Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine and Medeaplays connects with The Renegade Company’’s mission of telling familiar stories in unfamiliar ways. Written from between the 1950’s and 1980’s these works deconstruct the stories of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Euripides’ Medea and tells them from a post-modern view. Müller takes these myths and uses them as an allegory to express the angst of the sociopolitical catastrophe Germany was in during the Cold War. These works assess the need for separation and that nuclear annihilation is devastingly possible. Juxtaposing experimental industrial English and German bands like Throbbing Gristle, Bauhaus, D.A.F, Kraftwerk, and Einstürzende Neubauten with Heiner Muller’s poetry evoke power and expression against authority. The production employs an atmospheric approach where accessing the five senses create a unique sensory experience.
“I WAS HAMLET,”The Hamletmachine, written in 1977. The end of the world has yet to come, the fall of the Berlin Wall has not occurred, a nuclear holocaust looms in the background. Borrowing from quotes and text from Shakespeare, Andy Warhol, Beckett, Marx, Jung, and Brecht, Muller creates a ecelectic and deeply poetic script. It is not centered around a conventional plot, but partially connects through sequences of monologues, where Hamlet leaves his role and reflects on being an actor. Religion, politics, gender, philosophy, and spirituality are all targets in this work.
“I AM NOT MEDEA,” Medeaplays, written between the 1950’s-1980’s. Medea is raped, her children are slain, and revenge has to happen. For his version of MEDEA, Muller has interwoven intensely condensed fragments of the Euripides and Seneca play texts with pieces of dreams, automatic writing and free associations of modern landscapes with mythical scenes. The resulting text, originally written over a period dating from the 1950s to the 1980s, consists of four parts: MEDEAPLAY, DESPOILED SHORE, MEDEA MATERIAL, and LANDSCAPE WITH ARGONAUTS. Medea faces the decisions she has made and attacks Jason for his actions toward her.
