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Date Submitted: 03/10/2013 06:14 AM
THE HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF HAMLETMACHINE AND HEINER MULLER
Hamletmachine was written by Heiner Muller. Who is Heiner Muller? Heiner Muller was born in January 9, 1929 in Germany and died in December 30, 1995. Heiner Müller is the most important European dramatists, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as “the theater’s greatest living poet” since Samuel Beckett, Muller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht. His “enigmatic, fragmentary pieces” are significant contribution to postmodern theatre. What is postmodern theatre? Postmodern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world theatre, coming as it does of the postmodern philosophy that originated in Europe in the 1960s. Postmodern theatre emerged as a reaction against modernist theatre. Muller was also banned from the Writer’s Association. Many of his best-known plays from this period were premiered in the west; this includes Germania Death in Berlin which was performed in 1978.
During the last five years of his life, Muller continued to live in Berlin and work all over Germany and Europe, mostly directing productions of his own works. He wrote few new dramatic texts in this time though like Brecht, he did produce much poetry in his final years. Muller died in Berlin because of throat cancer in 1995. Muller was also buried at Berlin;s famous Dorotheenstadt cemetery, where the final resting place for some of Germany’s most important artists and philosophers such as Bertolt Brecht, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and many more. Muller’s grave was designed by his last stage designer, Mark Lammert.
Moreover, over a decade after his death, Muller continues to have an enormous influence on European playwriting, dramaturgy and performance. He has also paved the way for a new generation of directors, playwrights and dramaturges who regard themselves as “sampler”.
Hamletmachine was one of the most celebrated performance “texts” of the 1970s and 1980s and...