He’ll Turn 90 Directing ‘Woyzeck’

“It took a long time, but I fell in love with the play,” said Martin Magner of Georg Buchner’s “Woyzeck” which opens this weekend, with a new translation by Carl R. Mueller, at the Harman Avenue Theatre in Hollywood. “I read it when I was a young man, but I’ve never directed it,” added the German-born director, who’ll turn 90 tomorrow. “I think it needs a certain maturity. Perhaps I’m approaching it.”

Written in 1836, Buchner’s work--which Magner points to as a predecessor of Wedekind’s, Pinter’s and Genet’s--has often found itself the subject of contemporary stagings. “It has so much to say to us today,” the director said. “Somehow you don’t feel it’s been written many years ago. It is really the beginning of Expressionism in the world: an electrifying play, filled with progressiveness, humanity and compassion. It stands for the rights of man.”

But, for his 90th birthday, wouldn’t Magner rather do something a bit more ... festive? “There’s festivity in a good catharsis--a cleansing of the mind,” he said lightly. Magner, recipient of the 1989 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award, added: “I wanted to do something that means something, that has gravity. I’ve done so much fluff in my life.”