MULLER STAGED Der Lohndrücker at the Deutsches Theater in a climate of widespread disappointment within the GDR as its leading party appeared to refuse to acknowledge the need to reform and indeed democratize its political machinery. This multifaceted and multilayered production contained a wealth of material, including texts by Muller, music by Luigi Nono and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and short films by Peter Voigt. During its run of seventy-two performances from 29 January 1988 to 17 September 1991, Der Lohndrücker spanned a period of mass disillusionment with the political structures of the GDR that eventually resulted in the dissolution of socialist society in both the GDR and Eastern Europe as a whole. It is therefore no surprise that the question of democracy and the participation of ordinary East Germans in the governing of their so-called Arbeiter- und Bauernstaat (workers’ and peasants’ state) lies at the heart of Muller's production of this work. In its combination with Der Horatier and Kentauren, Der Lohndrücker scrutinized not only the history of the GDR but also the present and future of a socialist state under SED rule. Muller's concerns for democracy within the GDR were situated within a production that attempted to create a performance in two senses already identified to be crucial to Muller's understanding of the form and function of a democratic theater: first and foremost, it set out to produce the Trennung der Elemente (BFA, 24:79, emphasis in the original; separation of the elements, BT, 65) integral to Brecht's epic theater; and it aimed to engage its audience members with material that would generate varying interpretations from them in an attempt to render the audience democratic. While opening space for criticism of the official SED version of GDR history, Muller's production still, however, refuses to damn the project of building socialism or to teach its audience where the state's failures lie. By the late 1980s Muller's treatment of GDR history exposes a mythological quality to the construction of East German historical consciousness, and Der Lohndrücker therefore sets out to provide an archaeological excavation of it.