“Kaspar Hauser - a
Mystery” - Notes to the production
The destiny of Kaspar Hauser (1812-1833) constitutes a “mystery”
in both the modern and ancient senses of the word. Here is a person who
was imprisoned at age three, isolated from all human contact until he
was fifteen, and mortally stabbed by an unknown assailant at twenty-one.
We can ask, first, the questions central to a modern mystery novel: Who
was the culprit and what was the motive? These questions have been much
debated since the prominent jurist Anselm von Feuerbach asserted, already
in Kaspar's lifetime, that the boy was the legitimate heir to the throne
of Baden and had been removed to further the ambitions of a rival house.
Whoever Kaspar Hauser's enemies were, they evidently feared the potency
of his being, for they did not simply kill him at once, but conspired
to imprison his spirit in a physical body while depriving him of the chance
to develop normally.
Kaspar Hauser was a victim of violence, cruelty and injustice; his greatness,
however, lies not only in what he suffered but in what he was. The open-hearted
resilience and sensitivity to nature which he manifested upon his release
from prison have made him a symbol of all that is redemptive in childhood.
What was the source of the radiance that made him “the Child of Europe”
in the popular imagination of his time? What lies behind his profoundly
moving deathbed utterance, “No one has done me any harm”? What
are we to make of the dream he recorded in which a shining being told
him, “It is for the best if you leave the earth before having lived
on it long”?
Such questions point to the ancient meaning of “mystery”: a
rite of initiation involving a process of death and rebirth, and, consequently,
the fertilisation of earthly life by illuminations drawn from the spiritual
realms which are our home before birth and after death. It is obvious
that Kaspar Hauser, robbed of family, childhood, life tasks and finally
life itself, sacrificed much. But what was gained? What rebirth was made
possible by his suffering and death? The Austrian seer Rudolf Steiner
(1861-1925) offered the perspective:
“If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died in the way he did, the contact
between earth and the spiritual world would have been completely severed.”
The present production by the English Eurythmy Theatre is concerned not
only with Kaspar Hauser's life, but also with his spiritual legacy, which
has outlasted decades of materialism and two world wars, which his influence
from the throne of Baden might have helped to prevent. The working title
of the project was “The Child and the Beast”. The original conception
was to place the image of a pure humanity exemplified by Kaspar Hauser
alongside the darker picture of humanity evident in the Holocaust, and
to create a theatre event which weaves these opposites meaningfully together.
To bring such vast themes into a coherent, moving, artistically detailed
performance has required the creativity, patience, trust, and skill of
the whole cast of actors, eurythmists, designers and musicians as well
as a writer and director. The process of bringing the play to earth began
with research. Among the many accounts of the survivors of the Holocaust
we read, the books shedding light on Kaspar Hauser, Jacob Wassermann s
novel “Kaspar Hauser: The Enigma of a Century”, was probably
the most significant for our project. It is a full, psychologically penetrating
and beautifully written life story, which gave us a vivid picture of Kaspar
with which to work.
The rehearsals themselves began with ensemble exercises, gymnastics, play
and improvisation, which brought the performers together out of their
varied backgrounds in mime, speech formation, eurythmy, acting and music.
Different people offered sketches of scenes, which were worked and re-worked
by the Director and the company. Questions about the style and content
of what we were attempting, and even whether it was possible, were carried
through the weeks of rehearsal. Slowly the direction and structure of
the whole emerged.
As witness and writer, I enjoyed many moments of discovery during rehearsals.
Some of the most potent of these suggested that Kaspar Hauser has a special
connection to the mysteries of birth. This possibly, in turn, suggested
a way to link Kaspar's story to that of our century. We could follow,
through the simplest of vignettes, how a soldier steeped in guilt is forced
to face the loss of his own humanity as his wife prepares to bring a child
into the world. The context for this drama within the drama is given in
three choruses. These offer small glimpses into the brutality of the Holocaust,
out of which the soldier is emerging, and they also present some of the
obstacles which a modern consciousness has to overcome in order to understand
a being of Kaspar Hauser's innocence. The choruses, too, have their development
through the play, and near the end the contemporary voice begins to identify
with Kaspar's own primary question: what is my true origin?
To know where we come from is an enormous step toward knowing who we are
as individuals and as members of humanity. We stand at the threshold of
a new millennium , confronted with the question “What does it mean
to be human?” Kaspar Hauser is among the beacons showing a way toward
a renewal of what is best in the indestructible human heart.
Martin Schmandt,All Soul s Day, 1997
1. Karl Heyer, quoted in Peter Tradowsky. Kaspar Hauser
oder das Ringen um den Geist. Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag
am Goetheanum, Dornach 1980.
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