Faust now has a soul

In two months’ time the Faust Festival at the Goetheanum will open. The production premiered in 2020 (director: Andrea Pfaehler, director eurythmy: Eduardo Torres). Now the almost 70 actors and eurythmists will come together again to bring the greatest play in the German language back to life. Wolfgang Held spoke with Andrea Pfaehler about the revival.

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Class 2 at school, a second love, the second Goetheanum – different, stricter rules usually apply the second time round. The spirits that lent wings to the beginning now want to know if we are true to ourselves and to our task and if we are ready to take new steps.

Wolfgang Held A revival of Faust – what does this ‘let’s do it again’ mean in theatre?

Andrea Pfaehler A revival like the one we are planning is a second birth, like a sibling that is a new addition to a family. The magic of theatre, as opposed to film, is that nothing remains the same. What happened on stage, has dissolved in the hearts and heads of audiences and in the walls of the Goetheanum.

Now I am looking forward to starting rehearsals on individual scenes and with individual actors, so that our Faust can be reawakened and grow, step by step. We don’t have to lay the foundations because that was the hard work we did last year. Now we want to go further and dig deeper!

Enhancing relationships

WH If the Faust production is a being, what is it asking of you – the ensemble – for this next step?

AP With this new production we have brought a landscape to life. Now we will work on enhancing the relationships. In my view that means gaining a deeper and more precise understanding of the text, becoming more refined.

I think it is no coincidence that we had our first rehearsal with Stefan Libardi and his new puppets. Everything is about the life of Euphorion, the mysterious child of Helena and Faust. This scene left some scope for improvement last year. Now, we will, if it works out, bring life and soul to it with the puppetry. How can we enter into the silence, into the sounds in between? We will ask ourselves this question in the weeks leading up to the premiere of Faust 2021. Or, to use another picture: last year, Eduardo Torres and I, and with us this huge ensemble, took a bull by the horns in order to stage a new Faust. Now we look more closely at the fur of this beast, we look it in the eye – the calmer and the more concentrated, the better.

WH What do you see there?

AP I feel that I have stayed connected with all the performers. I can sense them! Before they return to the Goetheanum for rehearsals and we embrace each other (mentally), I have long started working with them inwardly. The depth of this will soon show – much like when we sleep on a task first and then realize that much has happened during that time.

At the Goetheanum it is not about presenting ‘new’ images but, I think, about playing and bringing acting, eurythmy and music together in a way that allows the audience to feel it more deeply.

From pain to trust

WH What remains from the previous cycle?

AP The play’s architecture, or structure; this, we feel, was successful. How the characters stand and walk; the quality of the space – we can build on that. Now it is about fine-tuning, about the interior design, one could say. And I am looking forward immensely to this work! This is also true for the production’s minor or major ‘building sites’, such as the music for the Carnival celebration, the epic breadth of the Aegean Sea – this we must and wish to transform.

A production is like a person’s character. If I have discovered a weakness, something soulless in myself, I must work on it because if I don’t it might do damage – more damage that it would have done without my discovering it.

WH What is important?

AP In this work by Johann Wolfgang Goethe every line is imbued with love and wisdom. If we can awaken these virtues in us, bring them together in us, we don’t have to make compromises and still remain open in our hearts. Then, art can grow, I find.

WH How can a team of directors, a community, not make compromises?

AP By being open! Together we - Eduardo Torres and I, the assisting director Isabelle Fontagne and Julia Strahl from the costume department, you as dramatic adviser and Eduardo - have gone through pain. From this pain, trust has grown, and trust allows us to be open to each other. We should be able to tell each other everything now, because we have been through this pain together.

Imbued with humanity

WH When you close your eyes – what images from Faust come up?

AP I used to find and see Faust in the big story. Now he has been given a soul by those who have made this possible, behind and on the stage. Faust has gone through the hearts, hands and heads of each ensemble member. I can no longer think Faust without their voices and feelings. That is the big difference for me. Everything has been imbued with humanity.

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