Biedermann und die Brandstifter [antikvár]

Recently an American literary critic wrote in an essay on the Swiss playwright Max Frisch: "When Frisch is at his best, as he is in Biedermann und die Brandstifter, there is no dramatic author alive today who can touch him." At his best, Frisch is passiónately involved in the issues he raises, constructs plays that are universally valid, and makes use of a very personal theatrical inventiveness. He is aided by a probing intellect and a thorough familiarity with the trends and problems of the modern theatre, particularly with the works of Bert Brecht and Thornton Wilder. In respect to the present play, Frisch shares the attitűdé of the so-called Theatre of the Absurd in that he too does not argue about the absurdity of the-humán condition but merely presents it in being. Frisch, who was born in 1911 at Zürich, is a professional architect At the same time he is the author of a number of novels and plays which have earned him a growing reputation in Europe. He and his compatriot Friedrich Dürrenmatt are considered the most significant playwrights writing in Germán today. One idea that recurs throughout Frischs work is that man will not profit by experience. There is therefore a note of despair in his work which is not dispelled by his sharp ironic wit and his use of the grotesque and burlesque. Frisch alsó believes strongly that the mask which hides our individuality and humanity is dangerous and will destroy its wearer. In Andorra, Frisch agonizingly and compassionately lays bare the