The hero of the western world
| The Playboy of the Western World | ||
|---|---|---|
| Original title: | The Playboy of the Western World | |
| Author: | John Millington Synge | |
| premiere | Abbey Theater Dublin, January 26th 1907 | |
| Theatrical form | Irish folk play, drama | |
| German title: | The hero of the western world | |
| A real hero | ||
| The hero of the Westerland | ||
| The juggler from Mayo | ||
| Persons of the piece | ||
| Christopher Mahon | called Christy | |
| Old Mahon | his father, a tenant | |
| Michael James Flaherty | called Michael James (a host) | |
| Marggret Flaherty | called Pegeen Mike (his daughter) | |
| Widow Quin | a woman of about thirty | |
| Shawn Keogh | Peegen's cousin, a young farmer | |
| Philly Cullan | Small farmers | |
| Jimmy Farrel | ||
| Sarah Tansey | Village girl | |
| Susan Brady | ||
| Honor Blake | ||
| Nelly | ||
The hero of the western world (original title English : The Playboy of the Western World ) is a play by John Millington Synge . It was on January 26, 1907 Abbey Theater in Dublin premiered .
action
The play takes place at the beginning of the 19th century in James Flaherty's inn on the coast of Mayo , a county in Connacht in northwestern Ireland. Here arrives Christy Mahon, a young man who claims to have killed his father. Desperate, Christy had beaten his tyrannical father and fled in panic when old Mahon lay lifeless. He wandered around for nights. His story, which he reluctantly tells in the Flaherty's tavern, captivates the imagination of the villagers. Such a “brave” man had never come around.
performance
Based on a true story, the tragic comedy premiered on January 26, 1907 at Dublin's Abbey Theater. It sparked a theatrical scandal among the audience, who saw their honor offended . Witnesses report pounding, booing spectators, drunken Trinity students who shouted " God Save the Queen ", and nationalists on the other side shouted " God save Ireland " and " A Nation once again ". The fighting took place first in the theater, later on the surrounding streets and had to be stopped by the police. Irish nationalists said that the play was not political enough and that its immoral language violated the dignity of Ireland, especially of Irish women. The supposedly clichéd portrayal of the rural Catholic-Irish lower-class milieu was seen as a mockery by Irish nationalists such as Sinn Féin leader Arthur Griffith . Synge himself wrote in the foreword to the book edition, dated January 21, 1907, that in The Playboy of the Western World, as in his other plays, he only used a word or two that he had not heard in the rural population of Ireland or in his own nursery even before he could read the newspaper. The theater's patron, William Butler Yeats , was then prompted to deliver a speech in defense of the freedom of the theater. Although press opinion soon turned against the critics and protests (known as the Playboy Riots ) ebbed, the Abbey Theater was shaken and Synge's next (and final) play, The Tinker's Wedding (1908), was not performed for fear of further disturbances. Today the play is one of the classics of the theater.
German translations
- A first translation by Charles H. Fisher and Sil-Vara (Geza Silberer) appeared in 1912 under the title "Der Held von Westerland".
- Katrin Janecke and Günter Blöcker : “The juggler of Mayo” (1948).
-
Anna Elisabeth Wiede and Peter Hacks : "The hero of the western world"
- The Wiede-Hacks couple came to East Berlin in 1955 and wrote a translation for Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble there . The first performance took place on May 11, 1956 in the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm . Directed by Peter Palitzsch and Manfred Wekwerth .
- A studio recording of Piet Drescher's production at the Städtisches Theater Karl-Marx-Stadt was broadcast on East German television in 1978 .
-
Annemarie Böll and Heinrich Böll : "A true hero"
- This translation was premiered on March 11, 1960 in the Kammerspiele am Ubierring of the stages of the city of Cologne under the direction of Maurits Balfoort with Wolfgang Forester and Ida Krottendorf . It is kept much simpler, very smooth and "normal". Regarding the translation of the title, Böll wrote: “The word Playboy turned out to be untranslatable; It would have taken the combination of many German words to translate it even approximately: traders, babblers, philanderers, idlers, swindlers, show-offs, darlings, many more words, a little bit of each and in an impossible mix of proportions; Even in the English lexicons, even in the thickest, ie most precise, there is little space, in most of them none at all. "
- The broadcaster Free Berlin produced “A true hero” in 1961 under the direction of Hans Lietzau with Horst Frank as Christy Mahon and Carla Hagen as Pegeen.
- Felix Mitterer : "The hero from the west". First performance February 12, 1999 in the Theater der Jugend (Vienna) . Director: Hans Escher.
Income
Hanns Eisler set the following morities from the piece to music: Song of the Heroes of Ireland , Moritat , Volksmoritat , Choral and Caitrin and John .
Adaptations (film, musical, opera)
- Film : "The Playboy of the Western World" has been adapted many times for film and television.
- Musical : "The Playboy of the Western World" by Kate Hancock and Richard B. Evans premiered at the STAGES 2005 festival in the Theater Building Chicago.
- Opera : Giselher Klebe's opera in three acts A true hero was premiered on January 18, 1975 at the Zurich Opera House . Jan Müller-Wieland's comic opera in three acts “The Hero of the Western World” (text based on the translation by Annemarie and Heinrich Böll) was commissioned by the Cologne Opera and premiered there on April 7, 2006. The soprano Claudia Rohrbach sang the title role of Christy Mahon .
- Rock : The album "Vagabonds of the Western World" (1973) by the rock band Thin Lizzy creates a connection to Irish mythology. The so-called “western world”, also called “Tir na N'Ogh”, represents the mythological beyond of the Celts. The title song contains the explicit line of text “[...] he was a vagabond, a playboy of the western world [...] "
Web links
- The Playboy of the Western World at Project Gutenberg
- The Playboy of the Western World at bartleby.com/1010/
Individual evidence
- ↑ Regina Standun: John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World , in: Stefan Neuhaus , Johann Holzner (ed.): Literature as a scandal. Cases - functions - consequences. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007.
- ^ Preface. Synge, JM 1911. The Playboy of the Western World. In: bartleby.com. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
- ↑ Silberer, Geza; Ps. Sil-Vara (1876–1938), journalist and writer. In: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 Institute for Modern and Contemporary History Research
- ↑ JM Synge: The hero of the Westerland. In: openlibrary.org. 1912, accessed January 20, 2015 .
- ↑ The Juggler of Mayo by John Millington Synge. In: felix-bloch-orben.de. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
- ^ Heinrich Böll: The Irish diary. In: irisches-tagebuch.com. June 30, 1956, accessed January 20, 2015 .
- ^ Spectaculum. Modern plays . Volume 7. Suhrkamp 1965. p. 365 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ↑ A true hero in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ^ Kaiser Verlag - Felix Mitterer 70 , p. 44 f.
- ↑ John Millington Synge in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ WHAT IS IT ABOUT? In: theatermania.com from August 12, 2005
- ↑ Jens Wendland: Opera: Giselher Klebe's “True Hero” premiered in Zurich: A story of lies for singers. In: zeit.de . January 24, 1975. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
- ↑ Stefan Keim: "The hero of the western world" at Cologne's opera. In: welt.de . May 11, 2006, accessed January 20, 2015 .