Philoktet

Philoktet, written in 1958/1964 and premiered in 1968 at the Munich Residenztheater, is one of the most well-known and important plays by the author. This edition allows for a comparison with the original text that Heiner Müller (1929-1995) responded to: Sophocles' Philoktet, which premiered in 409 BC in Athens. Both the Greek and the German versions of the tragic life of Philoktet clearly show that the language is the partner of death. One hears it as a dark musical surge in the epic from which the ensemble of great Greek tragedies emerges. It can also be heard, not only in his Philoktet, but in the ensemble of Müller’s plays. When it is not a comedy, theater is an act of killing - like bullfighting. The instrument, the tool of this killing, is the word. This power is nowhere more radical, more clinical than in these two works.