Plays 1: Offending the Audience / Self-Accusation / Kaspar / My Foot My Tutor / The Ride Across Lake Constance / They are Dying Out

by Peter Handke, Tom Kuhn (Introduction)

Offending the Audience: "A dissection of our expectations about what ought to happen in the theatre."—Observer

Self-Accusation: "A cunning and ironic attack on bureaucratic moral guilt."—Observer

Kaspar is based on the true story of Kaspar Hauser, a sixteen year old boy who appeared from nowhere in Nuremberg in 1828 and who had to be taught to speak from scratch. Handke's play is a downright attack on the way language is used by a corrupt society to depersonalize the individual.

My Foot My Tutor: "Handke has here written an hour-long play without words that may at first look like a piece of audience-provocation but that finishes up as sheer theatrical poetry."—Guardian

In The Ride Across Lake Constance, a group of characters (known only by the names of the actors who perform the parts) talk and play games together and skate over the thin ice that separates them from unspoken danger: "Intensely theatrical ... an author for whom playwriting seems akin to tightrope walking."—The Times

They Are Dying Out puts the pillars of the bourgeoisie under the microscope to reveal an alien race, suffocated by rationality, unable to cope with untamed subjective impulses and shows an "uncanny knack for making the familiar seem strange" (Plays and Players).

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Peter Handke (* 6. Dezember 1942 in Griffen, Kärnten) ist ein österreichischer Schriftsteller und Übersetzer.

Peter Handke is an Avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright. His body of work has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2019. He has also collaborated with German director Wim Wenders, writing the script for The Wrong Move and co-writing the screenplay for Wings of Desire.

Reviews

[Jonny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for course. Odd but vaguely fascinating.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Offending the Audience" read for Drama, Theatre and Performance.
A really interesting piece of drama to read. The complexities and contrasts are stark.
The idea of the audience/performer relationship is explored through the medium of roles and makes the audience question what their role is too. The barrier between the performer/spectator is broken down massively. I find this area of theatre to be extremely interesting.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

pretentious and didactic. LOVED IT. making a fool of everyone's sense of self-culture. extremely irritating too. amazing.

“You are not watching. You are looking at and you are being looked at.”

“Our words and your glances no longer form an angle. You are not disregarded. You are not treated as mere hecklers. You need not form an opinion from a bird’s or a frog’s perspective of anything that happens here.”

“The emptiness of this stage signifies nothing.”

“You cannot make yourself a picture of us. You don’t need to make yourself a picture of us.”

“If we stutter, we stutter without meaning to.”

“You are no personalities. You are not singular. You are a plurality of persons. Your faces point in one direction. You are an event. You are the event.”

“I learned. I learned the words. I learned the verbs. I learned the difference between being and having been.”

“I expressed myself. I expressed myself through ideas. I expressed myself through expressions. I expressed myself before myself. I expressed myself before myself and others. I expressed myself before the impersonal power of the law and of good conduct. I expressed myself before the personal power of God.”

“I expressed myself by killing live beings. I expressed myself by destroying objects. I expressed myself by breathing. I expressed myself by sweating. I expressed myself by secreting snot and tears.”

[Daniel Benevides · Rating 5 out of 5]

A versão que li é a recente publicação da Perspectiva, das Peças Faladas, que inclui Insulto ao Público e Autoacusação. São quase peças de performance ou manifestos contra o padrão da dramaturgia. Há algo de datado, mas assim como as músicas de John Lennon, um dos artistas a quem as peças são dedicadas, mantém assim mesmo sua força. Muito estimulante.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Which law of the afterworld did I violate?"

"I climbed the mtn. with w/ shoes unfit for mtn climbing. I failed to wash fresh fruit. I failed to disinfect the clothes of plague victims. I failed to shake the hair lotion before use."

[Heleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of those 'plays' (I use the term loosely, in this case) you need to read aloud to get the poetic, climactic experience intended. Also great for expanding your vocabulary of insults. YOU ANTEDILUVIAN MONSTROSITIES, YOU THINGAMAJIGS.

[Ala makoto athari nejad · Rating 5 out of 5]

i just like this drama
i recomended to read it ,friends

[Marlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"offending the audience" is my favorite.

[Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaspar is almost torture to read... fun torture. Oh what I would give to see this produced. Offending the Audience was a big inspiration for my second novel "Just a Moment."

[Farzaneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best anti-play, which I read at age 17. I like to bring it on stage one day soon.

[Sarah]

I only read Offending the Audience in this collection