Friedrich Dürrenmatt as Wolfgang Schwitter: An Autobiographical Interpretation of The Meteor

·. FRIEDRICH DURRENMATT AS WOLFGANG SCHWITTER An Autobiographical Interpretation of The Meteor Diirrenmatt's latest play, The Meteor) has proven a failure with audiences and critics alike, both in Zurich, where it was first performed in the winter of 1965, and in London, where it was premiered the following season. This may be due to the unusual theme of the play, centering as it does around the heightened sense of life developed by a dying man who keeps on mysteriously resurrecting from clinical deaths while all around him healthy men inexplicably die. The general feeling of puzzlement and rejection is perhaps best summed up by Martin B.rowne when he says, referring to the play's central character, the forever resurrecting Schwitter: "we are unsure whether to take this giant as fact or phantasy ... (and we) don't care."! He accuses Diirrenmatt of having failed as a dramatist, since the play is not able to get its audience "involved." Maybe so. But shouldn't we, before bowing to critical opinion, bear in mind Diirrenmatt's dictum (formulated in self-defense though it may be) that "the audience, too, must be evaluated the night of a premiere. The audience fails to pass at least as often as the authors."2 However, it is not the intention of this article to pass judgment on the literary and dramatic value of the play, nor to discuss the perceptiveness of Durrenmatt's audiences. Rather, I would like to suggest that with the character of Wolfgang Schwitter we have at last been given (consciously or unconsciously) a comprehensive autobiographical statement by an author whose personality has been safely entrenched until now behind the fortress of his apodictic statement "I do not have a biography."3 Although Durrenmatt makes it a point to guard his private life carefully from the public in general, and more especially from the prying curiosity of the literary critics and scholars, two groups ...All translations from the German are by the author. 1 Martin Browne, "A Look Around the English Theatre," Drama Suroey~ Winter 1966-67, p. 298. 2 Quoted by Vera Sheppard, "Friedrich Diirrenmat as a Dramatic Theorist," Drama Survey, Winter 1965, p. 252. 3 Quoted by Elisabeth Brock Sulzer, Friedrich Dilrrenmatt: Stationen seines Werkes (Zuerich, 1960), p. 11. 143 144 MODERN DRAMA September which he frankly despises, his personality becomes sufficiently apparent from a close study of his works, both theoretical and literary, to defend the theory that it is himself he has portrayed in the controversial character of Wolfgang Schwitter. The identity of the character with the author himself can be clearly established from four basic points of view: Schwitter-Diirrenmatt as a person and playwright ; as an artist, in relation to critics; as a theorist, in his attitude towards art; and finally, as a man, in relation to women. 1. Schwitter-Durrenmatt7 the person and playwright: Diirrenmatt himself invites the suspicion of an autobiographical intention when he makes the central figure of The Meteor a dramatist like himself. Beyond this basic premise, evidence abounds to support such a theory. Let us just look at some of the biographical parallels: Schwitter is a successful playwright, winner of the Nobel prize for literature. Diirrenmatt (The Meteor notwithstanding) has established himself definitely as a theatrical success with The Visit and The Physicists7 and has gained critical recognition as the most important modern playwright in the German language after Brecht. While we might attribute the supreme honor which Diirrenmatt has conferred on his literary counterpart as a bit of-perhaps unconsciouswishful thinking, the fact remains that the author himself can boast a sizeable list of greatly respected literary rewards, the coveted Schiller Preis and the Prix d'Italia among them.4 Schwitter, like Diirrenmatt, has come to literature from the visual arts. As The Meteor opens, the dying writer comes to end his life in the garret which saw his artistic beginnings as a painter, before he turned to literature. Diirernmatt's interest and proficiency in art is well known. This interest was particularly strong in the early days of his career. From painting, he eventually turned to the study of philosophy and, like Schwitter, to literature. However, he never gave up...