - That I remembered that much about it is an indication that the film must already have made a big impression on me – which was still nothing compared to the recent experience. Because this was the only performance ever that made me feel like shit for three days after I had seen it – although I hadn’t even seen it in the theatre! - until I could finally sit down and write something about it. And this was of course BECAUSE it was so good! I don’t even have a totally convincing theory why this happened, but maybe I don’t want to. Some texts just appear to accumulate truth “with age”. And I think this is great!

The kind of truth I came upon was exactly the same I found in Schiller’s text in a totally different disguise. And this is the first thing about playing that I deduced – not directly from Schiller’s text but indirectly through this experience: that you can never look TRUTH directly in the eye because you couldn’t bear it. At least not any important truth ABOUT YOURSELF like this one. In this case it was that you have to take the only real opportunity for love life may offer you, even though it will almost certainly destroy you. Because, if you don’t, you will be a failure as a human being, even though you may have done “the right thing” in any other respect. At least this was the one thing I understood that had been so tough for me. And it is the only relevant issue in this context anyway because it is what “surfaced” when I read Schiller’s example. And, through the interference of this other text, it made me instantly understand the most important thing about playing the way Schiller understands it: that it is not just “nice” and makes you somehow “better” because it makes you feel better and “kills” time. It is really necessary because you may have a chance to get at YOUR OWN TRUTH without having your fingers burned every time you come too close. As you usually get your fingers burned just once.

And this is something Schiller wrote about as well. I know that I tried to “stay with” the text and did my best to read closely along the lines. But from this instant the two other texts came in all the time like scavengers, tearing parts from Schiller’s orderly treatise and feeding them to me. But this was what I wanted them to do, of course. There are always different methods for me, with different texts, to make the most of them. And this was obviously the one here. I tried nonetheless, not least to make the “method” work, to apply order, form, and structure to my reading, to “eradicate” the “matter” that had no business to be there, stay as close to the text as I could. And there is this important passage when he says that if you are playing with something dangerous and disagreeable it doesn’t hurt you “for real”, and if you are playing with something really desirable you don’t want it “for real”. And that this is the best way, or even the only way, you can have this experience. Which is obviously true …

Or is it? - I really don’t think that Schiller as a dramatic writer would have agreed completely with Schiller as a philosopher. At least I doubt it when I am thinking about his plays which I have always held in high esteem. Because they have real dramatic and tragic potential which might have tempted actors at the time to cross the line and actually get their fingers burned, to a certain degree. And I just cannot imagine that Schiller wouldn’t have liked to see this. Maybe I am wrong, but I’ll try to explain what I mean. Because it is always a very fine line, and it is never completely without risk to experiment with it. – And I didn’t “experiment” then, I really got my fingers burned, although I don’t want to admit it. I think there is a part I am prepared to admit and another which I don’t want to. I even realized just now that I don’t WANT them to release the production from the Old Vic on dvd – even though they filmed it really beautifully – because then I would have to buy it. And I cannot imagine watching it again. And there must be a reason for that. So, according to Schiller, I did something wrong?

Apparently he wanted everything neatly stowed in the realm of art where there is a straight hierarchy, and the rebellious “matter”, like “real” feelings, is conveniently “eradicated”. Yeah, just imagine what will be left of a play by Schiller if you take this literally! - Of course there cannot be “real” fear, or “real” discomfort, because you cannot play with it. But I don’t know. At least it might be that I am trying to do this intentionally … cross the line? That this might even be the whole point of playing? At least when you take playing as seriously as Schiller obviously wanted it to be. On the other hand, it has to be “safe”. When you “wake up” you have to be safe again. And of course the main difference compared to “real life” is that it is YOU who decides what you let the text “do” to you. Maybe if you are good you know how far you can go, maybe you know from experience. But then you’ll never experience something new. I am really fumbling here. Fumbling for the line … And I REALLY don’t know. I know that there is, somewhere in there, the most important thing, and why is it so important?

There are two examples for this kind of thing I remember from actors who have done something really extraordinary. One is from Cate Blanchet about playing the “heroine” in “Blue Jasmine”. She said that this took her far outside her “comfort zone”, but added immediately that somehow she always ends up there. Well, this may be why she became a great actress: because she can tell the difference when she is THERE, and then she knows that she has got it “right”? - The other one is from Richard Armitage about playing John Proctor, which, in my opinion, was still a big step from everything else he had done before. He said that he had wanted to play this character because he didn’t know if he could do it, and that, even at the stage of actual performance, there were still lines he found difficult to say. So, now you can take this seriously or not. I decided to take it seriously, probably because of the experience I had already had myself. And I imagine that these lines, every time he said them, somehow were the proof that he could do it, and that, every time, he knew that he had been able to cross the line. And that what he was doing was RELEVANT.

And the greatest thing about reading Schiller’s text finally became that I fully understood his concept of “serious” playing by making a point against him. Because I was reading this, obviously, thinking I understood already what he meant and was trying to “test” it. And then something different came to light and made me understand it somehow “deeper” and more clearly. And, which is another great point about philosophical texts when you get “deeper”: made me realize I STILL DON’T understand it! But I certainly understand better now what I am trying to do, and this was probably the whole point of it. By establishing where “the line” is, and why I am always trying to cross it. Why I never feel I have done something worthwhile without doing this.

In any case I have a definite criterion for exclusion now to judge, for example, why I like certain films so much more than others, and want to see them again, whereas I am often bored with films that critics think are great, and forget them the instant I have seen them. It isn’t just subjective, and it doesn’t have to do with “matter”, not in the first place. It doesn’t even have to do with how good or “innovative” the storytelling or the photography is – although the attempt at serious playing might be mainly in the filming as such. It has to do with this kind of experience I described. – The most common “error” of filmmakers – and of course film critics and Oscar juries! - is, in my opinion, that people think when they have made a film about a serious matter, or a “serious” book or whatever, they have already done something significant. Well, in a way they have because it will certainly sell, or get you a nomination. But the photography and the acting might be as great as it can be: I don’t even “see” it if I cannot see this kind of thing happen. The kind of thing which Schiller considers to be the act that turns “playing” into art, and which, in my opinion, is this: searching for the “line” and trying to cross it. Searching for the part of your story, character, or whatever, you don’t yet understand … Searching for this kind of experience.

And, the most important thing for me of course: It is something anybody can do. And, as I said, it is called READING. Because reading is, or can be, a form of “serious” playing. I am fully aware that this is a constant provocation because reading for most people is kind of an anaesthetic, some way of “shutting out the world”. And so I thought as well for a long time. Now I cannot even do this kind of reading anymore, maybe I haven’t been that good at it for a long time already, because, when this happens to me, I instantly “leave” the book and am wandering off into my own world. But, as I know now what can make the attempts at serious playing by other people – writers, actors, singers and so on - so significant for me, and makes me enjoy them so much, I feel even more of an obligation to be a great reader. (Even knowing that this makes a difference only for me, of course! It takes hundreds of thousands of great readers to buy the “right” books or dvds, or go to the theatre, to encourage artists to keep up the good work. But I am somehow confident that they must be “out there” somewhere … In a way, though I shall never “meet” them, I HAVE to believe this.) And this is, in the first place, what Schiller – like any “real” artist! – wanted people to be. But not only for him, to have an audience and somehow “sell” what he was doing. (Of course, today this has to be an important issue, but at the time you couldn’t even make a living from your art as such. At least not as a writer.) He wanted it because he thought he was doing something significant, and if other people would really understand it this would improve THEM. Not “just like that”, because they would have understood the moral implications or whatever of his plays, but because he would have enabled them to MAKE A MOVE within themselves toward something new.

And even though he doesn’t elaborate explicitly on the example about love anywhere else in his treatise, I don’t think that it was “just and example” for him. Especially when I am reading his closing remarks about “den geselligen Charakter” (the social character) of art, beauty, and “serious” playing: that they should create a domain where people that are separated by social barriers should be able to meet and exercise their human right to play. Where everybody should have the opportunity to improve themselves as a human being. – And if you are aiming high – which Schiller does, of course, and for what I probably liked him at the time: without love there is no human being. And one of the most interesting things Schiller wrote is that all the attempts of the kind he described are somehow “failed” attempts – in his book because it isn’t possible to reach the “ideal” when you are operating “in this earthly world”. Perfection can only be achieved in the world of concepts. But to aim high is still worth everything, and this is even the only thing you can try to do. So there is no “ideal” state of love anyway. But the attempt to love in the only way you can is worth it because it is the only thing that makes you REAL as a human being.

So, now I have probably written something I don’t understand yet. Pretty! Maybe it is crap, maybe it will be something I can “work” with. And it has to be the closing remark because this has already become far too long. Although I have only elaborated on very few of Schiller’s interesting issues. My first reading was much closer to the text, and I found a lot more interesting issues about playing, but somehow the two other texts “jammed” my immediate communication with Schiller most of the time. (Arthur Miller was a very strong presence!) But, as all writers should know: This is what people do with your text! They “write” their own version. And this is even what they SHOULD do because it is the only way to know if they really understand some of it. And to improve themselves.

The most important issue left over from Schiller’s text is that the question how the “Spieltrieb” is actually supposed to work – how EXACTLY it is supposed to make people “better” – remains unanswered. And this was one of the questions I was chiefly interested in. I don’t think that Schiller really answered this question because he thought he already answered it “technically”. But what makes sense within the system of transcendental philosophy doesn’t necessarily make sense to me – at least not without “tangible” proof. Maybe this is in fact the toughest question, and maybe there will be a sequel. I just have a feeling this would be a more fitting theme for the thesis I am never going to write.

There is something, though, I cannot leave out because, when I just went over my notes about “The Crucible”, I read this remark by Richard Armitage about playing John Proctor, and I couldn’t believe it:

“It had been one of these roles I had always coveted and known I would play eventually, and by playing it I would be changed as a person.”

Because this was exactly what I SAW when he entered the stage, even before he opened his mouth to say his first sentence. It is a pity I don’t remember when I first transformed this disconcerting impression into a thought, but I remember exactly how I “translated” it: There isn’t just a different actor, but a different person! (It might have been after I had read this, but I don’t think so.) In any case it kind of spares me the thesis and all my clumsy follow-up remarks about how I might not know about serious playing making you a “better” person, but that it certainly can make you a DIFFERENT person.

And I cannot leave this either without trying to translate Schiller’s closing remarks about his “Staat des schönen Scheins” (which I don’t know how to translate). His (un)political “utopia”, in any case, the place where serious playing for everybody would be possible. Because I loved them, and they amazed me, almost as much as the example which – inadvertently - became the centre of my reading:

“… where no mindless mimicking of strange customs but their own beautiful nature rules people’s behaviour, where people go through the most complicated affairs with daring simplicity and calm innocence, and neither find it necessary to hurt other people’s freedom to obtain their own, nor to cast their own dignity away to please others.”

(Synopsis: …where people can be themselves and live their own truth, and therefore have no need to appear clever, bully others, or do stupid things that are beneath them, to get other people’s approval.)

Well, that might be exactly the “place” where I (and probably Arthur Miller?) would have wanted to live!