Every year, for the past nineteen years, der Hamburger Jedermann play by Michael Batz is produced outside of the Zoll Museum in the Speicherstadt in Hamburg. My second weekend here, my host family took me to Hamburg for the first time to see the classic play in the famous Speicherstadt. Being unsure of what either Jedermann or the Speicherstadt was, I rode along quietly in the back seat and pondered on what was to come. Turns out I could not have even begun to imagine either. I am going to try to explain it all; first the Speicherstadt, then Jedermann, then my night.
The Speicherstadt, literally meaning "storage city", is the old warehouse district along the Hamburger Haffen. It is built on a wooden support system and is the largest warehouse district with this unique feature. The architect, Andreas Meyer, built all of the storage blocks out of red brick in a neogothic style. A canal system runs between the 1.5 km long rows of building allowing ships easy access to them. The Speicherstadt had a rough time in WWII but after the war, all rebuilding projects were done in the original style of the district. Now, the Speicherstadt is not completely used for storage but also houses the Hamburger Dungeon, a bunch of Museums, office complexes, a parking garage, (in the near future) a hotel, the Miniatur Wunderland and, of course, the Jedermann. Boat trips through the canals of the Speicherstadt are also a common tourist attraction.
The most famous production of Jedermann has taken place in Salzburg every year in front of the Salzburger Dom since 1920. Although the 92 (soon to be 93 later this week) showings in Salzburg and 19 showings in Hamburg may seem impressive, the text from which the play is based comes from a completely different era. Jedermann is actually based of a 15-century English morality story called The Sumonyng of Everyman. This allegorical piece (originally adapted by Hugo von Hofmannsthal) follows the journey of the main character, Jedermann (literally meaning "every man"), through realizing mortality, to the end of his life and judgement day. You can read about the original yourself if you want, I'm just going to talk about Hamburg's.
The play in Hamburg is seriocomedy, employing some comedic elements in the overall dark, morbid play. Along with the original subject matter, each year, a playwright mixes in humor or satire about current events, life in Hamburg or new wordplay to liven up the work. In the show I saw Jedermann is a successful man, with wealth, power, and love and after Death tells the Devil that Jedermann is going to die soon, the Devil is determined to acquire his soul. When the Devil meets Jedermann, the Devil offers Jedermann the whole Speicherstadt for just his soul. Shocked that the Devil wants no money for the land, Jedermann quickly agrees and gladly signs away his soul. However as death starts to take Jedermann, the Devil returns and demands his soul. Jedermann scoffs is incredulous at the Devil's glee in a soul so the Devil tells him to try to live without a soul. Jedermann finds, to his surprise, that he can't feel. He can see and act but he feels nothing. As Jedermann is struck with the weight of a soul he never knew he had, he begins to realize his mortality. Alone and powerless, Jedermann looks for friends to accompany him on the road to death. To his despair, all of the things he believes he can take with abandon him. He looks for comfort in material goods, rules, physical love, and family but they all fail him. Even Knowledge must leave him as he leaves the physical world. All he has left at the end of his life are Good Deeds. They stand by him as Death takes his hand and leads him off stage.
There was some crazy German allegory at the end there so I apologize for the rough summary at the end but I hit the high points and that's what I got out of it all. What is especially interesting about the Hamburg production is that each year the play is different and chock-full of Hamburger inside jokes (only some of which I understood). In Hamburg, they take an old text and transpose and reapply it to modern day and modern scenarios. It illustrates the timeless struggle to accept mortality and morality -- classic, man versus temptation and physical versus spiritual. Finally, the allegory becomes all too real as the actors and patrons become normal people again and walk through the old Speicherstadt (whether they bother to notice), across one of the old bridges (and wave to a passing tour boat) and think to themselves about death, mortality (probably not theirs) or maybe, about how much cleverer they are than their neighbor because they got every ounce of allegory that Michael Bratz walked across the stage.
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