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BIRTE GIESLER
surrogate motherhood as well as egg and embryo donation even became key
topics at the German Legal Association’s Annual Meeting in 1986.? However,
it was not until 1991 — after an altercation that went somewhat under the
radar amidst the public turbulences involving German reunification — that
German authorities passed the Act on Embryo Protection comprising legisla¬
tion (which in this case means prohibition) of surrogacy." Also, as a reaction
to the hype around the first case of non-genetic surrogacy, the long-established
Berlin Schiller Theater asked the primary representative of contemporary Ger¬
man playwrights, Rolf Hochhuth, to write a play on the topic. Hochhuth’s play
Unbefleckte Empfängnis. Ein Kreidekreis [Immaculate Conception. A Chalk
Circle] premiered on April 8, 1989 as the outcome of that assignment." As the
title and subtitle indicate, Hochhuth’s play is infused with references to the
Bible and focuses on the ethical, religio-ethical, and legal questions regarding
an IVF baby’s parentage. The title “Immaculate Conception,” of course, refers
to the story of Mary of Nazareth, to whom the angel Gabriel announces her
impending pregnancy by the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:5-25).'? The “chalk circle” in
the play’s subtitle refers to the Old Testament and the judgment of Solomon
on the dispute of two women arguing over a child (1Kings 3:16-28). Hoch¬
huth’s Unbefleckte Empfängnis lends itself to situating the new subgenre in
literary historiography, as the Solomonic judgment and the motif of the chalk
circle are prominent motifs in the history of German-language drama, e.g.,
in Bertolt Brecht’s Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis (The Caucasian Chalk Circle).
Hochhuth’s surrogacy play can be considered the earliest example and path¬
finder piece of “bioscience drama.” Since this innovative work, playwrights
have produced a range of bioscience dramas — for example, Iréne Bourquin:
Klone, erhebt euch! [Raise a protest, clones!], first produced in 1999, was the
first German-language drama to make reproductive cloning a subject matter,
using drama as a ritualized communications system reflecting the interrela¬
tion between ritual, theatricality, and concepts of individual and collective
2 Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin (ed.): Unbefleckte Empfängnis. Von Rolf Hochhuth.
Uraufführung. Schiller Theater, Vol. 82, season 1988/89, unpaginated.
On the German legal situation concerning surrogacy see Sandra Hotz: Selbstbestimmung im
Vertragsrecht, Bern, Stämpfli, 2017, 346-360.
4 Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin (ed.): Unbefleckte Empfängnis. See also Rolf Hochhuth:
Unbefleckte Empfängnis. Ein Kreidekreis, Reinbek bei Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1988. Hochhuth’s
play on surrogacy is one of the rare cases where a drama is published as a book prior to its
release on stage, which also strongly hints at the topicality of the play.
For a critical discussion of Pope Pius 1X’s dogma of the immaculate conception from a protes¬
tant theological perspective, see Gerd Liidemann: Jungfrauengeburt? Die wirkliche Geschichte
von Maria und ihrem Sohn Jesus, Stuttgart, Radius, 1997.
16 Bertolt Brecht: Der kaukasische Kreidekreis [1949, 1954], in W. Hecht - J. Knopf — W. Mit¬
tenzwei - K.-D. Müller (eds.): Bertolt Brecht, Werke. Große kommentierte Berliner und Frank¬
furter Ausgabe, Frankfurt a. M., Suhrkamp, 1992, 7-191; Bertolt Brecht: The Caucasian Chalk
Circle, trans. Eric Bentley, Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press, 1999.
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