Christian Peter has been performing in the Mystery Dramas for 48 years and has been responsible for the acting in the dramas for 18 of those. Wolfgang Held asked him seven questions.
Does it pain you that Rudolf Steiner was unable to complete his dramas?
The question is whether he actually had plans to write seven or even possibly twelve Dramas. We know that he wanted his next Drama to be set at the Castalian Spring near Delphi. But when you have an understanding of history, what counts is what is, not what might have been. It’s the same with Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony—it is complete! Life is different from what we imagined, which is why such conceptions, like those of further, hypothetical Dramas, are irrelevant to me. There is a harmony for me in the fact that Rudolf Steiner’s fourth Drama leads us to a situation that we find ourselves in today. After the war, he wanted to perform the four Dramas at the Goetheanum (in the summer of 1923), but this was not possible due to the burning of the First Goetheanum. It would have been a revival, because the backdrops were all in storage and the costumes were still available. The actors had already been asked. Perhaps he would have continued writing the story if the performances had taken place. But I don’t think it’s productive to speculate about that today. Albert Steffen took an interesting approach by picking up on what was discussed in the Dramas in his own plays.
What does tradition mean to you in the performance of plays?
It’s important to understand that Steiner wrote the Dramas in the time immediately leading up to the first performances. He had the people who played these roles right in front of him and was even delivering the lines during the rehearsals. There is an anecdote about the actor Gümbel-Seiling, who, alongside his role as Strader, also spoke the Voice of Conscience. It’s said that Rudolf Steiner added some lines for the Voice of Conscience at short notice in the tenth scene of The Guardian of the Threshold. When Gümbel-Seiling pointed out that he couldn’t speak it, Steiner spontaneously assigned this text to The Other Philia. So we should be careful about declaring Rudolf Steiner’s choices sacrosanct. Another example: the menswear supplier at the time only had velvet fabric in the rust-red color for Dr. Strader’s jacket. So Strader wore a velvet jacket until the 1980s simply because no other fabric was available in Munich during Steiner’s time. So, some things in the Dramas arose out of the specific context of the time. Simply changing things or leaving things as they are without recognizing the “why” seems to me inappropriate from the point of view of development.
What makes the Mystery Dramas modern?
Each of the characters faces inner questions and conflicts that we’re all familiar with today. Take the character of Hilarius in the fourth Drama. He’s an example of a person of our time. He wants to do something good for humanity, but he acts purely out of his own will; it’s his project, not that of the people, and so—he fails. He’s unable to connect with his fellow human beings. He stands in his own way.
Each of these four Dramas has its own character, which is also related to the fact that Rudolf Steiner developed his literary skills along the way. This is especially evident in the fourth Drama. The interaction with the spiritual world becomes a dramatic event, which is not the case in the other Dramas. The first Drama is entirely borrowed from Goethe’s “Fairy Tale,” including the characters. In the second Drama, the characters become flesh and blood. It’s interesting to see that what happens in the second, third, and fourth Dramas is often not even hinted at in the first. This shows that Rudolf Steiner did not have a detailed concept for the whole when he wrote the first Drama in 1910. The story developed as he worked on it. One could say that Steiner did the exact opposite of Hilarius: he wrote the Dramas with and from the people.
The Dramas run for a good 20 hours. Are you considering making cuts?
For 15 years, we’ve also been performing certain scenes in abridged thematic formats alongside the full production. Some scenes actually benefit from this; they become clearer. Whether it makes sense to shorten the Mystery Dramas as a whole, I dare not say. I’m also divided on the abridged production of Faust and advocate the principle of “both-and” rather than “either-or,” meaning that when an ensemble includes an abridged version in its repertoire as well as a complete version, then there’s a different energy than if only an abridged version is rehearsed.
How has the audience changed?
My approach of bringing the characters closer to us, making them more human, certainly meets the needs of today’s audience. It’s not just a matter of staging it differently, in a more “modern” way. On the one hand, our audience is sensitive to change because people identify with the form of presentation, but on the other hand, they’re also willing to go along with processes of change. However, there is also an audience that wants to see the Mystery Dramas in the form in which they were first performed in 1910.
After 40 years of work, are you satisfied with your understanding of the Dramas?
I recently realized that there are three characters in the Dramas who stand somewhat outside the community. Steiner characterized them very well and gave them good lines. At the same time, he himself speaks rather disparagingly about them. I find that remarkable. These characters are Estella, Ferdinand Reinecke, and the Office Manager. Estella takes a critical view of the Anthroposophical Society that her friend belongs to. Her criticism is entirely justified. Rudolf Steiner says that Ferdinand Reinecke lies through his teeth. Goethe’s Reineke Fuchs [Reynard the Fox] is the linguistic model here. When I look at his text, I can’t find a single sentence where he actually lies. Yes, he has a very clear, critical posture. In the first scene of Guardian, he advises to “first examine what this mystic’s intention is, and then follow right human sense.” Isn’t that legit? From his point of view, he is trying to help Strader. He wants to prove to him that his mechanism has a flaw that he doesn’t recognize. I don’t see any destructive motive there. I don’t see anything false there. The Office Manager is also critical of the Society. He is spiritually inclined, but he sees the direct application of spiritual insights to manufacturing and production as problematic. That’s also a legitimate view. Although he makes several attempts to contribute constructively, Hilarius and Strader pretty much run him over. “Thus, a spiritual misconception stands in hostile opposition to my intention.” (The Souls’ Awakening, Scene 1) Even if that were the case, it’s not a helpful approach to the problem. So there are still some passages I struggle with. I’m trying to take them out of a black-and-white mode and show each character’s positive qualities.
What was a beautiful moment, and what was a terrible moment?
Nothing on stage is terrible—I don’t know of any terrible moments. The only thing that would be “terrible” would be an accident. Fortunately, I’ve never experienced one, even though there are many dangers lurking on stage. I came to the Goetheanum in 1976 and began my speech training. After only four months, I played Strader in two scenes at an agricultural conference because Michael Blume, the main actor, was unable to attend. After a year of study, I had my first permanent role as Retardus. So I was fully integrated into the Mystery Dramas and was also the director’s right and left hand. In 1979, at Christmas, Paul Theodor Baravalle, director and actor of Benedictus, fell ill. His wife called me on the eve of the fourth Drama and told me that I would have to play Benedictus the next day. Of course, I knew the scenes because I always sat in on the rehearsals, but I didn’t know the text by heart. The next morning, Manfred Schmidt-Brabant, the first chairman at the time, stepped in front of the audience and said that Baravalle was ill and that a “student” would be replacing him. A disappointed murmur went through the hall. I was 23 years old. I had to give myself entirely to the moment. I was forced to simply be in the here and now and let these lines speak through me. It’s an experience I shall never forget.
Two moments were especially existential: in the “World Midnight” scene, Benedictus stood on a one-meter-wide platform about six meters [20 feet] above the ground. Standing up there, blinded by the spotlight and letting the words flow through me with maximum force, was like a kind of “initiation” for me. The other moment was in the Egyptian scene. As the High Priest, I had to step forward at the end, and a draft blew the script to another page. In that dramatic moment, it was impossible for me to look in the book and find the text. The text was also too long for the prompter to help me. Intuitively, I ran my hand over the book, and the right text was there again. These are unforgettable moments. People have asked me about this event time and again, even after more than forty years. All these experiences and adventures from almost fifty years of the Mystery Dramas spur me on to get closer to the core of the Dramas and to prepare the ground so that, when the ensemble and the audience are ready, they can go on.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Title image Mystery Dramas 2023, from left: Christian Jaschke, Andreas Heinrich. Photo: Georg Tedeschi
