Benno Besson
Benno Besson (* November 4, 1922 in Yverdon, † 23 February 2006 in Berlin; actually René Benjamin Besson ) was a Swiss actor, director and theater director.
Life
Switzerland
Besson was the son of a teacher and his wife in French-speaking Switzerland. He took acting lessons in 1942 in Lyon and was since 1943 Director employees at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. 1942 to 1946 he studied Romance languages and English in Zurich and Neuchatel. Until 1949 he worked as a translator and took acting lessons at the Théâtre Jean- Marie Serreau in Paris. In the French occupation zone of Germany, he led on Bertolt Brecht The Exception and the Rule, as well as Molière pieces.
GDR
In 1947 he met Brecht in Zurich. In 1949 he moved to Berlin at whose suggestion, worked until 1958 as an actor, assistant director and director at the Berliner Ensemble. Under Brecht, he enjoyed great freedom, staged Molière's Don Juan with him in 1954. After clashes with Helene Weigel he separated from the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm and went in 1962 as chief director of the German theater. There he enjoyed great success with the Aristophanes peace in the paraphrase of Peter Hacks, the dictatorship parable The Dragon by Yevgeny Black, with Moritz Tassow of Peter Hacks and Oedipus Tyrant of Sophocles.
In 1969 he was the artistic director and top from 1974 director of the Volksbühne Berlin. There he staged theater festivals, in which the actor appeared both on stage and in the foyer and courtyard and dedicated young directors such as Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff.
Europe
There were in 1977 because of its Schedule design (in particular the inclusion of works by Heiner Müller) conflicts with the Ministry of Culture. He also was having marital problems with his then wife, Ursula Karusseit. 1978 Besson went to Paris. He stressed in retrospect, that he had not left the country for political reasons. In France he would rather devote his repressed mother tongue, because by the work of the German references were lost to his past and youth. He began working as a freelance director at theaters in Austria (Burgtheater ), Switzerland, France and at the Schiller Theater in West Berlin. From 1982 to 1989 he was head of the Geneva Comédie and began with a series of bilingual productions in German and French. In 1995 he staged at the Schauspielhaus Zurich.
Besson was awarded the 1982 Joseph Kainz Medal of the City of Vienna ( for the new Menoza at the Burgtheater ) and 1994 Molière Theatre Prize of the city of Paris. According to him, the Théâtre Benno Besson is named in his birthplace of Yverdon. He was accepted into the circle of the French Legion of Honour in 2002.
Most recently, he worked on a production of Sophocles' Oedipus tyrant at the Comédie Française in Paris. He died aged 83 after a short illness in a Berlin hospital. Benno Besson was given a burial at sea.
Family
Besson was married to actress Sabine valley creek and is the father of actress Catherine Bach valley. From his marriage with Ursula Karusseit the actor Pierre Besson comes. He is also the father of four other children, including the director Philippe Besson.
Productions
- Don Juan, or the Stone Guest ( Molière ) Release May 25, 1952, People's Theatre in Rostock
- The Trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen in 1431 (A. Seghers, Brecht, B. Besson ) Release November 23, 1952, the Berliner Ensemble
- Volpone or the Fox ( Ben Jonson ) Release September 2, 1953, Scala Vienna
- Don Juan by Molière / Brecht, the Berliner Ensemble, Premiere March 19, 1954
- Drums and trumpets of Farquhar / Brecht, the Berliner Ensemble, September 19, 1955
- The Good Person of Szechwan ( Brecht), January 6, 1956 People's Theatre in Rostock
- The Days of the Commune ( Brecht), November 17, 1956 Municipal Theatre Karl- Marx-Stadt
- The Good Person of Szechwan ( Brecht), October 5, 1957 Berliner Ensemble
- Man's a Man ( Brecht), June 18, 1958 People's Theatre in Rostock
- The Threepenny Opera ( Brecht ), 10th May 1959, the People's Theatre in Rostock
- The two noble Gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare), September 1, 1959, Frankfurt aM
- The Dutch Bride of Erwin Strittmatter, Deutsches Theater, 1960
- Saint Joan of the Stockyards ( Brecht), May 27, 1961 Württ. Staatstheater Stuttgart
- Saint Joan of the Stockyards ( Brecht), December 10, 1961 People's Theatre in Rostock
- Sainte Jeannne of Abbatoirs ( Saint Joan of the Stockyards - Brecht), March 8, 1962 Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne
- The Peace of Aristophanes / Hacks, Deutsches Theater Berlin, October 14, 1962
- The two noble Gentlemen of Verona (Shakespeare) 27 March 1963 German Theatre in Berlin
- Tartuffe by Molière, Deutsches Theater, March 27, 1963
- Don Giovanni ( Don Juan, or ... ), March 1, 1964 Teatro Bellini, Palermo
- The beautiful Helen of Offenbach / Hacks, Deutsches Theater, November 6, 1964
- The Dragon by Yevgeny Schwarz, Deutsches Theater March 21, 1965
- Moritz Tassow by Peter Hacks, Volksbühne Berlin, 5 Oktober1965
- Oedipus Tyrant of Sophocles / Hölderlin / Heiner Müller, Deutsches Theater January 31, 1967
- A lorbass by Horst Salomon, October 12, 1967, Deutsches Theater
- The doctor in spite of himself by Molière, Volksbühne 1971
- As You Like It by Shakespeare, Volksbühne 1975
- The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, Volksbühne 1978 ( scenery, costumes Ezio Toffolutti )
- The new Menoza by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Burgtheater 1982 ( scenery, costumes Ezio Toffolutti; Kurt Sowinetz, Annemarie Düringer, Robert Meyer, Romuald Pekny, Elisabeth Orth and others)
- Don Juan by Molière, German version of Besson and Heiner Müller, Burgtheater 1986 ( scenery, costumes Ezio Toffolutti; Karlheinz Hackl, Kurt Sowinetz, Brigitta Furgler, Oliver Stern, Robert Meyer, and others)
- Rabbit Rabbit by Coline Serreau, Schiller Theatre, October 2, 1992
- Io ( I - is every man for himself ) by Eugène Labiche and Edouard Martin, Teatro di Genova / Teatro della Corte, March 13, 1996 ( set design / costumes: Jean Marc Stehlé )
- Les poubelles boys avec L' ecole des maris ( School of men) by Molière, Théâtre Vidy -Lausanne, May 3, 1997 ( Stage / Costume Design: Jean Marc Stehlé )
- Le roi cerf ( König Hirsch ) by Carlo Gozzi, Théâtre d' Orléan, co- CADO and Comédie de Genève, 1st October 1997 ( Stage / Costume Design: Jean Marc Stehlé )
- Saint Joan of the Stockyards by Brecht, Schauspielhaus Zurich, February 28, 1998
Filmography
Writings
- Years with Brecht. Edited by Christa Neubert - Herwig. Theater culture -Verlag, Willisau 1990, ISBN 3-908145-17-1.
- Theater games in eight countries. Texts - Documents - calls. Edited by Christa Neubert - Herwig, Alexander -Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89581-025-8.
- Jouer en apprenant le monde. En guise de lettre ouverte. ( Selection of his texts in French), translated by Henri Cornaz. Ed. de la Thièle Yverdon, Yverdon- les- Bains 1998, ISBN 2-8283-0036-6.