Posted: Apr 11, 2022 6:45 am
scott1328 wrote:Evolving wrote:1. Professor Unrat, Heinrich Mann
2. God is not Great, Christopher Hitchens
3. The Ill-Made Knight, T.H. White
4. Northern Lights, Philip Pullman
5. The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
6. The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
7. The Character of Physical Law, Richard Feynmann
8. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams
9. Knight Crusader, Ronald Welch.
10. Die Physiker, Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Appparently this was one of the most frequently played plays in the German-speaking world for decades after it was first performed (in 1962, I think); maybe it still is. Personally I think it's rather dated, and contrived, and I greatly prefer his other famous play, Der Besuch der alten Dame, which I remember reporting on in an earlier incarnation of this thread. I suppose it hit home at the time, because of all the angst about atomic war.
in my German literature class, we performed a reader’s theater of Der Besuch der alten Dame. i remember not “getting it’
That surprises me. Was the language too challenging, or what was the problem?
I found the play deeply ominous and troubling, as his fate closes in on Whatsisface (can't remember the chief character's name), and towards the end as he wants to leave on the train, is surrounded by his fellow villagers at the station, and he knows they're going to stop him, although they deny it with fake friendliness, and so he capitulates and just walks back into the village towards his inexorable destruction.