The Reception of Thornton Welder's Plays in Germany

THE RECEPTION OF THORNTON WILDER'S PLAYS IN GERMANY1 IN 1945, the Germans were confronted with the problem of becoming acquainted again wit.h some of the literary and cultural developments which had been going on in the outside world during the twelve years of the Hitler regime. In their theater American and French playwrights soon caused surprise, at times confusion, and frequently excitement. Two writers in particular, Jean Anouilh and Thornton Wilder, became the center of spirited discussion and were often looked upon as representatives of the modern French and American drama respectively. The work of both men was considered unusual in form and content, but by 1957 there was every evidence that 'Wilder's reputation in Germany had far outshone that of Anouilh. Wilder was fairly well known in Germany before the last war. The Cabala and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (translated by Herbert E. Herlitschka) appeared in 1929, and the German versions of The Woman of Andros and Heaven's My Destination were both published soon after the appearance of the first American editions. In the early thirties, the German critics followed Wilder's work with great interest and found that he was different from most of the other American writers and that he showed close affinity with European traditions. In general, they agreed that The Bridge was his masterpiece in which he displayed best his narrative technique. There was less agreement on The Cabala.2 Hans Egon Holthusen, in the only major attempt at summarizing Wilder's work toward the end of the thirties, found consistently stronger expressions of his ideas from one book to the next. In The Cabala, he saw Wilder reveal, in a satirical and compassionate way, the poor and suffering soul; he said of The Woman of Andros that there was nothing more impressive than the American writer's "unpathetisches Bekenntnis zum Geist," and in Heavens My Destination he found that Wilder leads man to nihilism and despair only to show, by a negative approach, where truth and hope really lie.s The American edition of his short plays was noticed in some quarters but found in no way comparable to his works of fiction. Immediately after the war it was as a playwright that Wilder attracted considerable attention. In the first season (1945/46) Our Town and 1. Grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Indiana University Graduate School have enabled me to collect the material for this study. For valuable assistance I am indebted to the staff of the Theater Collection of the University of Hamburg and to Mr. Claus Cluever of the English Department at the same institution. 2. Gregor Heinrich in Hochland, XXX (1932), 176, and Harry Bergholz in Englische Studien LXVI (1931/32), 450. 3. Hans Egon Holthusen in Hochland, XXXV (1938), 197. 123 124 MODERN DRAMA September The Skin of Our Teeth were produced on several Gennan stages, and some of the best directors became interested in these two plays; and by the end of the second season there was hardly a major Gennan theater which had not staged Wilder's plays. Heated discus~ions ensued wherever they were shown. There was great enthusiasm; also there were negative reactions. Critics and public alike disagreed on both the meaning and the fonn of the plays. Often the critical appraisal depended to a large extent on the varied interpretations of the Wilder plays in production. Ernst Penzoldt, for instance, commented favorably on the simplicity, the decency, and the humanity of the inhabitants of Our Town (as interpreted by Erich Engel in the Munchener Kammerspiele in December, 1945);4 Ernst Lewalter, in reviewing the second Berlin production in the spring of 1946, spoke of these people as average-as being "halb Marionetten, halb Menschlein" but had to add that, in the third act of Our Town, they become wise and understanding.5 Wilder with all his gifts does not succeed, the reviewer of the Frankfurt production maintained in the Frankfurter Rundschau, in hiding his sadness behind irony-he is actUally a pessimist but one who has preserved a deep faith.6 After a production at Kiel (March, 1947), one critic wondered about the warmth that was...