Heiner Müller
German · 1929–1995
German playwright and theater director whose fragmentary, violent texts dismantled the ruins of European history, confronting the failure of socialist utopia and transforming the stage into an open wound that refused to heal.
Wikipedia ↗“Das Theater muss die Toten zum Sprechen bringen, damit die Lebenden sich hören können.”
German
“The theater must make the dead speak so that the living can hear themselves. When the stage is empty, history enters.”
“Ich bin nicht Hamlet. Ich spiele keine Rolle mehr. Meine Worte haben mir nichts mehr zu sagen. Mein Drama findet nicht mehr statt.”
German
“I am not Hamlet. I don't take a role any longer. My words have nothing to say to me anymore. My drama doesn't happen anymore.”
“Die erste Gestalt der Hoffnung ist die Furcht. Die erste Erscheinung des Neuen ist der Schrecken.”
German
“The first shape of hope is fear. The first appearance of the new is terror.”
“Brecht gebrauchen, ohne ihn zu kritisieren, ist Verrat.”
German
“To use Brecht without criticizing him is to betray him. What we need is a theater that is not afraid to be painful.”
“Ein Text lebt nur, wenn er nicht verstanden werden kann. Einen Text verstehen heißt ihn zerstören.”
German
“A text is only alive when it cannot be understood. To understand a text is to destroy it. The task is to keep the text open, like a wound.”
“Optimismus ist nur ein Mangel an Information.”
German
“Optimism is merely a lack of information.”