Wolfgang Bauer (writer)

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Wolfgang Bauer's grave at the Graz Central Cemetery

Wolfgang Bauer (born March 18, 1941 in Graz ; † August 26, 2005 there ) was an Austrian writer . His work includes dramas , poetry , short prose , a novel , essays , reviews, films, and television plays. He became internationally known primarily as a writer of plays. Alongside Thomas Bernhard and Peter Handke , he is considered one of the most important Austrian contemporary dramatists. Bauer was a member of the Graz authors' meeting , the Forum Stadtpark , and a founding member of the Lord Jim Lodge (together with Martin Kippenberger , Albert Oehlen and Jörg Schlick ). He had joint appearances with Ernst Jandl , Oswald Wiener , HC Artmann and Peter Handke, with whom he was also friends.

Life

In 1959, after finishing school in Graz, Wolfgang Bauer went to Vienna and studied law, theater studies, philosophy and Romance languages. With the world premiere of his first two one-act plays The Pig Transport and Painters and Color in 1962 in the Graz City Park Forum, which had just been founded at the time , he became a representative of the literary avant-garde ; the early work from 1961 to 1967 is strongly influenced by Eugène Ionesco's theater of the absurd , as well as by the existentialist dramas of Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus . The first reading of his texts took place in 1962 in the Forum Stadtpark.

Signature (approx. 1962)

At the age of 27, Bauer made his international breakthrough with Magic Afternoon . The world premiere took place on September 12, 1968 under the direction of Horst Zankl at the Landestheater Hannover , after the play had previously been rejected by 40 theaters in the entire German-speaking region. In 1968 the Cologne publisher Kiepenheuer & Witsch included it in its theater program, and in 1969 it appeared there, with an afterword by Ute Nyssen, also as a first edition (together with Change and Party for Six ). From then on, Bauer's pieces were translated into many languages ​​and performed worldwide.

Although Bauer, after his other international successes ( Change 1969, premiered at the Vienna Volkstheater under the direction of Gustav Manker , directed by Bernd Fischerauer , Silvester or the massacre in the Hotel Sacher (with Helmut Qualtinger , Volkstheater), film and woman (Shakespeare the Sadist) in 1971 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Gespenster in 1973 in the Münchner Kammerspiele) remained extremely productive and his plays continued to be played, the playwright did not want to meet the pre-formed expectations of the stages and the audience in German-speaking countries. Bauer's later texts are masterpieces of absurd theater and are considered difficult to consume. From the late 1970s, Bauer had more success in English-speaking countries than in Germany and Austria. For example, towards the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, some premieres of Bauer's plays in English translation (mostly by Martin Esslin ) were staged at the Magic Theater in San Francisco , and in 1993 a play was even premiered ( Insalata mista or in the English Version Tadpoletigermosquitos at Mulligan's ) in the Ohio Theater in New York.

In Germany and Austria, on the other hand, at that time, more than his plays, his private life made headlines, which he always understood as an excessively actionist synthesis of the arts. For financial reasons, he took on various commissions and wrote journalistic texts for magazines such as the Airport Journal and the Wienerin . In 1991 he designed the catalog for the Styrian state exhibition Sport - Sinn und Wahn . 1992–2001, Bauer taught at the School of Poetry in Vienna. On October 23, 2004 he was admitted to the Freemason lodge "Archduke Johann" in Graz. Bauer died of complications from a heart condition.

meaning

“For many years, Wolfgang Bauer has successfully eluded all literary and Germanist attempts to be labeled and assigned to a writer category - to his own detriment. Mainly irritating as a dramatist , but his appearances as a poet , novelist and columnist were extremely successful and popular, to the same extent that they did not meet the requirements of the genre. ”(Quote from the Droschl publishing house ).

Judgment of critics on the person of Wolfgang Bauer:

  • "The most important contemporary Austrian poet" (Nobel Prize for Literature Elfriede Jelinek on Wolfgang Bauer)
  • Austria's funniest trivial author , author of contemporary documents, poet, naturalist, socially critical neorealist, author of the absurd drama, vulgar, pornographic - just Magic Wolfi or the Bürgererschreck .

The historian Dieter A. Binder judges that after his revolutionary beginnings, Bauer got stuck in his "role as chronicler of his aging clique" and thus ultimately became the "homeland poet of the sixty-eighties".

“Wolfgang Bauer was one of those who broke up. With the silence of the fifties and sixties. Realities were expressed in the plays Magic Afternoon, Change and Die Gespenster. Crude bedroom realities were what exposed the political. They were scandals. Giant scandals. 1968 took place in Austria in the theater. "( Marlene Streeruwitz : Die Zeit, 2005)

Research on life and work

In June 2007, an international scientific symposium on Wolfgang Bauer took place at the Graz City Museum under the direction of Paul Pechmann as part of the Memory XS exhibition installation dedicated to Bauer , which was also shown at the MAK in September 2007 .

Since July 2008, the Institute for German Studies at the University of Vienna has been running a research project, financed by the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research and initiated by Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler , on the work, estate and impact of Wolfgang Bauer under the direction of Michael Rohrwasser and with the assistance of Thomas Antonic .

Finding the trunk

In 2015 it became known that in the course of archival work, the drama manuscript Der Rüssel, which had previously been largely considered lost , was found in the Leibnitz City Museum . The play was published as a book by Ritter Verlag in 2015, together with other previously unpublished scenic texts from Bauer's estate, and was premiered on April 20, 2018 at the Vienna Academy Theater .

Awards and honors

Works

Anthologies

  • Works in seven volumes . Edited by Gerhard Melzer. With an afterword by Manfred Mixner. Droschl, Graz / Vienna 1987
  • An edition of the work in nine individual volumes was published by the Droschl literary publisher in 1986 and 2004.
  • Wolfgang Bauer: The trunk. Scenic texts from the estate. Ed. U. with an afterword v. Thomas Antonic. Ritter Verlag , Klagenfurt / Vienna / Graz 2015, ISBN 978-3-85415-530-0 .
  • Wolfgang Bauer: The spirit of San Francisco. Scattered published and post-processed texts. Edited by Thomas Antonic. With introductory essays by Elfriede Jelinek and Martin Esslin. Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt / Vienna / Graz 2011, ISBN 978-3-85415-470-9 .
  • I am a bad child. Dramas, prose, poetry from four decades. (Eds.) Gerhard Melzer, Andreas Unterweger, afterword by Andreas Unterweger. Sonderzahl Verlag , Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85449-266-5 .

Plays

Wolfgang Bauer: The trunk (2018)
  • Der Schweinetransport (1961, first performance 1962, first printing 1978)
  • Painter and Color (1961, UA 1962, ED 1978)
  • Batyscaphe 17–26 or Hell is Up (1961, UA 1982, ED 1980)
  • Totu-wa-botu (1961, WP 1992, ED 1974)
  • Two birds on one track (1962, UA 1962, ED 1973)
  • Katharina Doppelkopf (1962, WP 1962, ED 1973)
  • The trunk ("pretty sure in the summer of 1962", premiere 2018)
  • Microdramas (a total of 21 short dramas that cannot be performed, created 1962/63, ED 1964)
  • Microdramas. Twelve pieces. ED 1964, Berlin: Fietkau, ISBN 978-3-87352-009-7 .
  • Pfnacht (1963, WP 1985, ED 1980)
  • The Man Eaters (1963, UA 1967, ED 1970)
  • From the slingshot to the Lipizzaner (1964, not performed, ED 2006 (fragment) as a supplement to the 4th issue of the journal Fleisch )
  • Party for Six (1964, Premiere 1967, ED 1966)
  • Even better than all good ending! (1965, WP 1965, ED 1970)
  • The death of the engineer Leo Habernik from Linz (1965, WP 1984, ED 1982)
  • Magic Afternoon (1967, WP + ED 1968)
  • Change (1968/69, WP + ED 1969)
  • Film und Frau (1971, WP + ED 1971, alternative title: "Shakespeare the Sadist")
  • New Year's Eve or The Massacre in the Hotel Sacher (1971, WP 1971, ED 1972)
  • Ghosts (1973, WP 1974, ED 1973)
  • Magnetic Kisses (1975, WP 1976, ED 1975)
  • Memory Hotel (1979/80, WP + ED 1980)
  • Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? (1981, WP 1982, ED 1981)
  • The Short Life of Snow Clouds (1982, WP 1983, ED 1982)
  • A Happy Morning at the Hairdresser's (1982, WP 1983, ED 1982)
  • A Terrible Dream (1986, WP 1986, ED 1987)
  • Mr. Faust plays roulette (1986, WP 1987, ED 1986)
  • Brian DePalma's smile (1988, premiere 1991 at Schauspielhaus Graz , ED 1988),
  • Oh, poor Orpheus! (1989, WP 1991 (Schauspielhaus Wien), ED 1989)
  • Insalata mista (1992, WP 1993 (Ohio Theater, New York), ED 1992, alternative title: "Tadpoltigermosquitos at Mulligan's")
  • The canteen. Capriccio à la Habsburg. (1993, WP ( Schauspielhaus Graz ) + ED 1993)
  • The people factory (1996, UA + ED 1996)
  • Sketchbook (1996, WP Wiener Festwochen + ED 1996)
  • Café Tamagotchi (1998, WP 2001, ED 1998)
  • Foyer (2004, premiere steirischer herbst 2004 ED 2004)

Libretti

  • Magnet (1978, ballet adaptation of "Magnetküsse")
  • Café Museum - The Enlightenment (1993). Opera libretto. Music: Kurt Schwertsik . WP + ED 1993
  • The stolen heart. Short opera in one act. Music: Jury Everhartz . Premiere November 2004 ( siren opera theater )

novel

  • The fever head. (created 1964–1967, ED 1967)

Volumes of poetry

  • The silent reeds. A bad masterpiece: bad lyrics with bad drawings and a bad record. 1969.
  • The Heart (1981)

Radio plays

  • Cistern (1961, unpublished)
  • 1431 (1963, first broadcast on February 27, 1972 on Radio Österreich 1, director: Wolfgang Lesowsky )
  • Hallo-Hallo (1973, first broadcast on October 2, 1973 on Radio Austria 1)
  • Der Fieberkopf (1976, first broadcast on November 6, 1976 on NDR)
  • Memory Hotel (1980, first broadcast on September 13, 1980 on Radio Austria 1)
  • Der Schweinetransport (1981, first broadcast on March 15 on Radio Austria 1)
  • The short life of the snow clouds (1985, first broadcast on November 24, 1985 on Radio Austria 1)
  • Batyscaphe 17–26 or Hell is above (1988, first broadcast on September 20, 1988 on Radio Austria 1)
  • Dream Jockey (1998, first broadcast on March 24, 1998 on Radio Austria 1)

Scripts

  • The Edegger family (1970, first broadcast 1971 on WDR III)
  • Chief of the Alps (1974, ED 1978, not yet made as a film)
  • Change (1975, together with Bernd Fischerauer )
  • It wasn't the nightingale (made as a movie in 1974 (director: Sigi Rothemund ), alternative title: Der Liebesschüler und Die Niece der O. Screenplay unpublished and lost)
  • Journey to the Brain (1975, film adaptation of the novel Der Fieberkopf , first broadcast on June 13, 1975 on ORF , director: Claus Homschak )
  • In times like these (pilot film + seven-part television series 1983, ED of the pilot film script 1984, the series scripts have not yet been published; first broadcast of the pilot film in 1984 on ORF and ARD , first broadcast of the TV series directed and revised by Reinhard Schwabenitzky in 1989 on N3 ( two parts) or completely 1990 on ORF)
  • 22, black ... (1987, ED 1987, not yet made as a film)
  • The Christmas Dream (1994, ED 1994, not yet realized as a film)

Further publications in book form

Sound carrier

  • Das Stille Schilf A bad masterpiece: bad texts with bad drawings and a bad record (vinyl with 10 titles in the spine of the poetry volume of the same name [see above]). Bärmeier & Nikel, Frankfurt am Main 1969 (read by Wolfgang Bauer; on the organ: Herbert Feuerstein )
  • Wolfgang Bauer reads microdramas by Wolfgang Bauer. (1975, Intercord Litera 26 553-8 H)
  • Brain with egg. Jazz + poetry. (1981, together with HC Artmann , Fritz Pauer and Hans Koller , record, production: Verlag Droschl )
  • Magic farmer. A selection of works. (2001, double CD, recordings from 1969 to 1999, interviews, readings by the author (including 12 microdramas), radio play adaptation of Der Schweinetransport , ORF CD 638)
  • Wolfgang Bauer - Last Reading (2007, CD for the production of Magic Afternoon by Dramagraz , 2 recordings from August 5, 2005, Literaturhaus Graz: Schöne, wide world (1965), Top Secret! (1973), extra plate EX-ED 025 007)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. according to Ulrich Weinzierl: Cheerful in the mythical strudel In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . May 4th 1991.
  2. ^ Dieter A. Binder: Heimatsuchen. Attempts at the cultural history of a federal state. In: Alfred Ableitinger, Dieter A. Binder: Steiermark. Overcoming the periphery . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 3-205-99217-2 , pp. 551–634, here p. 601.
  3. ^ Marlene Streeruwitz: Revolutionary in the fight against labels. On the death of the writer Wolfgang Bauer . From Die Zeit No. 36/2005
  4. ↑ Ronald Pohl: The discovery of the play 'Der Rüssel' by Wolfgang Bauer, which was believed to be lost, is a minor sensation. on: derstandard.at , February 17, 2015.
  5. ↑ Theater safari in the Styrian Alps. In: derStandard.at. February 17, 2015, accessed December 4, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Bauer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 2005
Place of death Graz