| Program Notes
This work is a theatrical/musical
reflection on the life and death of writer Ernst Toller. It should ideally be
presented in a theatrical setting, with staging and lighting design. In the first
production, the cellist sat slightly downstage centre, illuminated from directly
overhead by a single light which was suspended by a long, black cord. The atmosphere
was that of an interrogation. During the piece the actor, dressed in black, moved
and spoke from areas in the vicinity of the cellist — on both sides, behind
and in front. The actor was always lit peripherally, never clearly seen. Other
stagings are of course possible. Ernst Toller was born on 1st December 1893
- into a Jewish family in Samotschin in what at that time was the Prussian province
of Posen. A typical child of his age, he joined the First World War as a belligerent
patriot and returned from the trenches a pacifist. In the Bavarian Revolution,
the 25-year-old was a member of the ‘braintrust’ of Kurt Eisner, who
he had met in Berlin in 1917. In the course of the complex events in Bavaria,
he was drawn into the phalanx of the revolutionaries. Following the failure
of the Räterepublik (a form of republic governed by commissars that existed
in Bavaria in 1919), he was sentenced to five years imprisonment, which he spent
in the prisons of Stadelheim, Eichstätt, Neuburg on the Danube and above
all in Niederschönenfeld. It was here that he wrote his most significant
works and gained his reputation as a dramatist. His plays were translated into
27 different languages and performed on the most important stages in the world.
After his release from prison, Toller invested all his energy into his
humanitarian and socialist ideals. The political questions with which he concerned
himself until his death are disturbingly topical today: the problem of the pacifism,
which for him arose from the fact that under certain circumstances violence can
be as inevitable as it is morally unacceptable; the protection of human rights,
the rise of the radical right. As early as the end of the twenties, Toller
was already prophesying that Hitler would come to power, never to relinquish it.
His comment in London on Hitler’s Olympic statement in 1936: “The dictator
who praises the peace today, does so to prepare the war of tomorrow.” In
exile from 1933 onwards, Ernst Toller tried to reverse the splintering of political
forces. In the USA he became the most-listened-to and celebrated representative
of a different Germany. He used his popularity to serve gigantic aid projects
for the suffering civilian population in Spain. Inevitably, Toller experienced
the defeat of the Spanish Republic as one more betrayed revolution. He warned
that for Hitler, the civil war in Spain was a dress rehearsal for a European war.
His appeals for the western democracies to intervene went unheard. The recognition
of Franco’s fascist dictatorship by the western powers shook Toller to be
core because he himself was never willing to exclude ethical considerations from
the political actions. The lack of conscience in politics drove Toller to despair.
Everything that he had fought for in his literary and political life was lost. On
19th May 1939, three days after Franco’s victory parade in Madrid, Ernst
Toller took his own life in New York. Wolfgang Frühwald expressed the opinion
that this ultimate demonstration of liberty illustrated - to a repressed world
- to what act its freedom of action had meanwhile been reduced. Writer Per
Brask offers the following notes: "It has not been my
intention to give an account of the life and times of Ernst Toller — though
that certainly would be an interesting project — nor to interrogate, as they
say, his plays. Instead, I have wanted to ruminate along with him, to mourn the
death of an idea, the idea of individualist socialism, anarchist communitarianism.
For him this idea died in 1939 and he chose to die with it. For some of us maybe
the idea died — or metamorphosed — in the 1980s, 90s? Most of
the poem is based on material found in Ernst Toller Gesammelte Werke Band 1-5,
herausgegeben von John M. Spalek und Wolfgang Frühwald; München: Carl
Hanser Verlag, 1978. I must, however, warn you that I have been very free in my
approach to translating Toller's words, many of which I have purposefully mangled,
twisted and turned to suit my own ends, in some cases well beyond recognition.
Sentences have been removed from their contexts. Indeed, in some instances a phrase
has been joined by a sub-clause from a very different work.. (Everything written
within wide margins has been maltreated in one or more of these ways.) And all
this to find — as an actor might put it — the Toller inside myself,
to pay homage to Toller by means of appropriation — by using him as an archetype." The
music for Ernst Toller — Requiem for an Idea was written with financial assistance
from the Manitoba Arts Council, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The
world premier was given in Winnipeg at the Eckhardt Gramatté Theatre on
May 1 and 2, 1999. Richard Fowler was Ernst Toller; the cellist was Paul Marleyn. | 
