Giorgio Strehler's Faust Project: Signification and Reception Strategies
In the ten years between 1982, when Giorgio Strehler announced his intention to stage both parts of Goethe's Faust over six evenings, and the eventual two-evening performance amidst a ‘Faust Festival’ in 1992, the Faust project underwent a series of modifications and manifestations, in parallel with the struggle to create the Teatro Grande in Milan as a new house for the Piccolo. The progress and realization of the project are here charted by Christopher Balme, who not only describes the work processes involved, but how these became enmeshed both in the politics of Strehler's relations with the city of Milan, and with his own identification, as actor of Faust as well as director of the project, with the role of the hubristic artist, in quest of a climax to a controversial career. Christopher Balme is a lecturer in theatre studies at the University of Munich's Instituttür Theaterwissenschaft. He has published on modern German theatre, theatre theory, and post-colonial drama and theatre. He has previously held posts at the University of Würzburg, and was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in Theatre Studies at Munich University. He has also been a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Theatre and Film at Victoria University in New Zealand.