ИСТИНА

True handwriting of any theatre director cannot actually be decoded by watching the finished product, the performance itself, but only during the rehearsal process. This world behind the scenes is usually off-limits to outsiders, especially if a well-known and successful director conducts rehearsals at a major theatre. One of the most influential and distinguished contemporary directors, Thomas Ostermeier, is a typical example of those theatre makers who do not normally admit observers to their rehearsals. At least three times, however, he made an exception: twice for academical reasons and once for a film crew shooting a documentary about his rehearsing method “Storytelling” for the French channel ARTE. I was myself one of the academics who had access to the hidden world of Ostermeier’s theatre as a participant observer when I was collecting material for my dissertation. Professor of European Theatre Peter M. Boenisch worked with Ostermeier in 2015 and together they co-edited a volume about the oeuvre of “the most internationally recognized German director of the present”. As a participant observer of Ostermeier’s rehearsals of Death in Venice focusing particularly on his rehearsing method and as a researcher of Thomas Ostermeier’s directorial work, I will portrait him in my paper as a creator of his own methodical approach to directing, bearing Brechtian, Stanislavskian, and Meyerholdian features. The “Storytelling” method “does not revolve around the character, but introduces elements of personal experience from the actor’s real life”. This method is accurately illustrated in the ARTE documentary that shows Ostermeier rehearsing Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at Théâtre Vidy in the Swiss city of Lausanne. In my paper I will present my personal observation experience alongside examples from the documentary.