I had the most magical experience last night. It started at 20:00 Uhr (8pm) Almost missed it because of the rain. But... I had paid €12.00 for the ticket on Thursday, after I had seen the advertisement somewhere around town, and so I put the beanie on my head, wrapped the warm scarf around my neck, packed my purse into the plastic bag, and grabbed my bandaged umbrella.
"SpazierTheater" - going for a walk theatre- it said. And I was curious. Somebody would walk me and others, for an hour and a half, through Weimar, in 5 acts (?) and show me all the houses Goethe had lived in.
"Meet at Herderplatz, in front of Sächsischer Hof."
Herderplatz is torn up, friendly signs point at a restaurant where one gets a special discount for renovation related difficulties. A cup of coffee and a piece of cake for €2.50, indeed a bargain. Weimar is in a continuous state of Umbau; I suppose traffic is becoming a nightmare and ancient buildings and streets are in need of repair to stay viable.
Here then, at the Herder church side of the restaurant, at ten minutes to eight, after sitting and chatting in the Sächsischer Hof outdoor area for a while, I find a man with a modified bicycle. He opens what might once have been a postal carrier's leather bag and introduces himself as Gottfried Böttner, administrator of postal affairs under Carl August from 1804 to 1827. He checks our tickets, supplies us with tags to be worn on our coats, there are about 20 of us, and at the stroke of eight he begins his magical, and so wonderfully entertaining "play in five acts."
After that it was pure magic. Herr Böttner, the postal servant, read letters from you to friends and from friends to you. He displayed cut outs of you and Frau von Stein, explained relationships as we traveled from house to house, showed you and your friend Carl August riding, read an excerpt from the Roman Elegies and other poems, imitated you in Italy by wearing a floppy hat, and, toward the end of his presentation, in front of your house at the Frauenplan, in the dim evening light, he talked about your death.
When he had finished we all clapped very hard and for a long time. I told him that this was the most impressive and most heart-felt Goethe presentation I had seen. And it is true, even the theatre pieces I had seen during my last Weimar trip did not come near the emotional impact of this one man show with simple yet effective props that made you come alive.
As I walked away I felt that, deep in the interior of your house, or maybe at the edge of the town, in the garden house, you paced the floor, eager to engage me in a conversation. I didn't sleep for hours last night, thinking about the bicycle, the simple stage, the costume, the letters, and the man who called himself Gottfried Böttner. I wished I could see him, next week,as your gardener, Ferdinand Herzog, walking through The Park on the Ilm, talking about the trees and the bushes and flowers you planted and the words you spoke about your time there.
This morning I read that he is the man behind the "Figurentheater" in Weimar and that he will perform Herr Schiller's Wilhelm Tell at the local library on the day I return home.
Location:Weimar
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