Friedrich Durrenmatt S&D

many years ago I saw a student production of "The Physicists". It was about these physicists in a psychiatric hospital who had all started imagining that they were great physicists of the past. But a pall of suspicion hung over them - were they really mad, or just pretending to be so that the military couldn't pump them for information to build quark bombs. A very enjoyable play.

I gather that, being Swiss, Durrenmatt more or less single-handedly rehabilitated German language literature in the immediate aftermath of the Third Reich.

A similar German language dramatist of the same period: the Swiss Max Frisch. I like his novels a lot, like 'Homo Faber' (filmed with Sam Shepherd) and 'Man In The Holocene'. His famous play is 'The Fire Raisers'.

Also check Martin Walser...

The Visit was written by a Swiss playwright, in 1955, just after World War II had finished. Friedrich Durrenmatt, the writer of The Visit was from Switzerland, a country that stayed neutral during World War II, and Durrenmatt has obviously written this strange grotesque tradgi-comedy with messages in mind, addressing them to certain communities and individuals.

"It [Guellen] is a community which slowly yields to temptation, yet this yielding must be understandable. The temptation is too great, the poverty is too bitter. [The Visit] is a malicious play, but just for that reason, it must be presented without anger and in the most humane way, with sadness yet with humor, for nothing hurts this comedy that ends tragically than brutal seriousness." - Friedrich Durrenmatt

SECTION i) The Visit has three major characters: Claire Zachanassian, the old, rich lady. Alfred Shill, her former lover and object of her ruthless justice; and the people of the town of Gullen (for example the poor citizens or the mayor), who make up a kind of complex representation of the society itself. Through these characters, Durrenmatt is able to give the audience a darkly comic, breathless, and in the end, unanswerable debate about the nature of justice, redemption and community.

The historical events that lead up to the writing The Visit was World War II, the biggest war in world history, where millions of lives were lost and where most of the world was living in poverty. Durrenmatt sets the play in a city called Guellen (meaning "excrement" in Swiss). At the time of 1955, most of the town’s in the world would have been Guellen’s, so the play actually related to what people were thinking and seeing. Durrenmatt was a German speaking playwright in Switzerland. He was the witness to the rise of fasicim from neighbouring countries, but as he wasn’t actually living in them, he was sheltered from their direct impact. However, despite the shelter, Durrenmatt was still able to write a chilling grotesque comedy on how society treats people, if they are forced to by extreame circumstances.

The Visitor (or, auf Deutsch, Der Besuch der alter Dame) is indeed a great play. So great, in fact, that I had to read it several times as an undergrad, in several different undergrad German classes. Always been kind of surprised that it hasn't been recently turned into a English-language movie, since its theme could just as easily be adopted to, say, a Rustbelt town that's down in the dumps (Youngstown, Ohio) or Northern England as it could be to 1950s Continental Europe. (I think that there has been an English-language film based on The Visit, for several decades ago, but I could be mistaken.)

The Judge and His Henchman (Der Richter and Sein Henker) was about some Poirot-type detective who's dying of stomach cancer, yes? Vaguely remember reading that one, too.

About to finish The Judge and His Hangman. Got Der Besuch on hold.

Ugh, Der Besuch Der Alten Dame was one of my A Level texts. Not sure I'll ever be ready to revisit it.

(b'dum Tisch)

(Toi, toi, toi!)

what do you think of judge + his hangman, james?

I had trouble getting into it in the very beginning, but stuck it out, hanging onto descriptions of the weather and landscape (and it's a short book anyway). Once he came face to face with his nemesis I saw what all the hoopla was about.

so intense! i like the opening scene too -- spooky

Yeah, the opening- great atmosphere.

I guess the next one in the series is The Quarry a.k.a Suspicion. I actually used to own a twofer of these two books. I had bought it at the used bookstore on Montague Street, never got around to reading it, then sold it back with a bunch of other stuff to the same place. Inside the book was still the name of the original owner, one of the guys who worked in the store. Now I feel like he and I were characters in the book, two more pawns in the game.

haha awesome - i've never read the quarry!

FUCK - they made a movie of judge and his hangman in 1975 with jacqueline bisset, jon voight and martin ritt, directed by MAXIMILIAN SCHELL!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075140/

lovefilm doesn't have it. apparently it's also called

Deception (UK) (video title)
End of the Game (USA)
Getting Away with Murder (USA) (reissue title)
Murder on the Bridge (USA)

er, apparently this is on Fox Movie Channel tonight at 1am

or was that LAST night?