Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 1980 - 18

Jochen Finke: Model for Torquato Tasso. Deutsches
Theater, Berlin, 1975.

Pieter Hein: Model for Die Bauern (The Peasants).
VolksbOhne, Berlin, 1976.

Gero Troike: Design for Leonce und Lena. VolksbOhne,
Berlin, 1978.

Dieckmann in a recent essay on design in the GDR calls, "the
emancipation of the stage designer within the structure of theatrical work. ", Thanks largely to these men and to Brecht, the
East German designer is no longer a decorator, but an integral
partner in the creation of a production. Along with this new responsibility has come, says Dieckmann, a "functionalization
and minimization of design";2 as the designer works more
closely with the director and actor, the set tends to be reduced to only those elements essential to the action and the
story.
These ideas, well known to students of Brecht, were at the
heart of much of the East German work exhibited in Prague.
Von Appen's design for Der Unbedeutende (The Insignificant)
and Jochen Finke's for Torquato Tasso both defined the
stage simply and linearly through flat painted forms and an absolute minimum of set pieces. In other work, the coolness and
whiteness often associated with Brecht was in evidence, particularly in Pieter Hein's design for Die Bauern (The Peasants), dominated by a large stair unit (reminiscent of the Jessnertreppen) , and Gero Troike's design for Leonce und Lena.
Integral to Brecht's design method, and an aspect usually
overlooked in the West, is the designer's "arrangement·
sketch," and most of the East German designs were documented by such drawings, varying in complexity from simple
sketches to colored drawings with captions. The arrangement
sketches illustrate the dialog that took place between the designer and director regarding how the stage should be used,

showing compositions for each important scene or moment in
the production. The arrangement sketch guarantees the designer a voice in staging decisions and also forces him to deal
constantly with the actor's presence and relationship to the
stage design. Consequently, the actor does not adapt himself
to a design created beforehand, but, as Dieckmann writes, the
designer "develops the scene from the figures and their actions. "3
Contrasting sharply with this more or less orthodox approach to design in the GDR is the work of Horst Sagert.
Though Sagert, too, was a student of Heinrich Kilger, he has
little in common with the majority of East German designers.
Where their designs seem often hard and gray, his are soft
and multicolored; theirs rational and precisely built, his haphazard and hand-sewn. He stands out as the artist in the
crowd, and is in fact a practicing graphic artist as well as
stage designer. Ironically, Sagert won the gold medal this year
as the best foreign designer for work that was never produced. The judges must have overlooked this, because it is
clearly against the rules to exhibit, much less win the gold
medal for designs that were not implemented. 4
Sagert worked at the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin from
1963 through 1972, producing in that time only seven designs. Since then, it is unclear whether he has designed anything at all in East Germany, where he lives as a freelance artist and designer. (There is a record, though, of a 1976 design
for A Midsummer Night's Dream in Cologne, West Germany.)

Theatre Design & Technology

USITIjSpring, 1980

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