Saul O'Hara

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Saul O'Hara is a legendary pseudonym of the playwright Peter Hacks (1928–2003) and his wife Anna Elisabeth Wiede (1928–2009).

Circumstances of choice of name

As a communist, Peter Hacks had little chance of getting his plays on German stages. After several failures, he and his wife Anna Elisabeth Wiede came up with the pseudonym Saul O'Hara. Not only was it supposed to cover up Hacks' outlawed name, but also to promote success in the financially oriented tabloid theater .

Under the pseudonym of the supposed translator Hans-Joachim Pauli , Peter Hacks offered the publisher and director of the Münchner Drei-Masken-Verlag , Hans-Joachim Pavel (1919-2006), the parody of a typically English detective piece by the supposedly Irish writer on November 28, 1960 and economist Saul O'Hara. This play with the title Marrying is Always a Risk , the alleged original Risky Marriage of which "unfortunately got lost" (according to Peter Hacks in the letter to Pavel), became the most played play of the 1963/64 season in Germany, and is still today again gladly performed.

Along with Risky Marriage , Peter Hacks also circulated a credible legend about Saul O'Hara. The following information about life and work is based on that legend:

Saul O'Hara (legend)

Saul O'Hara (* 1924 in Cork ) is an Irish writer and economist .

Life

O'Hara has lived in England since he was three . He has been married since 1948.

He received his doctorate in economics and published several works on economic topics such as The Movement of the Silver Prize during the reigns of Henry III. and Eduards I. , The Money Act of 1844 or General Value Theory of Precious Metals .

His first play Marriage is Always a Risk ( Risky Marriage ) premiered in 1959. Three years later its German-language premiere took place in the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna, the German premiere took place under the title Inspector Campbell's Last Case on December 8, 1962 in the Kammerspiele of the German Theater in East Berlin, followed by another performance on December 17 January 1963 at the State Theater in Stuttgart . In 1971 the piece was released under the title Another spoon of poison, darling? brought to the opera stage (libretto by Peter Hacks , composed by Siegfried Matthus ).

Another play: the whiskey lukewarm, the bed in the hall

Radio documentation

Film adaptations

radio play

literature

  • Weber, Ronald: History of a Misunderstanding. The hacks reception in the FRG until 1989 . In: ARGOS . No. 3 . Thiele, September 2008, ISSN  1865-049X , p. 119-154 .
  • Weber, Ronald: Peter Hacks Bibliography: List of all writings by and about Peter Hacks; 1948 to 2007 . Thiele, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-940884-01-5 .

Web links