Back and forth

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Back and forth is a comedy (or as the author himself called it: a “farce in two parts”) by the Austro-Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth . The play was created in 1933 under the working title "Die Brücke" and was premiered on December 13, 1934 in the Schauspielhaus Zurich under the direction of Gustav Hartungs . In Germany, where Horváth's works were no longer allowed to be performed at the time of its creation, the piece was shown for the first time on December 29, 1965 at the Hessian State Theater in Wiesbaden . Hans Gál wrote the music for the piece . The piece was designed for a revolving stage . The manuscript of the drama is kept in the literature archive of the Austrian National Library.

From 1933 onwards, Horváth was considered an “undesirable person” in Germany after the National Socialist seizure of power . He had to travel to Budapest to renew his Hungarian citizenship. This experience inspired him to write the piece “Back and forth”. He used the premiere in Zurich as an opportunity to leave Germany with the actress Wera Liessem , his partner at the time.

In 1948 the film of the same name was published.

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The piece is set on a simple wooden bridge that crosses a border river and connects two unnamed states. On the one hand, at the end of the bridge, the border guard Thomas Szamek keeps watch, on the opposite end, the border organ Constantine. The focus is on Ferdinand Havlicek. He was deported from the state he had lived in for half a century after his drugstore went bankrupt. He wanted to cross the bridge back to his native land. However, he had forgotten to renew his citizenship there every five years, so that he can no longer enter the country. Only through his help with the transfer of a smuggler couple does he receive a reward in addition to an entry permit.

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