Count Öderland

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Count Öderland , according to the subtitle A morality in twelve pictures , is a drama by the Swiss writer Max Frisch . Inspired by a newspaper report, Frisch wrote his first prose sketch in 1946 , which was published the following year as part of Marion's diary . Frisch edited the material several times for the theater. The premiere of the first version of the play took place on February 10, 1951 in the Schauspielhaus Zürich under the direction of Leonard Steckel and was Frisch's first failure on stage. Frisch's second adaptation, staged on February 4, 1956 by Fritz Kortner in the Small House of the Frankfurt Municipal Theaters , set a stronger political accent . With the third and final version, Frisch largely returned to the original diary sketch. It was premiered on September 25, 1961 in the Berlin Schillertheater under the direction of Hans Lietzau and recorded in Frisch's 1975 edition. Although all three stage adaptations were equally unsuccessful with both critics and audiences, Count Öderland remained the drama to which Frisch felt most attached. He called it his favorite and most mysterious piece.

The starting point of the plot is the apparently baseless murder of a conscientious bank employee who kills a janitor with an ax. Only the public prosecutor shows understanding for the act and is inspired by it to break out of his regular life. From then on, he follows the legend of Count Öderland, walks through the country with an ax in hand and kills all who oppose his claim to freedom. Behind the leading figure of Count Öderland, supporters gather, the individual act of the public prosecutor grows into a general uproar. In the end, the rebellion leads to a political overthrow, without the longed-for freedom for the prosecutor being realized. Characteristic for Count Öderland is the mixture of private and political motives, which can be traced back to two main themes in Frisch's work: the longing to break out of social constraints and a growing criticism of the bourgeois order.

Title page of the first edition from 1951

content

Final version

1st picture: A public prosecutor is fed up with it: Public prosecutor Martin gets up in the middle of the night because the case of an ax murderer does not leave him calm. He understands the act without motive as an escape from the uniformity of everyday life, as an accusation against a life that consists only of deferred hope. While his wife Elsa turns away from him uncomprehendingly, the young maid Hilde joins him, burns his files and tells him the legend of Count Öderland.

2nd picture: The murderer: In his prison cell, the murderer Wolfgang Schweiger discusses with his lawyer Doctor Hahn, who is annoyed by his client's confession. But Schweiger, who cannot justify his act himself, felt himself understood for the first time during the interrogation of the public prosecutor. He recounts the events of the evening of the crime: After a dutiful working life in the Bank-Union, the way he went to the bank on a non-working Sunday took him as a matter of course when he felt the urge to go to the toilet. The caretaker Karl-Anton Hofmeier let him in, they had a friendly chat, Schweiger joked that Hofmeier had to be killed, grabbed his ax and put his words into practice. In the end, Doctor Hahn was informed that the trial scheduled for the following day had been postponed and that the public prosecutor was missing.

Santorini as a destination of longing

3rd picture: The public prosecutor comes to his ax: A charcoal burner lives with his wife and daughter Inge in a hut in the snowy forest . She dreams of the legend of Count Öderland, who one day will come with his ax and free her from her father's yoke. Suddenly the public prosecutor is at the door and is let in. He talks to Inge, who reminds him of Hilde, about his longing to sail to Santorini . Inge asks him to take her with him. When the public prosecutor took hold of the charcoal burner's ax, everyone recognized him as the count's legendary figure. Inge declaims the morality of Count Öderland with ax in hand. Whoever stands in their way will fall.

4th picture: The first message arrives: Doctor Hahn and Elsa have asked Mr. Mario, a clairvoyant from the cabaret , to look for a trace of the missing public prosecutor. After Elsa's secret love affair with Doctor Hahn is revealed, a picture of the public prosecutor with an ax in hand appears before the eyes of the clairvoyant. Thereupon it was reported on the radio that a stranger had killed three country hunters with an ax .

5th picture: Long live the count: A group of charcoal burners in the forest gets drunk and celebrates. They celebrate the prosecutor in the shape of Count Öderland. He showed them the way to a better life. But they must realize that they have only consumed their supplies at his behest. When these are used up and the public prosecutor sees himself questioned by the charcoal burners, he leaves them and rides away with Inge after he has set the charcoal burners' houses up in flames.

6th picture: Lifelong: In his cell, the murderer reports on his life, which was determined by work and the fulfillment of duties. Friday evening was the bright spot of every week, Sunday afternoon was already overshadowed by the start of work on Monday. He finds it comforting that the caretaker, who was indifferent to everyone during his lifetime, has become so important through his death.

7th picture: The ax catches on: In a grand hotel , a gendarme wants to question Count Öderland, who is supposed to be staying there. He reports that many follow his example and go out and get axes. Elsa and Doctor Hahn appear in disguise. They suspect the public prosecutor is under the mask of Count Öderland and pretend to be the seller of a yacht with which the public prosecutor wants to set sail for Santorini. Of the yacht itself, they only show pictures that remind the public prosecutor of his toy model, which he often daydreams in front of. After signing the contract, the yacht actually turns out to be that toy, those involved drop their masks, the prosecutor sees his suspicion confirmed that his wife is having a relationship with Doctor Hahn. He pulls the ax out of his briefcase and everyone flees.

8th picture: The murderer is lucky: The murderer is interrogated in his cell by representatives of society: Minister of the Interior, Director, General and Commissioner. In his act you are looking for the starting point for the social unrest that has gripped the country. The ax has become a symbol of rebellion. A gang had gathered around Count Öderland. The killer has no answer to their questions about the background. In the course of an amnesty he was released, which Schweiger later reinterpreted as general amnesia .

Vienna sewer system , the model of the sewer system scene

9th picture: The count should surrender: The count's gang is hidden in the sewer system . They have been given the ultimatum to surrender their leader by midnight or the sewers will be flooded. Various faithful are now against the public prosecutor. He saves himself regardless of his followers and also leaves the sick Inge in the sewer.

10th picture: The gentlemen of the situation: The government celebrates a gala in the residence, at which the public prosecutor appears with his briefcase. While the state leadership is handicapped by the dishes of the standing reception in their hands, he proposes an alliance: the residence should be handed over to him and the people will cheer. The interior minister refuses, he wants to fight to the last drop of blood. Coco, who has already played the role of the first lady of the state at the side of many men, appears and shows her sense of future power when she joins the prosecutor. She leads the public prosecutor onto the balcony, where the people pay homage to him.

11th picture: The murderer is unlucky: The murderer sleeps with the widow of his victim while the unrest in the city increases. When a window is broken, the gendarme becomes aware of her. He penetrates the widow's attic and is not convinced of the murderer's amnesty. When he tries to escape, the gendarme shoots the murderer with his submachine gun.

12th picture: Peace and order are restored, and that's it: the public prosecutor is back in his office. He talks to Hilde and thinks that he has only dreamed it all. But fires blaze through the windows and shots can be heard over and over again. Finally, the President steps in and hands over power to the prosecutor. This refuses because he has no message. The President insists: Whoever overturns power in order to be free will in the end receive the opposite of freedom, namely power. The public prosecutor is desperate and believes that he has only been dreamed. In vain he conjures his awakening.

Earlier versions

According to Frisch's own assessment, the first version from 1951 focuses primarily on the private, the public prosecutor's desire to break out. It consists of only ten pictures. Compared to the final version, the fifth image was not yet included, the sixth and eighth images are combined. In the sewer system there is a dispute between the public prosecutor and Inge, which ends in Inge's suicide. With Iris, the daughter of his commanding officer, another woman comes to the side of the prosecutor. The murderer has no love affair with the widow, but with the maid Hilde. When the public prosecutor finally realizes that his outbreak has led to a social upheaval, but his private life remains unchanged, he is unable to love Coco, Elsa and Doctor Hahn are waiting for him in his villa as always, he jumps out of the window in despair . Frisch later commented: "Suicide out of embarrassment of the author."

In the second version from 1956, Frisch put a more current political focus in the foreground. It consists of eleven images. The jury trial against the murderer is preceded. After the public prosecutor got hold of the ax, his murders of three gendarmes are portrayed. The charcoal burners greet him with their axes, the further scene with the charcoal burners is missing. The public prosecutor's confrontation with Elsa and Doctor Hahn is canceled. The public prosecutor is appointed leader of a party against his will, Inge is shot by mutinous revolutionaries. After the state leadership has sworn an oath on the public prosecutor, he transfers the office of prime minister to Doctor Hahn. Then he takes the liberty of leaving. After choosing not to continue killing, the prosecutor accuses himself of his crimes and sentenced himself to death. He leaves with the words: "Freedom is only one step." Before his execution can begin, the curtain falls.

shape

Max Frisch had originally planned Count Öderland as morality with song verses between the scenes, but the vocal interludes were canceled before the premiere. The remaining structure is reminiscent of a station drama . The topic of social awakening is also known from Expressionism , but Frisch divides it between two protagonists , in that the act of one inspires the outbreak of the other. Manfred Durzak called the sequence of scenes an "epic arc of images" that takes place on two parallel plot curves that are contrapuntally related to one another: the level of the public prosecutor and that of the murderer. The plot is repeatedly raised to a general, parabolic level. Nevertheless, Frisch does not follow the intention of an enlightening parable or a demonstrative didactic piece . In his endeavor to sound out the direction of an idea to the end, he closes with an open end without a clear interpretation , which is why Michael Butler referred to Count Öderland as a "game of thought or consciousness".

The first and last scenes of the play in the prosecutor's villa are clearly located in reality. They form a contrasting frame around the inner scenes, which are reminiscent of a fairytale world without any temporal or spatial reference . Max Frisch described in a staging instruction that "the more the piece progresses, the more it moves into a so-called fantastic space: the viewer should only confront the story with our reality when he knows it as a whole." Although Count Öderland does not Narrator character in the true sense of the word, Hilde and Inge take over this function in parts in the first and third scenes. According to Frisch's instructions, the roles of Hilde, Inge and Coco are embodied as a single "type" by the same actress. An exception was the version from 1956, in which Frisch assigned Coco to the actress Elsa.

interpretation

Social criticism and reference to Switzerland

For Sonja Rüegg, Count Öderland marked a turning point in Frisch's oeuvre when he took an open position against bourgeois society for the first time. In three figures, the public prosecutor, Inge and the murderer, the breakout from a hierarchically structured, capitalistically structured social order is demonstrated. The cause of the rebellion lies with Inge in her poverty, with the murderer in his alienated work , with the public prosecutor in the self-realization made impossible by social constraints . The public prosecutor's figure of identification, from which the viewer only detaches himself in the course of the play through the increasing cruelty of his deeds, shows the audience the “desert element” in everyone, which is latent in every bourgeois society and could break out. In the end, the outbursts turned out to be pointless, as the hierarchy of power itself was not called into question. Although the open end of the drama does not point the way to a life free of domination, it also does not negate the previously made demands.

Manfred Durzak saw in Graf Öderland a step forward compared to Frisch's earlier pieces, which thematically persisted in the longing for personal self-fulfillment and love fulfillment. However, the socio-political message of the play is repeatedly “ metaphorically obscured”. In this way, the romantic outbreak not only turns into a revolution, but ultimately becomes a farce , which stands without any ideological message under the mere advertising sign of the ax. Frisch dodged a utopian precision and took refuge in negation and legendary generality, which Durzak attributed to a lack of political reflection and the reluctance to engage in concrete terms. By reestablishing power in a cycle at the end of the play, Frisch finally becomes unintentionally ideological and postulates the hopelessness of any political change. In conclusion, Durzak saw Count Öderland, in terms of its historical significance, clearly falling behind models such as Ernst Toller's Mass People .

Eduard von Steiger

Since the desert ideology is deliberately kept vague and poor in content and is only characterized by a rejection of the status quo, it can, according to Rüegg, be transferred to various political systems and ideologies, from fascism to communism . In the reaction of the bourgeois state to the desert threat, the adoption of totalitarian methods for the supposed protection of society, references to Switzerland are recognizable, ranging from the intellectual national defense during the threat of National Socialism to the fear of communist infiltration and the State Protection Act in the early 1950s. The figure of the Interior Minister is based on the former Federal Councilor Eduard von Steiger .

With his criticism of Switzerland as a prototype of a bourgeois society, Frisch took a stand against the contemporary model of Switzerland and its often highlighted historical special role. The reaction was an almost unanimous rejection on the part of Swiss criticism. Although Frisch's later works retained the critical attitude from Count Öderland , the misleading reception of the piece had an effect for Rüegg. As a result, Frisch's social criticism became more concrete, and the confrontation with his home country more direct. For example, the successful novel Stiller was no longer set in a model state, but instead called Switzerland by name.

Dream, transformation and drama of consciousness

In addition to social criticism, most of the interpretations centered on the figure of the public prosecutor, his dualism of order and desire for freedom, as well as the mixing of the levels of dream and reality. From a psychoanalytic perspective, Barbara Rowińska-Januszewska saw Count Öderland as the public prosecutor's unconscious alter ego . In the forest, which symbolizes the psyche of the protagonist, the public prosecutor gets from the familiar paths of his consciousness into the labyrinth of unconscious forces. Inge, the charcoal burner girl, was the trigger, and her conversation put the public prosecutor in a hypnotic trance . In the Count's identity, the prosecutor's drive, suppressed for life, wins the upper hand: the longing for freedom. Martin loses all moral and social inhibitions of his existence as a public prosecutor. At the same time, in his new identity, he proves to be incapable of feelings and bonds with other people. The cloak-like underworld of the sewer system, the exact opposite of the dreamed-of purity and clarity of the sea around Santorini, became a symbol of the state prosecutor's psyche. In the end, the split in his consciousness repeats itself , Martin was returning to the identity of the public prosecutor. The crimes committed are only a vague idea and no sense of responsibility. The vicious circle of his bondage closes.

For Marianne Biedermann, the changed time and place references in the third picture marked the transition from reality to dream. The chronological time sequences of the first picture are now transferred into subjective, stretched or endless time and memory states. The snow also erases the real traces of the public prosecutor spatially, and he enters a dream world. But the assumption of the mythical identity of Count Öderland does not lead to freedom for the public prosecutor, but to a new form of bondage, a role into which others project their hopes. First it was Inge who hoped for liberation from Öderland, later the charcoal burners and the gangs of the rebels. In doing so, Martin would increasingly lose the dreamed of timelessness and placelessness in his role as a wasteland, and the ties through concrete temporal and spatial references increase. In the end, Martin does not manage to wake up from the role of the wasteland. The projection of all the figures made the figure of the count become reality. Instead of reaching an understanding among themselves, they have jointly created a myth , the violence of which is now turning against them.

Manfred Jurgensen saw the public prosecutor as a mere passive experiencer. The transformation into the figure of Count Öderland happens to him like that of Gregor Samsas in Kafka's transformation . The metamorphosis in Count Öderland is brought about by the double figure Hilde-Inge, both of whom are referred to as fairies by the public prosecutor . For Walter Schmitz , this double fairy became the anima who lured the hero into an archetypal magic forest in which he had to prove himself. After a crack formed in the bourgeois world of the public prosecutor in the first picture due to the absurd murder, the piece subsequently turns into a drama of consciousness in which the supposed spatial escape actually leads into the consciousness of the public prosecutor.

In the seventh picture, after Schmitz the climax and turning point of the drama, the spiritual and real world meet. After seeing himself disillusioned with his longing to break out, the public prosecutor only has the social struggle to enforce his internal claims. But the public prosecutor's pathos is constantly mocked by the ciphers displayed: The yacht called Esperanza (Spanish: hope) is proving to be a trinket , the long-extinct volcano on Santorini counteracts the longed-for eruption. Even as Count Öderland, the public prosecutor did not manage to escape from the desolate land, only a "desolate story" emerged around him, the morality of a petty banger .

The search for the meaning of life degenerates into a new way of life, in which the ax is no longer a symbol, but is dug out of the briefcase or stowed in it like a document as required. In the end, do not take power from wasteland, but power take him. In the final exclamation, “They dreamed me!”, The longed-for realization of individual dreams becomes the dream of a “man”, a collective that lives an alienated life from which the public prosecutor is unable to wake up.

Montage and influences

Bertolt Brecht (1954)

For Walter Schmitz, Frisch constructed the myth of Count Öderland using a montage in the style of Brecht's epic theater . His discomfort in the culture try the prosecutor by one of the culture of the educated classes patched together part to meet and get through this very conflict with a tragicomic figure. The eponymous Öderland refers to the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot , but without being more than a mere reminiscence of the theme of boredom, which goes back to Büchner's Leonce and Lena . There is a close relationship in content to the expressionist outbreak and proclamation drama. Frisch's protagonists, for example, were reminiscent of the cashier from Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight . Set pieces like the Count's gang refer to Schiller's robbers , the sewer scene comes from the film The Third Man . In the theoretical underpinning of the public prosecutor's criticism of culture, Frisch referred to Freud's The Uneasiness in Culture and the writings of CG Jung . The image of the wasteland in each person takes up a Max Picard slogan of "Hitler in us".

Parallels to Bertolt Brecht , who had been consulted by Frisch about the production, were also often drawn. Marianne Biedermann recognized the song of pirate Jenny from the Threepenny Opera in Inges Moritat from Count Öderland , where a ship also came and, after a violent demonstration of power, saved a young woman from a shabby existence. Hellmuth Karasek emphasized the proximity of Count Öderland to Brecht's parable about the rise of Arturo Ui . Both pieces simplify the political processes, Brecht looks for the cause of the crime politically in the economy, freshly romantic in the orderly everyday life and mental stuntedness, which Karasek exaggeratedly described as "a special Swiss variant on the subject of politics and crime".

The general and the private

Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt in the Kronenhalle in Zurich (1961)

A criticism that is frequently cited in connection with Count Öderland is that of Friedrich Dürrenmatt , which he first wrote to his colleague and repeated in a 1951 review in Weltwoche . As an example of a fundamental conflict in the play, Dürrenmatt contrasted the principles of the general and the private. Count Öderland, as Frisch invented him in his prose sketch, is nothing more than a name, a myth, a principle, a mere mechanism: “Oederland is an ax and nothing more. A hatchet doesn't think, doesn't feel disgust, it murders. ”Its deeds follow neither conscience nor an idea, they are pure despair that stands above the question of their meaning:“ A fall into nothingness is an event that is beyond meaning or Nonsense stands. ”But this principle cannot be brought to the stage. By putting Count Öderland on stage, Frisch gave him the face of an actor, he gave him the fate of a public prosecutor, thereby weakening the figure and distorting it: “It was no longer Count Öderland who failed. It was the strange case of a certain public prosecutor who had an accident ”. The special takes the place of the general, an original motif instead of a mythical figure: "The play gets stuck in private, it belongs to Frisch alone." Dürrenmatt drew the conclusion: "The daring company has failed."

In a letter to Dürrenmatt, Frisch contradicted his view of the subject: he did not put the mythical figure of Count Öderland on the stage, but an everyone in whom she was reflected: “A private person, Herr Martin, comes to work temporarily for Graf Holding Öderland [...] what we saw with our eyes is not Count Öderland, the mythical figure, but the Öderlandic element in an ordinary person named Martin, public prosecutor. ” Jean Rudolf von Salis wrote a reply to Dürrenmatt's“ death sentence ”for the play , who saw Count Öderland as a successful dramatic work of art, while Dürrenmatt, “coming from his a priori”, had “given the ideological value judgment priority over the artistic”. Von Salis saw in the rise of Count Öderland, "something extremely questionable in itself." But Frisch only implemented the material of his time, his Öderland was "the embodiment of the anarchy latent in every highly developed civilization ." Integrated into the social order, the public prosecutor "ceased to be human because of sheer conscientiousness and legality [...] until he finally" becomes a monster in order to be able to be human. "Frisch brought on" the relentlessness of the real tragedian when he is in the periphery. " at the end demonstrated the insolubility of the conflict. "

Later investigations often took a stand on the controversy between the two Swiss playwrights. For Alexander Stephan , Frisch's answer tended to confirm Dürrenmatt's analysis rather than refute it. Walter Schmitz, on the other hand, perceived Dürrenmatt's disappointment that Frisch had written his own and not Dürrenmatt's play. Michael Butler also reminded the argument with Count Öderland of Dürrenmatt's later conception of his own demonic figure, the mad doctor in Die Physiker . Hellmuth Karasek emphasized the dilemma that the stage often provides the characters with their own motifs and motivations that run counter to the author's original intention. In Count Öderland , he tied this to the role of the murderer, whose accidental act was given a subsequent motive through his love affair with a widow. Urs Bircher saw the central problem of the play as the fact that an asocial and apolitical private search for happiness was transformed into the negative model of a political revolution, which would call into question both private and social motives. Manfred Jurgensen, on the other hand, praised "that Frisch knows how to deal with the problem of individual identity and community position simultaneously."

History of origin

First diary sketches

As a starting point for the Öderland material, two entries can be made out in Frisch's diary from 1946, each based on newspaper reports. The first is about a former Professor Frischs from Zurich, "a sober and controlled man" who was lost one day. After searching in vain, a clairvoyant from a cabaret was interviewed who claimed to be able to see the professor, he was not deep in the water between the reeds. The man was then found in Greifensee , where he shot himself.

The second entry is about a cashier, described as a "good and loyal" man who woke up one night and slew his entire family with an ax. He could not give a reason. Frisch added considerations that one hoped it would involve embezzlement, "as an assurance that such confusion, which reveals the uninsured human nature, can never haunt us". This was followed by a prose sketch Am See , in which Frisch describes a morning interruption of his commute to work with a detour to the nearby lake. The hours of freedom gained leave a guilty conscience when thinking of the hundreds of thousands behind their work desks. He wonders “why we don't just leave”. One has to take away people's hope for the end of the day, the weekend, the next time, the afterlife: "The horror would be great, the transformation would be great."

This resulted in a 40-page prose sketch Der Graf von Öderland , which already anticipates the main motifs and scenes of the play. It contains images 2 to 8 of the later final version, but remained a fragment . In a work report, Frisch confessed: “I didn't know what to do next.” The prose sketch was first published in 1947 as part of Marion's diary . In 1950, Frisch published it again in the extended diary 1946–1949 , which formed the basis of much of his early work. Another publication followed in 1983 under the title Der Graf von Öderland. 1st version. Sketch. as a bibliophile annual gift of the Braunschweig Literary Association for its members.

premiere

The Schauspielhaus Zurich , where Count Öderland premiered and was removed after a month

In January 1950, when Max Frisch presented his new piece at a reading evening for the Suhrkamp Verlag, he had completed the first four pictures by Count Öderland . The first proofs were available in October. Difficulties in the rehearsals were the morality that was supposed to be presented between the pictures. After Brecht, who was asked for advice, could not come up with a convincing solution either, Frisch canceled the morality after the final rehearsal. You have "completely cut the piece". Illuminated advertisements were now shown between the images, accompanied by jazz music. The world premiere took place on February 10, 1951 in the Schauspielhaus Zurich under the direction of Leonard Steckel . The set was designed by Teo Otto , with Gustav Knuth taking over the leading role . The book edition Graf Öderland. A game in 10 pictures was published by Suhrkamp Verlag in February 1951.

Count Öderland's last performance took place on March 7th at the Zurich Schauspielhaus. The piece was withdrawn from the program after bad reviews and little audience approval. Frisch responded with a letter to the management and added a small memorandum to "Count Öderland" . In this he complained about the short trial period, a weak cast and the low loyalty that the theater had shown him. Frisch attributed the failure of the play to a prejudice of the invited premiere guests and the dominance exercised by a small number of critics over the Zurich press. He voiced the suspicion "that there are certain groups in Zurich who could not tolerate a new Frisch piece to be a success from the outset". As a result, Frisch was more reserved in his collaboration with the Zurich Schauspielhaus. He had his next piece Don Juan or Die Liebe zur Geometrie premiered in Berlin at the same time, as an exclusive premiere in Zurich seemed too risky for him.

Revisions

Max Frisch rehearsing Biedermann and the arsonists (1958)
Fritz Kortner (1959)

The impetus for the new version of Count Öderland came from outside. In 1955 Harry Buckwitz , the artistic director of the Frankfurt Municipal Theaters, became interested in the play. In the middle of November there was an initial working meeting between Frisch and the director Fritz Kortner ; The new version was completed by the end of the year. The premiere took place on February 4, 1956. Teo Otto again took care of the stage design, and Bernhard Minetti provided the prosecutor . In the program booklet for the premiere, Frisch spoke of “a lively, genuine and free collaboration between director and author”, which for him was “an inspiring experience”. Five years later he reported that he had changed the material more and more wildly from rehearsal to rehearsal: “An exciting experiment!” But he restricted: “I moved the whole piece into the current foreground, where it had to be fundamentally incomprehensible. […] At the end we bowed to an audience that believed we had seen a Hitler caricature. “Frisch drew the conclusions from the misunderstandings and blocked the performance rights for this version; except for the tenth picture, it was never printed.

In 1960, when looking through his diary, Frisch came across the original prose sketch of the Öderland material, which "simply convinced" him while reading. He revised the play again and finally reported to Siegfried Unseld that he had removed the play “from the direct political aspect of the second version, as well as from the private aspect of the first version, which I consider both buried [...] in the direction of the spook what it was in the first sketch ”. He had "the feeling that it is now a playable piece." The actor Ernst Schröder was interested in the role of the public prosecutor. The new version was premiered by Hans Lietzau on September 25, 1961 as part of the Berliner Festwochen in the Schillertheater , the stage design was by Hansheinrich Palitzsch . The new version appeared in print for the first time in Spectaculum 4/1961. In 1963 Suhrkamp Verlag brought out a single edition. In 1975 Frisch included this arrangement as the final version in the edition of his complete works.

In the program booklet for the second version, Frisch compared his special relationship to the Öderland material with the feelings of a father "to especially love children who appear to the environment as miscarriages". In 1974, in an interview with Heinz Ludwig Arnold , he confessed which of his plays he “dearest - not a successful play, but the most mysterious: The 'Count Öderland'.” After three versions he began “no more fourth, but that is for me the liveliest piece. ”Frisch was too close to the piece, too committed and caught up in his own invention and the opacity of the material that he“ could not work so confidently with his craftsmanship ”as with his later parables . In retrospect, he was pleased with the figure of Count Öderland, the “real invention of a figure that did not exist before”, and which the audience repeatedly took to be a Nordic legend: “That's nice: that a figure assumes this credibility in the field of fables. "

reception

Review of the premiere

The reviews of the premiere were almost entirely negative, especially those from Switzerland. Sonja Rüegg saw the cause in the time situation in 1951, when many Swiss felt their existence was threatened by the Korean War and were looking for a clear political orientation between the great powers. In this situation, many reviewers reacted to the insecurity of their own model intended by the play and a questioning of friend-foe categories with disturbance, anger and rejection as well as the affirmation of their own worldview. The ambiguity of the piece, together with its negative tendency, often led to misinterpretations. In many cases the figure of the public prosecutor was equated with the author and, in connection with pre-existing reservations about Frisch's political sentiments, an alleged sympathy of the author for communism was constructed.

Alfred Traber judged the play in popular law as "superficial and untruthful" and stated: "But to rebel against any order in society, to proclaim the right of the unrestricted personality, as Count Öderland does, is madness." . Bösch in the Tages-Anzeiger after the author's intention, so that a “clear pros and cons can develop” in the audience. The fatherland missed the hint that “a deep satisfaction can also be hidden in the fulfillment of duty”. Elisabeth Brock-Sulzer did indeed put Frisch against Brecht. While the latter is fighting for a class with its drama, Frisch is fighting “at most against one class, namely the one to which he will always belong”, the bourgeoisie, to which it is “neither a shame nor a condemnation” to belong.

The St. Galler Tagblatt formulated its moral objections to the play: “To strictly reject the worldview that Frisch puts before us in this play. As a moral of the story, he proclaims that the ax is no way out. But only the physically ill can live under the obsessional neurosis that a way out must be sought at all. For normal people, existence is not the freshly drawn languor in fetters that impose duties of loyalty and responsibility on us. ”The accusation of nihilism was raised from various social currents. Thus the communist forward saw the play as a "not exactly important manifesto of nihilism". The Catholic Neue Zürcher Nachrichten warned: "Nihilism is the creeping disease of our time". The Swiss family magazine Sie und Er was indignant: "Without hesitation, Öderland opens all doors to the wind of the existentialist worldview". Erich Brock drew the conclusion at noon : "All that remains is an infinitely powerless chatter, declamation of flat leading articles [...] a clumsy Nietzsche - Stirner morality".

There were also some positive voices. Hans Bayer wrote in the Frankfurter Abendpost : “The piece is gripping, captivating, depressing. Boldly conceived. For the most part, the audience was shocked. The poet pale. ” Albert J. Welti was one of the few positive critics in Switzerland . In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung he emphasized the “symbolic power of the individual images and the sophistication of the dialogues” and praised the “exemplary performance” as “ingenious construction”. In the following month, Werner Weber also took a critical stance on the book edition in the NZZ and complained: “That has nothing to do with humane existence; it is the direct break-in of the instincts. [...] Where did Frisch emigrate to with mind and spirit that he let the community-building custom play to us as deadly, when he himself experiences the humanity in itself - for example in the fact that he not only has the duty, but also some rights, For example this: to think and take responsibility for a wasteland. ”Following a discussion with Max Frisch's participation, Hans Ott assessed the critical reception of the piece:“ [The] confrontation with our time, the reflection with our surroundings, with today's events , it is what triggers the great unease in some of today's 'people of the time'. ”For Frisch, the piece remained his“ first failure on the stage ”.

Recording of later versions

The new version from 1956 was also partly understood against the author's intentions and viewed as a parable of Hitler's seizure of power . This is how Karl Korn headed his review “Öderland takes hold of power” and continued: “Thirty years ago the play would have been a brilliant prophecy, twenty years ago the author, if he had dared cross the German border with the manuscript, would have thought tasted - today it is a swan song for the experiences with fascism. " Joachim Kaiser saw in the revision of Frisch and Kortner" brought to the end what slumbered unredeemed in the material. But they also wiped away the ballad-like fog that graciously covered the breaks and contradictions. ”The result was“ an interesting impossibility, a dramaturgical miscarriage, a product of poetic weakness and stylistic indecision. All of this at a high level ”. In Frisch's ten-year struggle for his subject, one can observe "the hopeless struggle of the powerless artistic understanding to aesthetically master the impossible".

The final version from 1961 also remained controversial. Gody Suter compared: “There is a difference between the primeval wasteland and the new version, as there is between twilight and day, between promise and fulfillment, between talent and mastery […]. The lengthy reflection has disappeared, the self-interpretation in place, what has remained is the clear, suggestive legendary figure […]. The urge to underline the symbolic and profound has disappeared; What remains are the symbols and the deep meaning. [...] Max Frisch relies on his characters, can rely on himself. ” Friedrich Luft objected that in the tenth scene Frisch“ opposed the tragic hero moguls, cabaret figures of power. In doing so, he damages his hero and thereby diminishes the last fun in the tragic grotesque. ”Johannes Jacobi, on the other hand, stuck to the judgment that Count Öderland “ could not be helped in the third version either. [...] Max Frisch couldn't find a convincing conclusion, couldn't turn his ballad into a drama. [...] Now at least half of his 'wasteland' scenario is flesh and blood. The people live on stage, some can be considered exemplary types. Only the sense, which would have to produce a dramatic ending, remained hidden from the author even in the third 'Öderland' version. "

According to Max Frisch's assessment, Count Öderland was better understood after the 1968 movement , for example in a Paris performance in 1972: “These events have a lot to do with the play, it was a revolt, not a revolution, it was an eruption , it bears a tremendous resemblance to the play. ”Urs Bircher stated in 1997:“ However, the play has not (yet) experienced a convincing success at the theater. ”Nevertheless, Count Öderland was brought to the stage again and again and in one changed actuality perceived, also in student and school theater performances . In 2010, Achim Lenz staged the play in a co-production of the Ringlokschuppens Mülheim with the Theater Chur and made echoes of modern films such as Falling Down and Natural Born Killers . Between 2004 and 2006, Max E. Keller set a libretto by Anke Rauthmann and Yohanan Kaldi for a chamber opera entitled The Ax , which was not performed, on behalf of the Komische Oper Berlin . In November 2015, Volker Lösch edited Frisch's drama with current reference to the Pegida protests as Count Öderland / Wir sind das Volk for the Dresden State Theater .

Reviews and position in the plant

In later studies of the drama, ratings remained inconsistent. In his speech at the 1998 Max Frisch Prize, Tankred Dorst named Count Öderland as the piece that impressed him the most, not because it was Frisch's best, but because it was “'unsuccessful', so still unfinished, an attempt , a fragment. ”Michael Butler, for whom Count Öderland stuck in the memory,“ while the technically superior texts Biedermann and Andorra have long since been transformed into reading material for the upper school ”, which Frisch condemned as the“ ineffectiveness of a classic ”- a phrase that Frisch himself coined for Brecht. For Alexander Stephan, Count Öderland was "no longer just a pale contribution to the sociology of the bourgeoisie or a failed political spectacle about some actual or imagined seducer, but also and above all a well-packaged contribution to the possibilities and limits of writing literature."

Despite his failure, Count Öderland was widely viewed as an important step or turning point in Frisch's work. Jürgen H. Petersen saw in this piece "the transition from a dramaturgy that transcends space-time boundaries to a dramaturgy of the parabolic". For Hellmuth Karasek, Frisch had “achieved a scenic mastery, scarcity and parabolic sensibility that from now on will remain characteristic of his dramas. Count Öderland is Frisch's first really decisive step towards becoming a playwright of modern world theater. ”While Sonja Rüegg saw the beginning of Frisch's“ Engagement as Citizen ”and above all the critical examination of Switzerland, which was reflected in the following prose works and essays , judged Gerhard P. Knapp with a look at the stage work Graf Öderland as the “pivot point” for an exactly opposite development: For Frisch, the failure of the piece means the end of the connection between private and social motives on the stage. With the follow-up piece Don Juan or the love of geometry , he confines himself to a private level. The great anger of Philipp Hotz leads the Öderland topic back to a trivializing swank , in biography: A game , the attempt to break out of one's own biography is exclusively motivated privately, but just like the socially motivated outbreak in Graf Öderland , ends in fatality. For Marianne Biedermann, Count Öderland belonged in the context of the parabolic pieces Biedermann und die Brandstifter and Andorra , which depict "the relationship between society and the individual and the fixation on models and conventions" without showing possible solutions in their observational criticism.

filming

In 1968 Rolf Hädrich filmed Graf Öderland for the Hessischer Rundfunk . Bernhard Wicki appeared in the main role . Ernst Jacobi took on other roles as a murderer and the director of the premiere Leonard Steckel as a clairvoyant. Der Spiegel announced that in the film adaptation of the Count's sleepwalking, “melancholy and schizophrenic through the underground and the elegant world, and not sure whether he is dreaming or waking. And the viewer doesn't know either. ”For Wolfram Schütte in the Frankfurter Rundschau , Hädrich tried to“ make the drama politically more concrete ”. His staging is "disadvantageous in that it could not choose between a television play and film." Above all, the language of the play stood in the way of "a free staging, became heavyweight, striking." This further adaptation of Frisch's drama was also important it "remained the most abstruse of his dramatic production".

literature

Text output

  • Max Frisch: Count Öderland. A game in 10 pictures . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1951.
  • Max Frisch: Count Öderland. A morality in 12 pictures . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1963, ISBN 3-518-10032-7 .

Secondary literature

  • Marianne Biedermann: Count Öderland in relation to his environment. An investigation . In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Max Frisch . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-38559-3 , pp. 129-159.
  • Michael Butler: The paradox of the parable: On Max Frisch's “When the War Was Over” and “Count Öderland”. In: Gerhard P. Knapp (Ed.): Max Frisch. Aspects of the stage work . Peter Lang, Bern 1979, ISBN 3-261-03071-2 , pp. 177-194.
  • Friedrich Dürrenmatt : A vision and its dramatic fate. To “Graf Öderland” by Max Frisch . In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Max Frisch , pp. 126–128.
  • Manfred Durzak : Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Weiss. German drama of the present between criticism and utopia . Reclam, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-15-010201-4 , pp. 185-196.
  • Manfred Jurgensen : Max Frisch. The dramas . Francke, Bern 1976, ISBN 3-7720-1160-8 , pp. 31-37.
  • Hellmuth Karasek : Max Frisch. Friedrich's playwright of the world theater volume 17 . Friedrich Verlag, Velber 1974, pp. 46-57.
  • Gerhard P. Knapp: "Öderland" pivotal point: About the importance of a dramaturgical failure for the stage work of Frisch. In: Gerhard P. Knapp (Ed.): Max Frisch. Aspects of the stage work , pp. 223–254.
  • Barbara Rowińska-Januszewska: On the freedom problem in Max Frisch's work . Peter Lang, Bern 2000, ISBN 3-906765-25-3 , pp. 135-147.
  • Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity. The image of Switzerland in Max Frisch's works “Graf Öderland”, “Stiller” and “achtung: die Schweiz” and its contemporary criticism (dissertation). Chronos, Zurich 1998, ISBN 978-3-905312-72-0 , pp. 153-196, 359-363.
  • Walter Schmitz : Max Frisch: The Work (1931–1961) . Studies on tradition and processing traditions. Peter Lang, Bern 1985, ISBN 3-261-05049-7 , pp. 215-228.
  • Alexander Stephan : Max Frisch . CH Beck, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-09587-9 , pp. 49-54.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-06533-5 , p. 93.
  2. ↑ Cf. on the two versions: Max Frisch: Gesammelte Werke in chronological order. Third volume , pp. 839-861.
  3. ↑ a b c Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 839.
  4. ↑ Michael Butler: The Paradox of the Parable: On Max Frisch's “When the War Was Over” and “Graf Öderland” , p. 187.
  5. ↑ See section: Manfred Durzak: Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Weiss , p. 185.
  6. ↑ Michael Butler: The Paradox of the Parable: On Max Frisch's “When the War Was Over” and “Graf Öderland” , pp. 186, 191, 193–194.
  7. ^ Gertrud Bauer Pickar: The Dramatic Works of Max Frisch . Peter Lang, Bern 1977, ISBN 3-261-02171-3 , p. 21.
  8. ^ Gertrud Bauer Pickar: The Dramatic Works of Max Frisch , p. 54.
  9. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 842.
  10. ↑ Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , pp. 161–175.
  11. ↑ Manfred Durzak: Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Weiss , p. 187.
  12. ↑ See section: Manfred Durzak: Dürrenmatt, Frisch, Weiss , pp. 185–196.
  13. ↑ Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , pp. 175–180, 195–196.
  14. ^ Marianne Biedermann: Count Öderland in relation to his environment. An investigation , pp. 129-130.
  15. ↑ Barbara Rowińska-Januszewska: For freedom issues in the work of Max Frisch , S. 135-147.
  16. ^ Marianne Biedermann: Count Öderland in relation to his environment. An investigation , pp. 129-159.
  17. ↑ Manfred Jurgensen: Max Frisch. The Dramas , pp. 31–37.
  18. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 84.
  19. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 88.
  20. ↑ See section: Walter Schmitz: Max Frisch: Das Werk (1931–1961) , pp. 217–227.
  21. ^ A b Walter Schmitz: Max Frisch: Das Werk (1931-1961) , p. 222.
  22. ^ Walter Schmitz: Max Frisch: Das Werk (1931–1961) , pp. 216–217.
  23. ^ Marianne Biedermann: Count Öderland in relation to his environment , p. 141.
  24. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 57.
  25. ↑ The full letter is printed in: Hans Bänziger: Frisch und Dürrenmatt . Franke, Bern 1976, ISBN 3-7720-1212-4 , pp. 237-241.
  26. ↑ Friedrich Dürrenmatt : A vision and its dramatic fate . In: Die Weltwoche of February 16, 1951. Printed in Luis Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max fresh . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-39734-6 , p. 60.
  27. ↑ Quoted from: Walter Schmitz: Afterword . In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): About Max Frisch II . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-518-10852-2 , p. 546.
  28. ↑ Jean Rodolphe de Salis : On Max Frisch's "Graf Öderland" In: Schwierige Schweiz . Schweizer Volks-Buchgemeinde, Luzern 1968, pp. 144–148.
  29. ↑ Alexander Stephan: Max Frisch , p. 54.
  30. ↑ Michael Butler: The Paradox of the Parable: On Max Frisch's “When the War Was Over” and “Count Öderland” , p. 190.
  31. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: Max Frisch , p. 56.
  32. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 . Limmat, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85791-286-3 , pp. 190–191.
  33. ↑ Manfred Jurgensen: Max Frisch. The Dramas , p. 37.
  34. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Second volume , p. 362.
  35. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Second volume , pp. 403-404.
  36. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Second volume , pp. 404-405.
  37. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Second volume , pp. 406-443.
  38. ↑ Max Frisch: The Count of Öderland. 1st version. Sketch. 30. Volume of the Bibliophile Writings of the Literary Association Braunschweig eV, Braunschweig 1983 (not available in bookshops).
  39. ↑ Julian Schütt (Ed.): Max Frisch. Now is the time to see. Letters, notes, documents 1943–1963 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-40981-6 , pp. 94-104, quotation p. 101.
  40. ↑ a b c Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 840.
  41. ↑ a b c Cf. Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , pp. 90-91.
  42. ↑ Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Third volume , p. 94.
  43. ^ Heinz Ludwig Arnold : Conversations with writers . Beck, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-406-04934-6 , pp. 34-35.
  44. ↑ a b Heinz Ludwig Arnold: Conversations with Writers , p. 39.
  45. ↑ Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , pp. 194–196.
  46. ↑ Alfred Traber: Count Oederland with the ax in his hand. I. Thoughts on the morality of Max Frisch. In: Volksrecht of February 23, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 184.
  47. ^ W. Bösch: "Graf Oederland". First performance in the theater. In: Tages-Anzeiger, February 12, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 183.
  48. ^ M .: A new drama by Max Frisch. “Graf Oederland” at the Zurich Schauspielhaus In: Vaterland from February 16, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 185.
  49. ^ Elisabeth Brock-Sulzer: Schauspielhaus Zürich. Max Frisch: The Count of Oederland. In: The act of February 13, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 185.
  50. ↑ St. Galler Tagblatt of February 15, 1951, quoted from: Luis Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max frisch , p. 61.
  51. ^ E. and Edgar Woog: Schauspielhaus: Max Frisch: "Graf Oederland" In: Vorwärts from March 1 and 2, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I do not hate Switzerland, but mendacity , p. 185.
  52. ↑ Quoted from: Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , p. 192.
  53. ↑ Hans Bayer on the world premiere of “Graf Öderland” at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. In: Abendpost of February 14, 1951, quoted from: Luis Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max frisch , p. 58.
  54. ^ Albert J. Welti : Schauspielhaus: Max Frisch: "Graf Oederland" In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of March 1 and 2, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I do not hate Switzerland, but mendacity , p. 185.
  55. ^ Werner Weber : Count Öderland. To the book edition of Max Frisch's new work . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of March 17, 1951, quoted from: Luis Bolliger (Ed.): Now: max frisch , p. 62.
  56. ↑ Hans Ott: Count Oederland with the ax in his hand. Discussion about Max Frisch's new play. III. In: Volksrecht of March 8, 1951. Quoted from: Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 189.
  57. ↑ Karl Korn : Öderland seizes power. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 6, 1956. Quoted from: Max Gassmann: Max Frisch: Leitmotive der Jugend . Dissertation, Zurich 1966, p. 22.
  58. ↑ Joachim Kaiser : Öderländische meditations. Portrait of a play and a performance . In: Frankfurter Hefte 11, 1956, p. 393.
  59. ↑ Gody Suter: Count Öderland with ax in hand . In: Die Weltwoche of October 6, 1961. Reprinted in: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Max Frisch I , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-518-10852-2 , pp. 113–115.
  60. ↑ Friedrich Luft : Packed by the Raptus of freedom . In: Die Welt of September 27, 1961. Quoted from: Thomas Beckermann (Ed.): About Max Frisch I , p. 115.
  61. ^ Johannes Jacobi: Die Welt zu Gast in Berlin . In: Die Zeit , No. 41/1961.
  62. ↑ Urs Bircher: From the slow growth of an anger: Max Frisch 1911–1955 , p. 188.
  63. ^ Esther Schmidt: Wasteland is everywhere . In: Newspaper of the Theater Chur No. 11, January / February 2010, pp. 10–11 ( online at the Ringlokschuppen Mülheim ).
  64. ↑ Scenic works on the homepage of Max E. Keller .
  65. ^ Graf Öderland - People's will brought on stage ( memento from December 11, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) in the culture magazine artour , MDR from November 26, 2015.
  66. ↑ Tankred Dorst : Once again Öderland. A conversation resumed . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-518-06559-9 , pp. 33-34.
  67. ↑ Max Frisch: Teo Otto . In: Max Frisch: Collected works in chronological order. Fifth volume . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-518-06533-5 , p. 342.
  68. ↑ Michael Butler: The Paradox of the Parable: On Max Frisch's “When the War Was Over” and “Graf Öderland” , p. 193.
  69. ↑ Alexander Stephan: Max Frisch , p. 53.
  70. ^ Jürgen H. Petersen: Frisch's dramaturgical conception . In: Gerhard P. Knapp (Ed.): Max Frisch. Aspects of the stage work , pp. 37–38.
  71. ↑ Hellmuth Karasek: Max Frisch. Friedrich's playwright of the world theater volume 17 , p. 57.
  72. ↑ Sonja Rüegg: I don't hate Switzerland, I hate mendacity , p. 196.
  73. ↑ Gerhard P. Knapp: pivot point “Öderland”: On the meaning of a dramaturgical failure for the stage work Frischs , pp. 225, 243-250.
  74. ^ Marianne Biedermann: Count Öderland in relation to his environment. An investigation , p. 155.
  75. ↑ Count Öderland in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  76. ↑ television . In: Der Spiegel . No. 49 , 1968 ( online ).
  77. ^ Wolfram Schütte : Count Öderland . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , December 10, 1968.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on June 13, 2010 in this version .