NEHER, CASPAR

(1897-1962)

Designer. Neher is best remembered as a member ofBertoltBrecht's "inner circle," a close collaborator who participated in several of the triumphs and disappointments in the Brecht portfolio. Neher and Brecht almost literally grew up together, attending the same school in Augsburg. They corresponded throughout World War I, when Neher was in the trenches with an infantry division; he was severely wounded and nearly killed in 1917, but later was commissioned an officer and awarded the Iron Cross for bravery. By the time Neher designedIm Dickicht der Städte(In the Jungle of Cities) for Brecht at theMunichResidenz Theater in 1923, he had already established himself inBerlinwithJürgenFehling's production ofHeinrich vonKleist'sKäthchen von Heilbronn(Kathy of Heilbronn) at the Berlin State Theater.

In early 1924 Neher returned to Munich to design Brecht'sEdward IIat the Kammerspiele, which Brecht himself directed. Later the same yearMax Reinhardthired Neher as a resident designer at theDeutsches Theaterand at the same time hired both Brecht andCarl Zuckmayeras dramaturgs. In 1925 Neher designed sets and costumes forErichEngel's production of Brecht'sCoriolanusat the Lessing Theater. In 1926 he designed the world premiere ofMann ist Mann(A Man's a Man) in Darmstadt, followed by three other productions of the play, the most important of which took place at the Berlin State Theater withPeter Lorrein 1931. The most significant design he executed for Brecht before the Nazi takeover was forDie Dreigroschenoper(The Threepenny Opera) in 1928, followed byHappy Endthe following year. Neher both directed and designedAufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny(The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) for its Berlin premiere in 1931.

During the Third Reich, Neher worked in Frankfurt am Main with Walter Felsenstein and in Berlin withHeinz Hilpert, a collaboration which had begun at the Volksbühne in 1932.From 1933 to 1944 Neher designed several Hilpert productions, mostlyWilliam Shakespeareand Kleist, both in Berlin and inViennaat the Theater in der Josephstadt. His most significant design for Hilpert, however, came after the war with the world premiere of Zuckmayer'sDes Teufels General(The Devil's General) at the Zurich Schauspielhaus.

Neher resumed designing Brecht's works in the postwar period withThe Threepenny Operain 1948 at the Munich Kammerspiele. Subsequent designs with Brecht includedHerr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti(Mr. Puntila and His Servant Matti, 1949),Die Mutter(The Mother, 1950),Der Hofmeister(The Tutor, 1950), andDie Verurteilung des Lukullus(The Trial of Lucullus, 1951). Neher quit working in East Berlin in 1952, largely due to political forces beyond his control. Late in 1952 Neher asked Brecht for his understanding, but communications between the long-time friends stopped. In the following years, Neher worked in West Berlin, at the Salzburg Festival, and in England, even while theBerliner Ensembledid a residence at the Palace Theater in London, absent any of Neher's design work in the productions staged there.

After Brecht's death in 1956 there was a scramble for royalties on several collaborative efforts, but Neher in most cases was excluded from financial considerations. A November production ofDie Tage der Kommune(Days of the Commune), staged byBenno Besson, used Neher's designs without his permission. In 1957, Engel stagedDas Leben des Galilei(The Life of Galileo) with Neher's designs and participation, but Neher by that time remained focused on activities in Salzburg and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he designed Alban Berg'sWozzeckand Giuseppe Verdi'sMacbeth. In 1959,Gustaf Gründgenspremiered Brecht'sDie Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe(St. Joan of the Stockyards) at theHamburgDeutsches Schauspielhaus with Neher's design, 30 years after Neher and Brecht had originally discussed and planned the project.

Neher had a significant impact on design in the postwar period. He embraced a self-referentiality in design that supplanted illusionism. He had an ability, cultivated in his collaborations with Brecht, to see a playwright's text in concrete terms, "then use his controlled sensitivity to line and color [and] set them down . . . as supplements to the words in the script" (John Willett,Caspar Neher:Brecht's Designer[London: Methuen, 1986], 31). Yet Neher was never so rational in his designs as to make spectacle didactic. Though he employed realistic touches, his emphasis was on the theatrical and the exploitation of scenic stratagems. Frequently the screens, lighting, or abstract details he provided were functional, but they also provided the proper mood or atmosphere required in the scene.