FRAZIER GUNDERSEN VENTURINI
(1) Thomas Bernhard was confined to a sanitarium from 1948 to 1951 with pleurisy, tuberculosis, and other pulmonary disorders. In 1957 he graduated from the Salzburg Mozarteum Academy with a thesis on Artaud and Brecht. Theater historian Gitta Honegger says that Bernhard’s “essentially comic spirit,” like Kafka’s, is “not a pleasant one . . . but rather a mad laughter: the author’s laughter . . . at the madness of the world.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
(2) The play supposedly incorporates some events from the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Originally a disciple of Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein eventually broke with his mentor, declaring that words had no absolute meaning outside the context in which they were used.
Bernhard’s text is composed not so much of dialogue as of intertwined monologues–the effect is rather like Strindberg played at triple time. Unfortunately, the actions accompanying this verbiage are as predictable as they are petty. When Ludwig leans over a plate of his older sister’s home-baked cream puffs, seemingly to savor the aroma, we know that the pastry will end up on the floor. We know that the lamp will be thrown across the room, and that the table will be cleared by the cloth being pulled out from under the dishes. We wait for these things to happen, our attention to physical action heightened by our shrinking from the staccato vocalizations.
