Heroes' Square (Drama)

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Data
Title: Heroes' Square
Original language: German
Author: Thomas Bernhard
Publishing year: 1988
Premiere: 4th November 1988
Place of premiere: Vienna Burgtheater
Place and time of the action: First and third scene in Professor Schuster's apartment, near Heldenplatz, third floor
Second scene in the Volksgarten
After the funeral in March 1988
people
  • Robert Schuster ; Brother of the late Professor Josef Schuster
  • Anna ; Daughter of the deceased
  • Olga ; Daughter of the deceased
  • Luke ; Son of the deceased
  • Hedwig ; Wife of the deceased
  • Professor Liebig ; a colleague
  • Mrs. Liebig
  • Mr. Landauer ; an admirer
  • Mrs. Zittel ; Housekeeper of the deceased
  • Herta ; his housemaid

Heldenplatz is a drama by Thomas Bernhard . It was commissioned by the then director of the Vienna Burgtheater Claus Peymann for the 100th anniversary of the opening of the theater in 1988 and triggered one of the biggest theater scandals in the history of Austria. The premiere was on November 4th, 1988, the year in which the 50th anniversary of the "Anschluss" of Austria was commemorated (called the "Year of Consideration" at the time).

content

The play takes place after the death of Josef Schuster, a professor of mathematics at the University of Vienna . He committed suicide (according to the time specified in the drama) in March 1988 by throwing himself out of the window of his Vienna apartment, which is located directly on Heldenplatz .

In the scenes of the play, the main characters deal on the one hand with the character of Josef Schuster and on the other hand with their own life situation. The focus is on the monologue-like reflections by Robert Schuster, the brother of the deceased.

First Scene

The first scene takes place in the professor's apartment in downtown Vienna with a view of Heldenplatz. While Herta and Mrs. Zittel are doing the laundry, a dialogue ensues between the two of them. Mrs. Zittel is the long-established housekeeper in the Schuster house and Herta is a young housemaid. They talk about the professor and his suicide. The professor had a friendly relationship with Frau Zittel, which is special in that the professor was a misanthrope . First, the story of the professor is told. He was driven to emigrate by the Nazis and took up teaching at Oxford University. After the end of the war he returned at the request of the mayor of Vienna. The professor planned to return to Oxford University , as his wife suffers from acoustic hallucinations and for ten years has heard the cheering crowds from Heldenplatz, which celebrated Hitler's entry into this square in 1938. But it doesn't come to that because he took his own life beforehand. The moving boxes addressed to Oxford are transported to Neuhaus , since the deceased's wife is to move there. She is said to live there with her late husband's brother. The character traits of Schuster become visible in the conversation. He was a spiritual man who felt himself misunderstood by the world , who was convinced that Austria was still deeply connected to National Socialism and that Catholic stupidity ruled the people. Professor Schuster is characterized as difficult and authoritarian.

Second scene

In Volksgarten meet after the funeral the next of kin of the deceased each other. Anna and Olga, the professor's daughters, talk about why the professor couldn't go to Oxford and why it was impossible for him to exist in this world. Now Professor Robert Schuster, the brother of Josef Schuster and uncle of Anna and Olga, appears. He has long since given up rebelling against the world. He thinks that everything is even worse these days than it was in 1938. In Austria you have to be either National Socialist or Catholic, nothing else will be tolerated. Professor Robert regularly goes to concerts in the Musikverein , but he heard the last good concert 20 years ago. He doesn't even try to address injustices. A road is to be built through the garden of his house, but Professor Robert does not think it is worth the effort to write a letter of protest. The differences between Professor Robert and Professor Josef become clear. Professor Robert wants to enjoy his life and therefore puts on blinkers even though he sees what is happening in the world and in his surroundings. His niece Anna tries to go against his attitude, Olga resembles him in terms of mood.

Third scene

The third scene takes place in the dining room with a view of Heldenplatz. All the guests at the funeral, in addition to the professor's family, a Jewish professorial couple, meet. In the preliminary talk, Mrs. Schuster and her son Lukas are still waiting. The grievances in Vienna are denounced and condemned; Vienna has Professor Josef on his conscience. They talk about Frau Zittel and her friendship with him. The professor's wife appears for the first time. She begins again to hear the “Sieg Heil” cry of the masses from outside that rang out fifty years earlier on Heldenplatz. Everyone eats soup, there is no big funeral feast . The imaginary "Sieg Heil" -cry gets louder and louder and finally swells to unbearable. The piece ends with Mrs. Schuster falling face first onto the table top. All look scared.

Milieu and surroundings

The play takes place in Vienna in the present (at the time of writing) in 1988, exactly 50 years after the " Anschluss " with the National Socialist German Reich. The reconstruction of Vienna has been completed for decades and prosperity has long since returned. The people in the play are part of the higher society of Vienna and all related to victims of the Holocaust . The only exceptions are Mrs. Zittel, the housekeeper, and Herta, the housekeeper.

Important persons

Josef Schuster

The protagonist of the text does not appear personally, he is remembered and commented on in the course of the three scenes in the form of a replica: At the beginning, one learns details about the character situation of the professor through the characters "Frau Zittel" and "Herta", which later (in the second scene) is more strongly memorized by his brother, "Professor Robert" Schuster. Contrary to his brother Robert's motto (“I don't give in and I don't give up”), Josef committed suicide in March 1988. He is described as a pedant. Josef Schuster is characterized by a rigid worldview and the ability to make judgments. His apodictic view of the world is shaped by a categorization into “good” and “bad”.

Benjamin Henrichs writes in the "Zeit" about the protagonist in his review of the premiere that he reminds of "a Jew who barks like a German shepherd".

Mrs. Zittel

She is a loyal soul who still stands by the professor even after the death of the professor, tries to understand the professor and explains what he did. She played a bigger role than Hedwig in the life of Josef Schuster. She looks down at the housemaid Herta.

Anna

A committed fighter for justice who tries to take action against the wickedness of the world. In addition, she sees black for Vienna, everyone she speaks to turns out to be a Nazi after a short time.

Olga

She is the opposite of Anna, her sister. She plays down the fact that a passerby spat on her because of her Jewish origins. Olga is silent and is described as frozen by her uncle Robert.

Robert Schuster

The brother of the deceased tries to lead a quiet life. So he runs through the world with blinkers. He is a negativist, criticizes everything and everyone and does not even exclude himself from criticism. "I'm against almost everything!" In addition, he has a serious heart condition, making him very frail and walking on crutches.

Hedwig

The wife of the deceased only appears at the end of the play, after all the scenes talked about her, because she hallucinates the “screams of the crowd from Heldenplatz” and thus stands for the trauma of the Jews in Austria . She is described as a capitalist (vinegar factory, fez factory) of the family and by no means as an intellectual. Her breakdown at the table (probably her death) closes the drama.

"Heroes' Square Scandal"

Bernhard's play was created and premiered in those years when Austria's past during the National Socialist era as a result of the controversies surrounding the election of Kurt Waldheim as Federal President ( Waldheim Affair 1986) was more publicly and profoundly conducted than ever before End of World War II . 1988, the year of the premiere, also marked the fiftieth anniversary of the " Anschluss of Austria " to the National Socialist German Reich , which was officially celebrated in the country as a "year of reflection".

According to Hermann Beil , then dramaturge and co-director at the Burgtheater, director Claus Peymann suggested that Bernhard write a play on the "year of reflection". At first he refused and then wrote Heldenplatz . The work was to be premiered for the 100th anniversary of the Burgtheater, which also fell in 1988. It was planned not to make the content and text public until the planned premiere on October 14th. However, the first text excerpts appeared on August 1st in the news magazine profil in an article by the literary critic Sigrid Löffler , in which she used the examples of George Tabori , Alfred Hrdlicka ( Memorial against War and Fascism , 1988) and Peymann on a "new cultural war in Austria" wrote. Again in the profile she reported on September 19 about the postponement of the premiere to November and added a synopsis and several text passages from the play to the report. The quotes were largely ignored in public.

The scandalization of Heldenplatz began with unauthorized text passages from the play published on October 7th in the conservative weekly newspaper Wochenpresse and the daily newspaper Kronen Zeitung . The quotes were printed without context or assignment to the protagonists of the play, which could (or should) give the impression that they directly reflect Bernhard's views. After further newspaper articles in the Kronen Zeitung , with headings such as “Austria, 6.5 million Debile”, “Taxpayers should also pay for Austria defilement!” And the announcement of a “giant vortex” and corresponding columns by Krone publisher Hans Dichand and Expressions of opinion on the letters to the editor of the paper, the Austrian radio also took up the topic on television and radio. As a result, various politicians and other people and groups spoke out against the play and demanded that it should not be performed or at least individual passages should be deleted and it should be censored . Among the protesters against the play, which until then was still not known as a whole, were Federal President Waldheim (“a gross insult to the Austrian people”), the leading representatives of the ÖVP with Vice Chancellor Alois Mock , who was “a global abuse of Austria [the ] is also financed with tax money ", lamented, at the top, the then Vienna auxiliary bishop and episcopal vicar for art, culture and science, Kurt Krenn , and various fraternities , but also the social-democratic mayor of Vienna Helmut Zilk and the former Federal Chancellor Bruno Kreisky ( “You can't put up with that!”). Jörg Haider , aiming at Peymann and paraphrasing Karl Kraus , demanded : “Out of Vienna with the villain!” Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky , Vienna's City Councilor for Culture Ursula Pasterk and Minister of Education Hilde Hawlicek as well as a minority of journalistic commentators advocated a performance. The Austrian authors' union also declared its solidarity with Bernhard and Peymann. Because of this sensation, even before the first performance and before the content of the play was really known, international attention was drawn to the "Heldenplatz scandal". Michael Frank described the excitement in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “At the moment, Austria is striving to bring about the greatest possible correspondence between reality and Bernhard's grotesque texts.” Similarly, Löffler in the profile that the October 17th issue with the title page “Heldenplatz” The staging "opened:" All of Austria is the stage [...] the main actors sit in the Hofburg and on Ballhausplatz, in the newspaper offices and in the party headquarters. "

On the day of the premiere, the Kronen Zeitung appeared with the headline “'Heldenplatz'-Premiere: Burgtheater today under police protection” and printed a photomontage that showed the Burgtheater in flames, and underneath the slogan “Nothing is too hot for us!” In the Standard demanded Peter Sichrovsky , who saw Jews abused in the play, “Storm the Heldenplatz!” and referred to the performance of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Der Müll, die Stadt und die Tod at the Schauspiel Frankfurt 1985, which had to be canceled because parts of the audience were up had stepped forward and kept it occupied. Protests by various groups in front of the theater were announced. The “National Conservative Union” and others called for protests, and the group “Wir Niederösterreicher” around Martin Humer planned to unload a load of cow dung in front of the building. They were supported Bernhard and Peymann by a "culture war" titled declaration of a number of authors ( Erich Fried , Barbara Frischmuth , Josef Haslinger , Elfriede Jelinek , Gerhard Roth , Michael Scharang , Peter Turrini and Gernot Wolfgruber ) located in the popular vote one against Restricting the freedom of art and defaming writers and calling for a counter-demonstration. In fact, there were largely no demonstrations in front of the Burgtheater. The sold out premiere itself was accompanied by disruptive actions, heckling and whistling from the audience, which in turn were demonstratively responded to by applause and shouts of bravo from others. Ultimately, the majority of the audience responded with enthusiasm. When Thomas Bernhard came on stage with the actors after the closing curtain, it was his last public appearance. Peymann reminiscing about this premiere evening: “We premiered 'Heldenplatz' against all odds, against an agitated, whipped public. [...] the actors helped us achieve a tremendous victory in the second and third act. For the poet Thomas Bernhard, already marked by death, the premiere triumph was a last great, happy gift. […] 'Heldenplatz' was a farewell. ”Bernhard died a few months later, on February 12, 1989. With 120 performances in 10 years, Heldenplatz became one of the most successful productions at the Burgtheater to date. Leading actor Wolfgang Gasser was awarded the Kainz Medal in 1989 for his portrayal of Robert Schuster .

Formal information about the premiere

Heldenplatz was premiered on November 4th, 1988 in Vienna's Burgtheater.

The roles and their actors were:

Production: Claus Peymann

Stage design and costumes: Karl-Ernst Herrmann

Dramaturgy: Hermann Beil and Jutta Ferbers

literature

  • Thomas Bernhard: Heldenplatz . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-01997-X .
  • Burgtheater Vienna (Ed.): Thomas Bernhard Heldenplatz . Program book No. 36 of the Vienna Burgtheater, Vienna 1988.
  • Burgtheater Wien (Ed.): Heldenplatz - A Documentation . Vienna 1989.
  • Dirk Jürgens: The Thomas Bernhard Theater . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1999.
  • Martin Kraus: Two pieces of scandal in the context of anti-Semitism: Thomas Bernhards Heldenplatz and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Garbage, the City and Death . University of Waterloo Library, Waterloo, 2009

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Martin Huber (Thomas Bernhard Archive): The Heldenplatz scandal.
  2. ↑ Oliver Bentz : Thomas Bernhard: Poetry as a scandal. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 978-3-8260-1930-2 , p. 82.
  3. ↑ a b c "Heldenplatz": Bernhard's scandalous piece back in Vienna. The press , September 9, 2010.
  4. ↑ profile 25 years ago: "Heldenplatz" - outrage ( Memento from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). profile , October 17, 2013.
  5. ↑ Oliver Bentz: Thomas Bernhard: Dicht als Scandal, p. 91.
  6. ↑ Oliver Bentz: Thomas Bernhard: Dicht als Scandal, p. 92.
  7. ^ University of Waterloo