Conny Hannes Meyer

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Conny Hannes Meyer (born June 18, 1931 ) is an Austrian director and writer .

youth

Conny Hannes Meyer was born in 1931 as the son of a Jewish business traveler and spent his early childhood in Salzburg , Berlin and Steyr . He was baptized Protestant and later Catholic again in the children's home , where he was taken when compulsory schooling began .

From the age of 7 he was interned in Gießhübl , later in a collection center of the NSV for "racially inferior" children in Rückertgasse in Vienna's 16th district (Ottakring), which was taken over by the SS . From there, according to his memoirs published in 2005, he was deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1942. After the Second World War , he trained as a typesetter . His first marriage was to the actress Ilse Scheer .

Theater founder and director

In April 1955 Conny Hannes Meyer founded the association “Neue Österreichische Tribüne” with Erwin Pikl and Erich Pateisky, which from May 1st 1955 rented a cellar in Vienna's 9th district, Liechtensteinstrasse 132. Under the name Experiment - Small Stage at Liechtenwerd , the first official event - a poetry reading - took place on February 2, 1956, and the first premiere on June 21, 1956.

In 1958 Meyer left the experiment and founded the theater ensemble Die Komödianten , which began regular theater operations in the Theater am Börseplatz in 1963 and soon became a center of avant-garde theater on the Viennese theater scene. Here staged Meyer 1970 The Exception and the Rule , one of the doctrines of Bertolt Brecht . "The highlight in 1968 was the Theater am Börseplatz with Conny Hannes Meyer, that was very important for us back then, everyone went there," recalls the Viennese director Hubsi Kramar .

In 1974 the ensemble moved to the new theater in the Künstlerhaus . In the spring of 1980 there was a comedy crisis when Mayer canceled ten of his sixteen annual contracts among his actors, which resulted in the intervention of the Vienna City Councilor for Culture, Helmut Zilk (1927–2008). The theater in the Künstlerhaus was closed in 1985 (and reopened in 1987 as a venue for independent theater ). Since then Meyer has worked as a freelance director and writer.

In 1992 he initiated the “theater work in the Burgenland cultural centers”. He also went on numerous lecture tours on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs .

He began directing in 1956 at the Theater Experiment am Liechtenwerd with Jura Soyfer's “Vineta” and “Columbus”. He created around 180 productions of his own and third-party plays for numerous stages in Austria and abroad, for example for the Free Volksbühne Berlin Wedding Day by William MacIlwraith (1970), for the Tübingen State Theater (LTT) Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1974), for the National Theater Mannheim (Small House) by Ben Jonson Volpone (1976) and for the Nuremberg theater by Friedrich Dürrenmatt Die Physiker (1982). In Vienna he staged Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee at the Akademietheater (1972), Ödön von Horváth 's Italian Night at the Burgtheater (1978) and - in his own translation from the original Silesian text into Viennese - Gerhart Hauptmann's Rose Bernd at the Volkstheater (1979).

The focus of his schedule was on socially critical, contemporary historical topics, following the example of his youth, Bertolt Brecht, who always had a special place in his schedule. For example, he staged its dramas Die Heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe (1973) and The Good Man of Sezuan (1978) for the Tübingen State Theater (LTT ).

author

Conny Hannes Meyer and his ensemble developed an independent staging and playing style and performed a number of his own dramas, which - like his repertoire - reflect his politically and socially committed attitude.

In 2005 he published his autobiography , in which he reported on his internment in Mauthausen concentration camp . The credibility of the narrative, backed up by only a few verifiable information, some of which contradict historical facts, was questioned by critics and interpreted as Wilkomirski syndrome . He expressed doubts about his internment in an interview.

Since 2006 he has been reading with his wife Barbara Huemer in the Vienna "Library of Unread Books", which Julius Deutschbauer runs in a room at Herklotzgasse 21 in the 15th district of Vienna.

Honors

  • In 1970 Conny Hannes Meyer was awarded the Kainz Medal for directing Brecht's The Exception and the Rule (Theater am Börseplatz).
  • Beth Ha Chajim or Albertinaplatz , broadcast as a radio play on ORF, received the 1993 radio play prize (2nd place).
  • In December 2010 he was awarded the Johann Nestroy Medal of Honor by the International Nestroy Society.
  • In 2011 he received the Golden Medal of Merit of the State of Vienna

Works

Poetry

  • The mouth of sloes bitter. Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1960 (new edition Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra 2011, ISBN 978-3-902416-99-5 )
  • Away from the miracles. Pictures by Franz Stadlmann . Verlag für Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1963 (new edition, publ. Library of the Province, Weitra 2011, ISBN 978-3-902416-98-8 )
  • Farewell. Seventeen syllables. Verl. Library d. Province, Weitra 2011, ISBN 978-3-901862-04-5

Drama

  • The pompous fever. Premiere Vienna, former Theater am Kärntnertor, 1962
  • Hamlet in Mauthausen. 14 scenarios with 83 scenes, extended 2nd version 1985. Premiere Vienna, Theater am Börseplatz, 1963
  • The Silesian nightingale. Scenario from the life of a dreaded poet using original texts by Friederike Kempner . Premiere Vienna, Theater am Börseplatz, 1964
  • Bluebeard. Montage and processing of fragments by Georg Trakl . Premiere Vienna, Theater am Börseplatz, 1964
  • The thing about Sleeping Beauty. A fairy tale game in seven pictures. Premiere Vienna, Theater am Börseplatz, 1970
  • Tonight Lola Blau. (For Topsy Küppers .) A play by Georg Kreisler . Premiere Vienna, Kleines Theater im Konzerthaus, 1971
  • From the mattress tomb. Using original texts by the poet Heinrich Heine. Premiere Vienna, Theater am Börseplatz, 1973
  • Nightmare a life. Poetic montage from original texts by Franz Grillparzer . On the emergence of Austrian resignation along with a satirical tribute to the famous citizen for exemplary resignation. UA Vienna, Theater im Künstlerhaus, 1979
  • Jacobins loyal to the emperor. Epic historical drama with the collaboration of Otto Lakmaier. Premiere Vienna, Theater im Künstlerhaus, 1979 (print version: Sessler, Vienna / Munich 1979)
  • Karl is sick. Scenes from the First Republic. Premiere Vienna, Theater im Künstlerhaus, 1984 (print version: Sessler, Vienna / Munich 1986)
  • Angelo Soliman or The Black Acquaintance. Premiere Vienna, Theater im Künstlerhaus, 1984 (print version: Sessler, Vienna / Munich 1983)
  • On the go with Till. A sequence of scenes in 17 histories. Commissioned work for the Theater der Jugend, UA Vienna, Renaissancetheater 1989
  • Beth Ha Chajim or Albertinaplatz. Scenes from Albertinaplatz in the Austrian city of Vienna, radio play, 1993 (print version: Verl. Bibliothek d. Provinz, Weitra 2011, ISBN 978-3-902416-52-0 )
  • The column of blood , based on a manuscript by Soma Morgenstern , UA Synagoge in Baden near Vienna, 1999
  • Years of silence or the Fladnitzer. Radio play, ORF Vienna

Others

  • Jakob Tauber's long letter. Jungbrunnen publishing house, Vienna 1963
  • From today you won't sing along anymore. Records of a Childhood, Fritz Molden Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85485-162-6

literature

  • Walter Schlögl: 35 years of experiment - Small stage on Liechtenwerd. 1956-1991. Thesis. University of Vienna, Vienna 1991.
  • Walter Schlögl: Conny Hannes Meyer and his comedians. Two volumes. Dissertation. University of Vienna, Vienna 1994.
  • Erwin Riess: Biographical notes on Conny Hannes Meyer I-III. In: Wasp's Nest. Journal for Useful Texts and Pictures , No. 137–139 (2004/2005).
  • Nadine Hauer: For the discussion about Conny Hannes Meyer . (Regarding his “concentration camp stay”). In: Theodor Kramer Society : Zwischenwelt. Journal of the Culture of Exile and Resistance. No. 3/2007 (Volume XXIV), ISSN  1606-4321 . P. 50 f.
  • Meyer, Conny Hannes. In: Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 2: J-R. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 927.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Herwig Czech: Selection and Control. The 'Spiegelgrund' as the central institution of the Viennese youth welfare between 1940 and 1945. In Eberhard Gabriel, Wolfgang Neugebauer (ed.): From forced sterilization to murder. On the history of Nazi euthanasia in Vienna, part II, Böhlau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-205-99325-X , p. 180 f.
  2. ↑ (Heinz) Sich (rovsky): A director rages against his own ensemble: Great "comedians" die . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 11, 1980, p. 14 , top right ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  3. ↑ Comedy Crisis: Conversation with Zilk . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 12, 1980, p. 11 , bottom center ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  4. ↑ Conny Hannes Meyer stages (...) . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung , October 21, 1970, p. 10, bottom right.
  5. ↑ See Claudia Erdmann: Guest Commentary. In: Die Presse , March 31, 2006, web resource .
  6. ↑ Cf. Christine Dobretsberger: Memories of Mauthausen. In: Wiener Zeitung , April 29, 2006, web resource ( Memento of March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Conny Hannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian director and writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1931