Public abuse

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Public abuse is a play by Peter Handke . It consists of one act, is not played, but spoken ("speaking piece") and was premiered on June 8, 1966 in Frankfurt am Main in the Theater am Turm under the direction of Claus Peymann .

About the piece

Handke's first spoken piece is an expression of his rejection of the forms of theater and their themes that were predominant in the 1960s. It is in particularly stark contrast to Bert Brecht's Epic Theater with its documentary-didactic approaches. Handke wanted to encourage reflection on theater itself. In particular, what happens between the actor and the audience at a theater performance is the focus of his interest. To do this, the author dispenses with or reverses the elements that are common in the theater: For example, the actors enter the stage from behind.

The speech rhythm of the piece, which partly consists of shortened sentences, is influenced by the recently emerging beat music .

In an interview from 2003, Handke's former professor Günther Winkler (University of Vienna) describes how Handke came to him once and said: “ Do you know what I have learned from you? - The public abuse ! "

content

The public abuse begins with the lines:

You won't see a drama.
Your curiosity will not be satisfied.
You won't see a game.
There will be no play here.

Four nameless people appear without special costumes and speak directly to the audience sitting in the light: We only speak. This already says that the piece has no plot in the classic sense. Rather, it's about dealing with the theater. In the further course of the play, the performers initially address any individual sensitivities of the audience and address it directly, but without insulting it. The actual public abuse, which only forms the last part of the play, is intended to create a certain immediacy, according to the actors' prior declaration: the audience is labeled with all sorts of unpleasant things, which in no small part specifically refer to recent German history between 1933 and 1945 alludes to, e.g. B. their warmongers, their subhumans . After the insults, the actors wished the audience a good night and gave a loud applause.

Actual history and text retention

The Düsseldorf rapper Koljah ( Antilopen Gang ) named his first album after the play.

The typescript of the public abuse, together with Handke's improvements, can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the Modern Literature Museum in Marbach am Neckar .

expenditure

  • Peter Handke: Public abuse and other speaking pieces. (= Edition Suhrkamp. 177). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1966. (reprint 2004, ISBN 3-518-10177-3 )

literature

  • G. Behse: About Peter Handke's successful piece “Public abuse”. In: Jutta Kolkenbrock-Netz (Hrsg.): Ways of literary studies. Bonn 1985, pp. 345-371.
  • Manfred Durzak: Peter Handke and contemporary German literature. Stuttgart / Berlin / Cologne / Mainz 1982, pp. 79-92.
  • Manfred Mixner : Peter Handke. Kronberg 1977.
  • Helmut Motekat: Theater without drama or the “speaking piece”. In: Norbert Honsza (Ed.): On Peter Handke: between experiment and tradition. Stuttgart 1983, pp. 5-11.
  • Helmut Heißenbüttel: Peter Handke: "Public abuse". In: Manfred Brauneck (Ed.): The German Drama from Expressionism to the Present. Bamberg 1977, pp. 327-333.
  • Walter Hinderer: Wittgenstein for beginners? Notes on Peter Handke's linguistic theater. In: JDSG. 26, 1982, pp. 467-488.
  • Norbert Honsza: Public abuse . In the S. (Ed.): On Peter Handke: between experiment and tradition. Stuttgart 1983, pp. 12-15.
  • Dorothea Kraus: “This is no other world than yours”. To Peter Handke's “public abuse”. In: German lessons. Volume 60, H. 1, 2008, 43-52.
  • Rainer Nägele: Peter Handke: Aspects of an experimental theater. In: Colloquia Germanica. 1981, pp. 220-228.
  • Edgar Neis: Explanations to Peter Handke: Public abuse, Kaspar. (= King's explanations and materials. 324). Bange, Hollfeld 1978.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lateral thinkers in the chairs. In: Wiener Zeitung Online . 2nd paragraph last sentence. ( wienerzeitung.at ( Memento from January 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ))