The do-gooder
| Data | |
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| Title: | The do-gooder |
| Genus: | tragedy |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Thomas Bernhard |
| Publishing year: | 1978 |
| Premiere: | 1981 |
| Place of premiere: | Bochum |
| Place and time of the action: | In the house of the do-gooder |
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Der Weltverbesserer is a play by Thomas Bernhard , first published as a text in 1978 in “Theater 78” (1979 by Suhrkamp ) and premiered in 1981 in Bochum under the direction of Claus Peymann . The egocentric gooders , the honorary doctorate will be presented, the dependent woman facing, which he exploits as a submissive servant. Bernhard Minetti , to whom the piece was dedicated, played the leading role in the first cast .
action
The do-gooder sits on his high armchair and complains that he is always misunderstood. Only the woman, who (like all the characters in the play) remains nameless, is familiar to him and lets him abuse her as a willless servant. A paradoxical, seemingly unfathomable dependency quickly becomes apparent between the two. On the same day that the play takes place, the do- gooder is to be awarded an honorary doctorate for his “ Treatise on the Improvement of the World” . In the last scene, the university's academic dignitaries and the mayor appear to honor him, but without having understood the philosophical content of his treatise.
First Scene
Five o'clock in the morning: The do-gooder is sitting on a high armchair. Since he is freezing, he orders the woman to get a tub of hot water for his feet. After exactly five minutes, she should dry them off for him; the do-gooder demands a fresh towel after she offers him a used one. After she has dried his feet, he talks about her: "The lying rat / twenty years / she hoped / that I would marry her / now she hopes for herself / the marriage no longer / but she no longer leaves / [.. .] “(Bernhard: Der Weltverbesserer, p. 20). This unusual relationship, already emerging here, forms a continuous motif of the piece. The do-gooder demands his honorary chain, which he received from the city of Frankfurt . He had received the award for his dedication to the city in his "Treatise on the Improvement of the World", the content of which "no one [...] has ever understood", but which has already appeared in 38 languages and gives him and the woman a life made possible in wealth. While he initially wanted her to read him from his work, he suddenly fears that the important passages are incorrectly intonated and sends her out.
Second scene
The do- gooder has had breakfast and begins an analysis of the situation between him and the woman: “You deserve a trip / the whole year / with a libertine / with a monster / with a berserk ” (p. 35f), and finally: “You hates me / I know you hate me ”(p. 39). A look in the mirror intensifies his judgment: "You should be ashamed / with such a man / if he weren't so spiritual / and so famous" (p. 41). The woman, whose relationship with him remains unfathomable, he describes himself as "my partner / my necessary evil / [...] / my hell child" (p. 56). In addition, a tirade of hate begins against Switzerland , to which he does not want to go again, since he has been paralyzed since a trip there and a Swiss drug is responsible for his hair loss. The do-gooder is the first to be awarded an honorary doctorate at home; that this dignity means a lot to him, contrary to his statements, will u. a. It is clear from the fact that he ponders in detail how he receives the academics and in what order they have to sit down at his table. This also reflects Thomas Bernhard's contradicting behavior in his own honors, which he despised but nevertheless accepted.
Third scene
At the beginning of the third scene, the dependency of the do-gooder on the woman becomes clear for the first time: She is not in the room and remains away even after repeated calls, which causes him to panic; he worries about what would happen if something happened to him and nobody heard his cry for help. One of the main motifs in Bernhard's work, illness, is taken up below: The text is preceded by a quote from Voltaire : “I am sick. I suffer from head to toe. ”While the do-gooder had asked for a tub of hot water for his feet in the first scene, when the woman entered in the third scene he asked for cold compresses for his forehead. “When we have caught up with the doctors /”, he notes, “it is too late / Every disease / is an incurable disease” (p. 65). Again and again he discusses the question of traveling together with the woman who, according to him, always wants to go south. He, on the other hand, detests the South, which he describes as “one museum” (p. 65) and calls it a “perverse habit / to go south / to visit history / to visit the culture” (p. 64), whereas He hated Interlaken even more than Rome . However, he wants to undertake the trip because he is convinced that the woman wants to travel and has earned a share of his “fame / something of the honorary doctorate” “After so many years / terrible shame / terrible humiliation” (p. 72) . Here, too, he contradicts himself shortly beforehand, because "we don't force anyone / to stay with us / people chain themselves to us / ... / and that's why we torment them / they try to / destroy us / we are their victims" ( P. 68). Like the entire play, this scene is characterized by constant mood swings and contradicting demands and statements, which the woman apparently accepts without resistance.
Fourth scene
The do-gooder arranges the scene for the reception of the guests by telling the woman where to put various pieces of furniture. When two domestic workers come in, he calls his concept destroyed because he “cannot see a stranger” (p. 77). After an outburst of anger over the intrusion of the domestic servants unknown to him into his scenery, he collapses, exhausted. He only tolerates the woman with himself: "Better hell with you / than a stranger / [...] / We pay these people / so that they decompose and destroy us / [...] / I don't want to see any of these people anymore" (p . 80). He briefly talks about the content of his apparently all-negative tract, the meaning of which he immediately doubts, because "If we do away with everything / if we destroy everything / everything is there again / [...] / Let us stab the rulers in the back / The next one is already sitting there / and is the same / […] / We write a treatise / and it is awarded / and nothing has changed ”(p. 83f). Hopelessness, however, makes life bearable in the first place; only with the knowledge that he cannot change anything anyway and thus everything is obsolete can he continue to exist. The woman is his only support: "Come here / give me your hand / [...] / we are at the mercy of the elements / we have to stick together / you understand against everything" (p. 87). Suddenly he gets up to sit in another armchair, but quickly falls back again because he fears that someone may have seen that he does not need any help. The woman is supposed to dress him while he complains that he cannot stand up because of his paralysis .
Fifth scene
At the beginning of the fifth scene, the do-gooder tells that he has always dreamed of a simple life: “The fool succeeds in the plans / he has / […] / the doubter / everything falls apart / […] / the simple person runs into them Church / Where should I go / I am unprotected ”(p. 96f). In a certain way he admires the people “who are satisfied with the opera / […] / or get on the train / and find their happiness three stops further” (p. 97). While he had previously awarded the woman a share of his fame, he now claims that she spoke of a madman behind his back, “And now you will take the fame with me” (p. 98). He explains the actual meaning of his treatise in full directness: “My treatise wants nothing else / than total abolition / only nobody has understood / I want to abolish them / and they distinguish me for it / [...] / The victims help theirs Honor doctor murderer / […] / We can only improve the world / if we abolish it ”(p. 98). The reception that was worked towards in the entire play now takes up less than a tenth of the same: the rector , the dean , the professor and the mayor enter the scene, which is generally characterized by falsehood and pretense. The rulers are scrambling to give the do-gooder the highest praise; the rector boasts that he has proposed him as an honorary doctorate and that he has now achieved his goal. While the author of the treatise had criticized all translations, he is now faced with the fact that apparently the world dealing with his work - "violent clashes" (p 102) give it over in Japan and the United States , a translation into Chinese was in progress, there are over 100 studies in Germany alone . The dean proudly reports that his niece is translating the work into Romanian . The judgments become ridiculous if one not only considers that the do-gooder (like Bernhard himself) is indifferent to translations, but also demands that his work "is not only read / actually studied" (p. 103) - for the do-gooder had reproached his guests for precisely this lack of study of his treatise before their appearance. When the dean now demands “that his will be acted upon” (p. 103), this confirms that the gentlemen do not know that this tract is about their “abolition”. The do-gooder, on the other hand, dryly claims that the university alone understands his treatise, which his guests immediately confirm. Bernhard shows scholars and officials in an embarrassing way. The previously so talkative do-gooder hardly gets a chance to speak, is simply interrupted in places when he tries to limit the lofty claims of the scholars. Only when he reports of his miserable state of health is he listened to again. He receives his certificate and says that he has prepared a speech, "But I am not giving a speech / If we say something / we are not understood / If we tell the truth / it is only a lie" (p. 110). This is the only place where he openly tells guests that they don't understand him; but these are now completely silent.
Aftermath
After the dignitaries have left, the do-gooder wants to leave the city with the woman. “What a dreadful city,” he exclaims, “what dull people” (p. 114). He already despises the honorary doctorate that he proudly received: "I always hated these people / I know why I ran away after half a year / from the university / Now they are taking revenge and honoring me" (p. 114) . He is now even considering the hated Interlaken as a place of residence.
place and time
The entire piece takes place in the house of the do-gooder in the present time. The action shown takes about seven hours:
1st scene: five in the morning
2nd scene: six o'clock
Scene 3: seven o'clock
Scene 4: ten o'clock
5th scene (award of the honorary doctor): eleven o'clock
Postplay: twelve o'clock
Emergence
Thomas Bernhard first mentioned the play in February 1978 in a letter to his publisher Siegfried Unseld ; it should be titled "The Milk Can" and be for the actor Bernhard Minetti and a young girl. In August, “The World Improver” was written under its current title, the preprint appeared in “Theater 1978” with the preceding motto: “For Minetti / who else?”. The first performance of the piece was postponed again and again, but Bernhard asked for a single edition in the Suhrkamp library , which Unseld promised him for the spring of 1979. During a review of the piece with Bernhard, he noted: “It is probably not his best piece, but it is perhaps the most personal - such as why he does not start a family, why he does not get married, problems with writing and again and again he succeeds in finding strands of thought to grasp in a single thought. "
reception
The reactions to the premiere were mostly extremely positive: In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Georg Hensel praised the “world improver” as the “darkest and at the same time funniest Bernhard that ever existed” and called the premiere a great evening “ for Thomas Bernhard, for Minetti, for Peymann, for the German theater ”. Benjamin Henrichs von der Zeit even went so far as to see a desired perfection of the theater in the play, because it not only repeats and varies all of Bernhard's plays, but “at the same time the entire world theater [...], as if the theater wanted to join his bring the final, final form ”. Siegfried Unseld also revised his opinion about the play and spoke in a telegram to the author of the “final breakthrough of Thomas Bernhard on German stages”. In a travel report he writes, “The premiere, Der Weltverbesserer‛ was absolutely terrific. […] I think that this performance will be a historic date for Thomas Bernhard. ”The features of the main actors Minetti and Edith Heerdegen, who were themselves praised by reviewers who received the piece less enthusiastically, were particularly emphasized in the feature sections; for example Peter Iden , who described it as “weak and unstable”, but identified a “brilliant rescue attempt by Minetti” in the performance.
The do-gooder's limitation to Minetti
Even before it was published, Unseld criticized the dedication “For Minetti / who else”: “Every actor other than Minetti would have to feel relegated here, but he didn't care, they were also second class.” He was able to persuade the author to “ Who else? ”to be deleted from the dedication, but Bernhard insisted that the do-gooder could only be played by Minetti's death until Minetti's death - except in translations in other languages. After the enormous success of the premiere, the publisher asked his author to reconsider this limitation, but Bernhard stuck to it: "[...] the do-gooder is temporarily also tied to Minetti." ZDF broadcast the performance live on April 12, 1981 . In addition, there were guest productions , u. a. in Berlin , Ludwigsburg and Vienna , the Bochum production was also released as a sound documentation in a double album. Bernhard later allowed other line-ups, the first in Saarbrücken in 1985 . In Austria , the play could only be staged again after Bernhard's ban on performing his works was lifted in 2000.
Generic question
“Der Weltverbesserer” is a drama that does not follow the ideal of the classic drama of five acts, but with its arrangement in five scenes (with subsequent epilogue) follows this pattern more than other plays by Bernhard. The tragic component, the death of the main character, is missing, but the “do-gooder” is considered a tragedy and calls himself in the text like this: “A comedy / we believed / but it is a tragedy / gradually / becomes in these Walls / a tragedy played ”(p. 12). The discussion of the question of genre is a frequent motif of Bernhard, as already in “ Ein Fest für Boris ” (“It's not a comedy”, Bernhard: Pieces 1, p. 12) and v. a. in “ Die Jagdgesellschaft ” (“I don't feel like a comedy myself / what you call a comedy / […] / A comedy is a completely fixed term / what you write has nothing to do with it”, Bernhard: Pieces 1 , P. 236).
literature
- Bernhard, Thomas: The do-gooder. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979.
- Bernhard, Thomas: Pieces 1. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1988.
- Huber, Martin et al. Schmidt-Dengler, Wendelin (ed.): The world improver. In: Thomas Bernhard. Works. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2010. Vol. 17, pp. 392-404.
- as a comic
- drawn by Nicolas Mahler : Suhrkamp, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-46540-0 .