My Fortunate Austria1
Revolt against Mr. Peymann’s Tartuffe--
An Incensed Letter to the Editor of Die Zeit
First thing
after absolutely cheerfully engaging in my matutinal reading of El Païs over
a café nero grande on the market square at Pollença with the precision
of a Swiss watch, I dealt myself the fully unprecedented sucker-punch of your
issue of this week, which was enough to make my entire physical being recoil in
horror and disgust from each and every item ever printed in a newspaper, an
issue in which you fail to be even so unasinine as not to give column-inches to
that most awful of all Burgtheater directors, Claus Peymann, and his crackpot-infernal
telex informing you of his plan to stage a performance of Tartuffe. Mr. Peymann suffers, as you know, from the
incurable classics disease which, as you also know, has in his case over the
last few months developed into a downright virulently galloping pathology, and
as far as I can see, there is no chance that as long as he lives he will ever
stop staging these repellent, primitive, and vulgar English and French and
Spanish classics which are notoriously known as Shakespeare, Molière, Lope de
Vega, etcetera, and which in their primitiveness and vulgarity and debility are
impossible to kill off. In my opinion,
these writers of horror-showpieces have fully and fundamentally poisoned the
theater throughout Europe and literally
throughout the entire world, and poisoned it for the ages, which unfortunately
will never again be able to rid themselves of this classics epidemic! Chernobyl, that Soviet-orthodox laughingstock,
is nothing compared to one of these Shakespeare plays that each and every day
is emitted into the atmosphere at least once somewhere in the world; a
Shakespearean Tempest does more damage to Europe than ten Chernobyls or
even Basel catastrophes, believe me.2 Shakespeare alone has polluted and
annihilated the theatrical world for centuries, if not for all time, believe
me! So Mr. Peymann has announced that in
March he is going to put on a performance of Tartuffe, which, by the
way, is one of the most moronic plays that has ever been written and staged,
believe me. Plays in general, no matter
by whom they have been written, are the most moronic things that can be brought
on to the stage, believe me, because I know how magnificent it is when a glass
of beer is brought on to the stage, but never when a play is. So Peymann intends to put on Tartuffe in
March at the Burgtheater, as I said, and this is precisely the reason
for my despair if not my annihilation, believe me, for Mr. Peymann promised me
that this March only a single play would be performed at the Burgtheater,
namely my Fortunate Austria!, believe me. Has Mr. Peymann really forgotten that the Austrian State Austrian State March 11, 1988 as a dedicated date for the premiere of
my play and my production? If Mr.
Peymann is actually staging Tartuffe
(which, by the way, will be made much more ridiculous than it already is by the
cast he claims to be working with), then this spells my annihilation with the
very utmost absoluteness!, believe me, for as Mr. Peymann knows, here in
Mallorca I have been rehearsing my play, my Fortunate
Austria, for which I, believe me, have discovered the perfect cast. In the light of the fact that Mr. Peymann is
now putting on Tartuffe with Mr.
Waldheim, I cannot help letting you in on the following secret, which until
this very day has been kept strictly under wraps by Mr. Peymann and me: for
five months here in Pollença, in the finca
católica, I have been rehearsing my Fortunate Austria--you will not believe
it—with Mr. Waldheim and Mr. Kreisky in the principal roles. In my play Mr. Kreisky is playing the grand dubiosus, and Mr. Waldheim the cunning hors d’oeuvre, and I have signed Mr. Heller to play the swineherd
in my play. Mr. Heller is doing his gig
for free, Mr. Waldheim has received an advance of six million schillings, and
Mr. Kreisky only three; these all are in line with their usual fees!, believe
me; both gentlemen want their honoraria absolutely tax-free, Mr.
Waldheim wants his remitted to an account in Liechtenstein, Mr. Kreisky to an
account in Andorra. The sums will have
been remitted by October. I have given
Mr. Heller three million for the blind in Hamburg Mallorca , I have decided to
rehearse my play here. By the way, he
didn’t take so much as a second to agree to my offer, the old fox. First I shall rehearse with him on his own,
then with Waldheim, then with Vranitzky as well. And here I enjoyed the most splendid
conditions for rehearsing. Finally,
at last, a play of my own directed by me in an atmosphere that really comes
within scraping distance of ideal! What is more, for the past few weeks
here it has snowed almost uninterruptedly, a rare event in Pollença, and most
of the time the finca católica has felt to me like a
cottage two thousand meters above sea level, in the Alps . The ideal conditions for a rehearsal,
entirely on this Mediterranean island and at the same time in the upper
elevation of the Alps , just think of it! Unfortunately there are so many actors with
parts in my play here that I can’t even count them, but there are certainly
more than three hundred; I believe there are 329, but I have of course already
named the most important of them.
Waldheim, Kreisky; next come Vranitzky, Mr. Mock, and the pope, who has
already promised to take part in the dress rehearsal; and believe me, the pope
has already been here three times and acted his part superbly. He arrived here with his lines completely
memorized; he arrived here at night, you understand, just like Mr. Waldheim,
whom I have had flown in three times a week from Vienna, in contrast to the
pope, who has had to be flown in from Rome; regarding this I must say that the
costs of the flights have been defrayed by the Austrian State and the Vatican,
because they obviously would have been far too exorbitant to be covered by me. Mr. Waldheim always arrived here punctually
at six o’ clock in the evening, in other words, at dusk, in order to make an
entrance even before the rehearsal. In
the course of the rehearsals I have noticed that Mr. Waldheim is pretty lousy
if not completely incompetent on horseback, this despite the fact that he has
claimed to be an excellent rider, and in my play he must ride, ride! like
you wouldn’t believe. The pope has only
a minor role in my play; he makes just a single entrance and kisses Austrian
soil. But even this has got to be
rehearsed, believe me! I have already had
the pope flown in seven times for the rehearsal of this moment. He really does quite a good job at kissing
Austrian soil, believe me. Mr.
Vranitzky, whom you will know as the chancellor of the Austrian republic, is to
dance a so-called reverse waltz with Mr. Kreisky; so far the pair have not
managed to do it, but I am hopeful that this can also be brought off
successfully by March 11. When I tell
you that Mr. Kreisky is enthusiastic about the undertaking, and that Mr.
Waldheim is no less enthusiastic, and that the same thing goes for the pope and
Mr. Vranitzky, you probably won’t believe me.
My play has only two acts; the first takes place at dawn at the Ballhausplatz,
the second at dusk at the Hofburg. At dawn the principal role must
be played by Mr. Kreisky; in the evening it must be played by Mr. Waldheim. Throughout the play Mr. Vranitzky is onstage
without having anything to say. But as
you know the so-called silent roles are the most difficult ones of all, and so
I have been rehearsing with Mr. Vranitzky in the finca católica since as far back as
October. Mr. Vrankitzky has declined
every honorarium on the grounds that he already has more money than can ever be
estimated, and I really do take him at his word. Mr. Vranitzky is ideal for the so-called
non-speaking roles, because, as you know, he finds it difficult to speak, and I
did not wish to force him to speak half- or quarter-sentences, which in my play
are spoken by a man whom I have so far forgotten to mention: the archbishop of Vienna Austria Mallorca . At the beginning of the second act Mr.
Vranitzky jumps into the Kreisky family’s wading pool and soaks all the
Kreiskys from head to toe, so that they flee the stage. This second act is called dusk because in this act everybody
realizes that the sun has set on Austria.4 Fortunate Austria is
therefore nothing but an ironic punch line.
To this extent it really is just another classic play, like the plays of
the classic authors. But my classic play
is a play for today, whereas the other classic plays are indisputably plays for
yesterday. When you consider that seven
months of rehearsals with Waldheim, Kreisky, Vranitzky, Grober, and company
(not to mention the auxiliary bishop of Vienna March 11, 1988 ; I was
supposed to bring it on to the stage as a party
for all of Austria March
11, 1988 . I have hired
myself to play the role of the killjoy in my play! But now I see thanks to my reading of your
article of February 26, that my entire commitment, which as always is naturally
a total commitment, has been in vain.
It’s too bad that not only all those rehearsal hours with this most
fantastic of all theatrical ensembles, but also that 38,000,000-schilling
subsidy from the Austrian State, have been wasted now that Peymann is staging Tartuffe and not my Fortunate Austria at the Burgtheater. One of the greatest of all opportunities ever
afforded the theater, meaning quite simply the entire world, has been
squandered, and by Mr. Peymann no less!
P.S. I have rented the Burgtheater for all of
March 1988, but of course Mr. Peymann doesn’t abide by contracts! Mr. Waldheim has taken leave from the Hofburg
for the entire month of March so that he can perform in my play as the cunning hors d’oeuvre, just as Mr. Vranitzky has done from the Ballhausplatz. And at St. Stephen’s cathedral throughout the
month of March no masses will be sung and no Lenten sermons will be delivered,
because I have firmly incorporated Messrs. Groher and Krenn into my schedule,
and, you won’t believe this, they’re working for a pittance! In the dusk
act Mr. Waldheim (as the cunning hors d’oeuvre) is
strangled while still in his dressing gown by both Kreisky as the grand dubiosus and
the Vienna Boys’ Choir, and afterwards the Vienna Philharmonic plays the first
half of the Eroica symphony. Mrs. Waldheim (who in
my play is called the young nazissus)
throws herself out of the Hofburg’s presidential
bedroom on to the Ballhausplatz. Mr.
Peymann has defaulted on the contract for my Fortunate
Austria as he has defaulted on a thousand earlier
contracts, and he has broken his promise regarding my Fortunate Austria as he
has broken a thousand earlier promises.
Mr. Peymann is a promise-breaker and a cynical contractual
ignoramus! Thanks to his March 11 Tartuffe I am being
annihilated! I shall never again put on
a production of anything like Fortunate
Austria, even if sometime in the future Mr. Peymann should
come begging to me on his hands and knees, because I shall never again be able
to assemble such an ideal cast, and I shall never again be in the mood to put
on a production of a single unrepeatable play that put me in a good mood at a
single unrepeatable time, believe me! I
have lost seven months of my life to Mr. Peymann’s promise-breaking and
contractual ignoramushood!, believe me.
With this March 11 Tartuffe Mr. Peymann has annihilated not only my play but also my entire
existence! Now I have no choice but to
incinerate my Fortunate
Austria in the black-bread oven of the finca
católica and to forget all about my production and to climb up the cliffs of
Formentor and to throw myself off the most forbidding peak of the cliffs of Formentor
into the sea as a casualty of Mr. Peymann’s inter-millennial bashfulness. Farewell, my dear sir; you are only an
editor, whereas I, the writer of this letter to the editor, am an author for
the stage who has been battered, nay, annihilated, by a nonentity of a
Burgtheater director!
Yours, Thomas
Bernhard
- Source: Der Wahrheit auf der Spur. Reden, Leserbriefe,
Interviews, Feuilletons. Herausgegeben
von Wolfram Bayer, Raimund Fellingerund und Martin Huber [Stalking
the Truth. Speeches, Open Letters, Interviews, Newspaper Articles. Edited by Wolfram Bayer et al.](
- By the “Basel catastrophe,” Bernhard probably means the
city-leveling 1356 Basel earthquake, presumably chosen in preference to
larger-magnituded temblors because of its occurrence in central Europe.
- Black money [schwarzes Geld] is, as one would
expect, money tainted by criminal activity, but as black is also the color
of Waldheim’s conservative Austrian People’s Party, as against the red of Kreisky’s
Social Democratic Party, Bernhard is effectively saying here not only that
Kreisky and Waldheim are corrupt but also that Kreisky is in bed with the
political right.
- As a freestanding entity, this sentence would be better
translated as “This second act is
called dawn [Dämmerung] because in this act it
dawns [dämmert] on everybody that
Austria is lost,” as “dawn” and “dusk” are both possible renditions of Dämmerung.
But as the context makes it evident that Dämmerung is not
being used in the “dawn”-y sense here, one is obliged to be a bit less
pithy.
THE END
Translation unauthorized but Copyright ©2015 by Douglas Robertson
No comments:
Post a Comment