The Magician (Bruno Frank)
The Magician is a short story by Bruno Frank that was preprinted in the Neue Rundschau in October 1929 and was published in book form in November of the same year. The figure of the magician Meskart was understood as a homage to Max Reinhardt .
action
The not quite 50-year-old magician Meskart acquires the Odenberg Castle on the slope of the Odenwald with the help of his master Gabriel Eisenreich . The famous mime resides here for two summer months. Every year he drives away the time of the wicked rich and the dying nobility with Lope .
Eisenreich from Iglau is not an agent, but something like that. The mare helps the magician to achieve world fame with the Coriolan , a Strindberg , the Timon and the Iphigenie . Meskart, Eisenreich, the vain composer Tarb and Princess Anna all agree on Odenberg Castle: Lope, which has been successful for many years, will be discontinued. The phaedra will be played.
After one of these dazzling stage performances, Meskart no longer wants. He would like to overcome the distance from his Phaedra production. Meskart senses the inner emptiness around him and is tired of the chosen audience. One night - all invited guests have long since left for Frankfurt an der Main after the final banquet - the magician happened to be a secret witness of a "food orgy" between two servants at the uncleared buffet table. The man in the servant's vest and the maid with the reddish-blonde hair make noises in one of the precious armchairs in the dark after they have eaten the leftovers. Meskart creeps away on quiet feet and was no longer seen.
In New Orleans , a Negro troupe performs a play in which John Brown is executed by the whites. Meskart leads the black actors to success with another play in which the magician only enters the stage as Mr. Greeley's caretaker after a “food orgy from the African forest” . The last performance of the successful piece is the white director Meskart in the port of Savannah . His actors - formerly very poor - have made money. The magician wants to embark on a new art journey. Where will Meskart, who rose from the Prague suburbs via Vienna to Berlin, lead?
reception
- Statement after publication
In the literary world of January 10, 1930, Erik-Ernst Schwabach doubts the coherence of the magician's successful attempt to break out in the last third of the novella. More believable - according to the reviewer - would perhaps have been a Meskart who would have remained trapped in his magic realm.
- Recent comments
Kirchner continues in the chapter “V. The magician or: a memorial for Max Reinhardt ”his dissertation with the novella apart. Gabriel Eisenreich reminds Kirchner of Rudolf K. Kommer . Schloss Odenberg stands for Schloss Leopoldskron and at the same time for the Neuburg Abbey . Regarding the amendment title refers Kirchner on Meskarts talent of leadership . In addition, Meskart brings his own emotional stress - such as experienced suffering - into the respective staging.
In Bruno Frank's previously published novels - for example in Days of the King or in the Political Novella - the protagonist's death instinct dominates . Meskar's flight to America is presented by Kirchner as a step that affirms life - as a “turning away from decadence ”. So Bruno Frank concluded his novellas of the twenties with the magician on a positive note, so to speak.
On the “ Southern Tour”, Meskart would then achieve what he wanted. What is meant is the new beginning of the theater man, the amalgamation of history and the present on the stage and his quarreling on the part of disenfranchised population groups.
Finally Kirchner points out that Max Reinhardt was actually forced to emigrate to the USA eight years after the novella was published.
literature
First edition
- Bruno Frank: The magician. Ernst Rowohlt, Berlin 1929.
Used edition
- Bruno Frank: The magician. In: Days of the King and Other Tales , pp. 255–306. Buchverlag Der Morgen, Berlin 1977, without ISBN.
Secondary literature
- Ulrich Müller: Writing against Hitler. From historical to political novel. Investigations into the prose work of Bruno Frank. Mainz 1994, pages 45-53.
- Konrad Paul: Afterword. In: Bruno Frank: Political Novella. Berlin 1982, pages 381-395, here: 390.
- Sascha Kirchner: The citizen as an artist. Bruno Frank (1887–1945) - life and work . Grupello , Düsseldorf 2009, ISBN 978-3-89978-095-6 (also dissertation Uni Düsseldorf )
annotation
- ↑ Erik-Ernst Schwabach had published " Die Weißen Blätter " in Leipzig from 1913 to 1915 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 181, 12. Zvu
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 181, 17th Zvu
- ↑ quoted in Kirchner, p. 186, 11. Zvo and p. 365, 2nd note vu
- ↑ Kirchner, pp. 180-186
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 183, 4. Zvo
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 181, 8. Zvu
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 182, 17. Zvo
- ^ Kirchner, p. 182, 7th Zvu
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 185, 5. Zvo
- ↑ Kirchner, p. 185 middle