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The Scandal Maker: Thomas Bernhard and the R~ception of Heldenplatz CHRISTINE KIEBUZINSKA The violent discussions in reaction to Thomas Bernhard's 'Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square)' in the Austrian press even before its opening on [4 October [988 (as the play selected to celebrate the one-hundredth-year anniversary of the Burgtheater) were influenced by a number of factors. The Burgtheater represents a tradition rooted in the Austro·Hungarian Empire, and the repertoire of the Burgtheater historically reflected that tradition. Consequently, the appointment, not too long before the commemorative celebrations, of the tradition-breaking German theater director Claus Peymann to what is considered the most prestigious and influential post in the performing arts in Austria set off heated discussions in the press about the nature and responsibility of the Burgtheater to foster Austrian culture. Peymann, who before assuming the post at the Burgtheater had been the artistic director in Stuttgart and Bochum, has a reputation of provoking the public, and as a result, criticism against Peymann focused not only.on the fact that he was a "foreigner" but also on his open sympathies for the lefl. At the same time, Bernhard was already viewed in his native country with distaste. reflected in such invectives associated with his name as "Alpen-Beckett," "Menschenfeind" or misanthrope. and "Unlergangha /er" or doom promoter, for even before the Heldenplatz scandal he had achieved notoriety in 1984 when he was charged with slandering his country's honor and insulting its citizens in his biographical novel Halz/allen (WaadCUllers , 1987).' One must also remember that Heldenplatz was the scene of the Austrians' tumultuous welcome of Hitler in 1938, and consequently, Bernhard's intentional foregrounding of the fiftieth anniversary of the Heldenplatz events was immediately seen as a provocation. In the play, taking his cue from the upheavals generated by the election of Kurt Waldheim in 1986, Bernhard not only dismisses the postwar image of Austria as victim of Nazi Germany, but maintains that Austria's retreat into nostalgia for its imperial past, implied in Modern Drama, 38 ([995) 378 The. Reception of Heldenplatz 379 the celebrations of the Burgtheater's one-hundred-year history, represents yet another problem of Austria's inability of Vergangenheitsbewiiltigung, or attempts to come to terms with the horrors of the past, with its not-so-latent anti-Semitic and pro-fascist sentiments. Thus one could say that the Heldenplatz scandal was staged even before Peymann's decision to commission Bernhard to write a new play for the Burgtheater's commemorative celebrations .3 It was then hardly surprising that because of the antagonism to his tenure , Peymann encountered problems during rehearsals of Heldenplatz when six of the Burgtheater's resident actors walked out of their parts under the pretext of moral indignation over having to act in a play so strongly execrating their country. As a result, the premiere of Heldenplatz had to be shifted to the later date of the 4th of November, 1988; however, despite this delay, Peymann continued to bill Heldenplatz as the official play for the Burgtheater's centennial celebration. In addition, the problems that beset the production of Heldenplatz were fueled by the highly ructious Austrian scandal sheets. Initially, the outcry focused on the choice of the depressing Bernhard, frequently referred to as the Ubertreibungskiillstler, the exaggeration-artist, as the playwright to open such a significant celebration. Letters poured in demanding a "traditional" Austrian play such as Grillparzer's Konig Ottokars Gluck und Ende with its famous "Lob Osterreichs," or ode to Austria: "it is a good land ... look all around you."4 The discussion of the Burgtheater's repertoire, however, soon escalated to outcries and shrieks of protest as passages from the unpublished script appeared in the Neue Kronen Zeitung and the Wochenpresse. Since it had been agreed that Suhrkamp, the press publishing Bernhard's work, was not to release Heldenplatz until the morning of the premiere, these illegally published excerpts were quoted out of context, and without any reference to plot or characters. The focus of the indignation concerned passages from the play that cir, cumscribed Austria as "a stage on which everything had rotted, been annihilated , and had become totally demoralized," by the "disgusting six...

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