“It’s better to be unhappy together than alone.”

MK: Jette, before directing your first stage play in Munich, what’s your view of the city and the Kammerspiele?

Jette Steckel: For me, it’s sort of like a conquest of the south. At present, I have no idea about Munich and I’ve never directed work in southern Germany before. I was in discussions with the Kammerspiele more than three years ago now – two works were unable to take place. Thus, I’m all the more delighted that I’m now able to work at the “legendary” Kammerspiele whose renown is doubtlessly also what attracts you, Joachim. At present, this theatre is my only connection with Munich.

Joachim Meyerhoff: For me, the Kammerspiele is actually a dream destination but also one that’s caused me a lot anxiety because of drama school. It was the first stage I ever stood on, as an extra in Dieter Dorn’s production of “Faust”. The Dorn era really produced theatre of great integrity and significance. It impressed me deeply and opened my horizons. Plus, my grandmother performed at the Kammerspiele, so I have a biographical connection to the place. It’s a really close relationship, without me ever having actually performed here.

MK: Interestingly enough, you’re rehearsing two Chekhov plays this season. What is your relationship with the playwright?

JM: I came across Chekhov’s prose stories before the plays; actually, they’ve been with me my entire life. Chekhov is a writer who speaks to you differently and in new ways in each decade of your existence. And now that I’m rehearsing “The Seagull” in Berlin and “The Fatherless” at the Kammerspiele this season, I’ve started to read the stories again. It’s a bottomless well, you become totally immersed in this Chekhovian world. For me, dealing with Russian literature, especially at the moment, is also an examination of our present day. I only encountered Chekhov’s plays a little later on. They become engraved in my mind at drama school thanks to the iconic stage images created by the great Peter Stein productions – but of course that also made me want to distance myself from them.

MK: It’s constantly possible to find your own different points of connection to the characters and ways in which they attach to you personally.

JM: Chekhov seems to have an unbelievably universal understanding of how people of all ages feel. I know of no other writer who simultaneously seems to know so precisely how a 17-year-old and a 40, 50 and 60-year-old feel. And that, even though he was still so young when he wrote “The Fatherless”. To create a Trigorin in his slightly aging, withered masculinity. And of course, Kostja has also at times been in my thoughts – I’d be surprised if any actor doesn’t feel a connection there. When I was between 30 and 40, I developed a greater fondness for the proletarian characters, such as Ossip in “The Fatherless”. As a playwright, Chekhov accompanies you through the ages.

MK: Jette, is this your first encounter with Chekhov?

JS: Before now, I’d only encountered Chekhov as a student, but that was important work for me. It was the work I undertook when I wanted to stop studying directing. During my degree, I had the feeling that I was just a puppet and I was only doing things that had nothing to do with my fascination for the stage. By then, I’d decided to go to Moscow, but I wanted to finish one final project first. The task was Chekhov, but in 60 minutes. So I asked myself which play could be produced in such a “Reader’s Digest” version. I’d studied all the plays in depth and so I came to the conclusion: none of them. I found all of it impossible so I directed a work called: “Life Is Life as a Carrot Is a Carrot” It was a Chekhov compilation in which we just took the questions about the meaning of life from the plays and let the characters discuss them. This led me to receiving six invitations to work at various theatres. Immediately after that, I went to Moscow and returned determined that I wanted to continue directing. It was an inner breakthrough for me and it was good. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to direct Chekhov again since then. But now it’s finally happening!

MK: Joachim, you said earlier that Chekhov is also connected to an examination of our present. How would you describe that exactly?

JM: This individualism of the characters, which is ramped up almost to the point where it becomes painful, but they all fight and struggle for their lives and also for good old love. This thin line between complete despondency, disgust at the world and nihilism – I think that’s all… I don’t want to say specific to our time, but it’s quite timeless. There will always be older men who desire young women and then want to convince their wives that it’s a good thing for everyone.

JS: I think it’s about the richness in the psychologies of the characters. They appear to have been alive through the ages. Of course, I’m concerned with the question of whether we need to square all this with our own political present and view it from a contemporary perspective. But I have the feeling that this would lead to a decimation of the richness of the characters and would probably restrict them in all their contradictions. With Platonov, the question is of course: What is it that this character is actually struggling with? What is causing him so much pain? And what kind of rejection is this of the generation of fathers or of any parent generation?

MK: That brings us to the matter of the title. Why did you opt for “The Fatherless”?

JS: The great thing about Chekhov, and especially about this play, is the fact that there is no letting up in the accuracy and detail in which characters are illuminated and narrated across the entire cast. We’re dealing here with a boundless fragment which contains a lot of material for many characters. The title prompts the question about the parents’ generation: What did they stand for and what is it that we want to distance ourselves from?

JM: It’s also interesting to recall that Chekhov, when he wrote this play at the age of 17 or 18, really was fatherless. His family had gone away and he was left alone, writing humorous sketches to help keep the rest of them fed. That a boy who is struggling alone, completely unanchored, writes a play like this – it’s pretty amazing.

JS: But if I, as the audience, don’t go into Chekhov’s biography and just hear the title of the play, that already creates a certain mental picture: the piece is going to tell us about our fathers’ generation and the past century, the conflicts, the political experiments and their failures. How do you position yourself in relation to the ideas which the parents’ generation stood for? What alternatives can you put forward to counter them? That all resonates in the title for me. The allure of a title and the burden of it.

JM: That’s in the play, as well. Chekhov was living and writing at the turn of a new era. I think all of these characters are so charged with things from a time that doesn’t seem to work anymore. Each character contains a fracture – we’re shaped by certain things depending on our generation, our origins, and in the play all these things are no longer effective. There’s a sense that something fundamentally different has to happen, in their relationships with each other, in the way they are connecting with the world, as if everything has to be swept away like in a revolution. This is felt most strongly in the “The Fatherless” of all his plays. Despite all its great love for the characters, the play is merciless towards these people.

JS: There is a feeling of contemporaneity with our present moment – at least from my perspective. I very much like the fact that there is such a fundamental process of questioning at all levels. These are characters with whom you can really connect in the present.

JM: At the same time, it’s almost a utopian idea for me that people can collectively tear each other apart and don’t end up in complete isolation. We’ve experienced so much isolation. There’s something really beautiful about the fact that these people in the play are dealing with each other in a large group. In some way, it’s better to be unhappy together than alone.

JS: And that is also an aspect of happiness that you can experience in the theatre.

JM: Being unhappy together.

JS: At least there’s some remnant of an interest in each other.

MK: Thank you very much for the interview, we’re really looking forward to the production.