Die Präsidentinnen

by Werner Schwab

Las presidentas es una de las primeras obras teatrales de Schwab, y también una de las más famosas. La obra es muy divertida e irónica (a través de tres mujeres se refleja toda la sociedad austríaca), pero es también una obra terrible. En definitiva, se trata de una obra clave, no sólo para entender a ese gran dramaturgo que fue Werner Schwab, sino también para conocer los rumbos más prometedores del teatro europeo contemporáneo.

Paperback

First published March 31, 1991

About the author

Werner Schwab (4 February 1958 – 1 January 1994) was an Austrian playwright and visual artist.

From 1978 to 1982 he studied sculpture at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna. During the 1980s he worked as a sculptor and woodcutter.

Schwab was a heavy drinker who was said to have written his plays late at night while listening to loud music (particularly the band Einstürzende Neubauten, whom he was friends with). His body was found on New Year's Day 1994, he killed himself with an overdose of alcohol, he had previously stated «If I would kill myself on the day of a national holiday, my country would be so stupid to think it was a random choice.»

Schwab's first play Die Präsidentinnen (sometimes translates as First Ladies or Holy mothers), was produced at the Theater im Künstlerhaus in Vienna in 1990. Between then and his death four years later he wrote sixteen plays, eight of which were produced during his lifetime, making his career one of the briefest, most spectacular and most controversial in contemporary German-language theatre.

Schwab's work is close to the grotesque genre. It extensively employed scatology and sex, with the peculiarity of exhibiting pulsions and taboos in a poetic framework. He renewed the tradition of German Expressionism. His plays are full of images of surreal violence and degradation, and are firmly grounded within a native Austrian tradition of Black comedy. Schwab conceived theater as anti-bourgeois.

He made use of textual collages and intertextuality. His 1995 play Troilluswahn und Cressidatheater is a rewriting of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida into the grotesque genre.

Another characteristic of his texts is to exploit the German language's capacity for neologism to a remarkable degree. He is very difficult to translate, but amongst English-language dramatists, certain stylistic parallels might be drawn between his work and that of Steven Berkoff and Enda Walsh. Vera San Payo de Lemos won the Austrian Prize for Literary Translation in 1998 and 2002 for her work in translating his work.

Reviews

[debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

grotesk, ehrlich und durchaus fesselnd; bisschen ekelhaft, aber anders kann ein „Fäkaliendrama“ auch nicht sein…

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

witzig

[plutonium · Rating 1 out of 5]

i was forced to read this against my will and it shows

[Nia · Rating 3 out of 5]

njemu se je veliko dogajalo v glavi morm reč

[Tidde Van Mourik]

Toneelleesclub #1. Bijzonder ontroerend voor een stuk over poep.

[Bara · Rating 3 out of 5]

V první scéně jsem měla tendence vidět v Gretě a Marjánce Stařenku Oggovou, respektive Magratu. Schwab ale na čarodějnou strunu hrát nechtěl, "coven" tří žen není narážka na Macbetha ani Pratchetta, spíš jde o pohrávání si s archetypy Matka - Madonna - Milenka. Pokud vůbec. Protože ani jedna z postav se s žádným archetypem nekreje úplně. V Gretě je napůl matka, napůl svůdná hříšnice. Marjánka o sobě v druhé části mluví jako o svatém zjevení, přitom má v sobě něco nedospělého.

Třetí scéna působila trochu brechtovsky.

Lepší než Čekání na Godota, ale Dürrenmatt to není.

[Brigita Zemen · Rating 5 out of 5]

v prezidentkach je podstatne min sracek, spermatu a hnusu nez v ostatnich schwabovych hrach, o to silnejsi jsou ale charaktery tri staren, komplexnejsi vypoved a atmosfera vostra jako britva.. jedno z nejlepsich soucasnych dramat a za tim si stojim uz 12 let..