handke-drama: February 2016

Here are the opening pages of a kind of gloss I am doing on Handke's COUNTRY ROAD, my shorthande for ICH & DIE UNSCHULDIGEN & DIE LANDSTRASSE.. REST DONE BY THE PREMIERE FEB 26

=IV=

A POTENTIAL DIRECTOR’S TAKE ON Handke’s

“I” THE BIG BIG SPLIT (TROUBLED) EGO & & THE COUNTRY ROAD & THE ANYTHING BUT INNOCENT INNOCENTS & THE CAPO & UNKNOWN & & & &"

(-die-unschuldigen-ich-und-die-unbekannte]

Let me say at once that

COUNTRY ROAD

- as I think of it -

is a

MANIFEST, A DEMONSTRATION

of Handke’s

JOY IN LANGUAGE

All his baby tongues

are wagging as though freshly born

in masterly virtuoso fashion.

E.G.:

Eine Schlangenhaut, von gestern. Ja, dem groBen Bogen! Aufrauschen der Sommerbaume, Rauschen des Sommers. Anbrausen der Herbstbaume, Brausen des Herbstes, Ansausen der Winterbaume, Sausen des Winters. Die summende Luft ueber der StraBe, wie ueber Prosperos Insel - Der Weg ist das Ziel: B1oedsinn. Herrliche Weglosigkeit, endlich. Wie erfuellt du bist von all dem Nichts und wieder Nichts auf und an der LandstraBe. Wie aber haltst du's mit unsereinem? Nichts als Grillen, Libellen, Schachtelhalme, Zuchtwiesel, Zuchtbrennessel, Zuchtloewenzahn, wilde Kresse, wilde Awpfel, wilder Spargel, Wildsauerampfer, Wildreis, Wildsaue. 0 Wildnis. Kann es nicht sein, daB deine Grille mit ihrem Zirpen sagen will: »1ch toete dich!«, und daB die Wolfe heulen und der Tiger knurrt aus Liebeskummer oder aus Verlassenheit? Und dass die Kater so keifen und die Elstern so kreischen, weil sie einen Ansprechpartner suchen?

I realize once again

that the Wounded Ultra-Loved-Child,

surrogate beneficiary bastard of his mother Maria Sivec’s huge quantum of love foists, transmits, is the agent, the transmitter of this love via the love of writing, of language, via his childhood wound of the need to write

(which our young genius practiced like a violinist)

to become the greatest of rarities,

a Shakespearean talent.

who

COUNTRY ROAD

As a true PROSPERO

magicks the Scene:

Kommen lassen. Anfliegen lassen. Trauemen lassen. Helltraumen. Umfassend, traumen. Verbindlich! Freitraumen. Wen? Mich? Uns? Traumtanzen lassen. Gestalten lassen. Umgestalten lassen. Atifeinandertrrffen, lassen. Wen mit wem ati feinande rtrrffen lassen? Wen gegen wen? Kommen lassen erst einmal die Szenerie: Und da kommt sie, da erscheint sie, da fliegt sie mich an, da erstreckt sie sich, die Landstrajfe, vorderhand leer.

Though most of you are unlikely to ever see this play performed, it affords immense reading pleasures, no matter that there are sections that seem questionable to me on first reading and reading around – I am accustomed to reading Handke’s texts about half a dozen times prior to commenting. Preferably translating them: ONLY AFER YOU HAVE TRANSLATED A TEXT MAY YOU COMMENT AND CRITIZICE! – AH, WOULDN’T THAT BE A WONDERFUL!

Michael Roloff, Winter, 2016

THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

»Ich«, im Wechsel zwischen Erzaehlendem und

Ich der Dramatische

(nicht immer unterschieden, " zeitweise beide in einem)

is how the “I” split between narrative and dramatic (acting out) one

describes transforming itself:

Dieses ))Ich(( verwandelt sich nun unversehens~ ohne dass ich weiss, wie mir geschiehlt in einen anderen als der; welcher ich so oder so je gewesen bin oder der je mir vorgeschwebt hat. ))Ich(( dort am Rande der Landstrassle nehme etwas Dramatisches an) springe auf, samt Schattenboxen gegen Phantome) und auch die Szenerie) in der ich mich auf dem Stapel hocken sehe) erscheint mir als eine dramatische)

gar wiiste) samt jahem Wind-) ja Sturmrooren. Szene und wiist? Und indem ich da~ laut oder halblaut, denke) mit wie gegen meinen Willen dramatisierender Stimmel einer grundverschiedenen zu der erzaehlenden zuvor; heitert der Ort, der Platz die Strasse augenblicks auf, und ebenso ))ich(() der andere Diistere) gar Drauende am Landstrasseenrand

and now we introduce the main character, a place, in old accustomed Handke fashion

Ah, alte StraBe:

Nie im Leben ist mit auf dir, an dir und mit dir etwas Boeses widerfahren. Alles Widrige habe ich ein jedes Mal durch dich, dank dir, kraft deiner fahrenlassen k6nnen. Das Boese urn mich, seinen sonstwo standigen Ansturm, ebenso wie das Boese in mir, meinen sonstwo bestandigen Urwurm: du LandstraBe hast jeweils beides verlaesslich in Luft aufgelost.

Und das war dann kein Nichts.

Die Unschuldigen

(the innocents)

(nicht wenige)

(not too few, among them my double)

unter ihnen mein Doppelgänger)

and I have a real problem (so far) getting a handle on these

NOT SO INNOCENT INNOCENTS

And what the “I”

-one of whose sides

(via its “double”)

is just like them –

has against them, what bugs

him/ it.

And that might just be a major problem, structurally, with the play

The Innocent’s spokesperson, their CAPO

Der Wortfuehrer der Unschuldigen oder:

Haeuptling/ Capo

There are wonderful exchanges between the “I” and the Capo toward the final third of the play, that makes the two virtually inter-changeable.

They share a playful childhood

-------------------

The femme Capo

Die Wortfuehrerin der Unschuldigen oder:

Haeuptlingsfrau/Haeuptlingin/Frau

And

Die Unbekannte von der LandstraBe

an UNKNOWN WOMAN who looks like yet a further iteration of the woman who salvages the main character of the whole production, as of VILLAGES, in SUBDAY BLUES, in VOYAGE BY DUGOUT, differently, very, each time. Here is her most imaginative representation as an acknowledged imagined.

=I-III is POSTED @:
http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2016/01/comments-on-handkes-ich-und-die.html

BACKGROUND & REVIEWS @:
http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2014/10/die-unschuldigen-ich-und-die-unbekannte.html]

Analagous to the way I approached Handke’s STILL STORM

Except when not!

http://handkedrama.blogspot.com/2011/08/directors-view-of-forever-storm.html

I will walk the reader through

COUNTRY ROAD,

roughly, quoting from the text,

in German.

The play is as much of a LESE-STUECK/ PLAY THAT CAN BE READ (is it?) as most of the major Handke’s dramatic texts since WALK ABOUT THE VILLAGES.

The way the “I” describes everything that is happening and what it is doing makes it easy to follow, a major innovation to have the protagonist act in this fashion - looking back to

VOYAGE BY DUGOUT & STORM STILL

you can sort of see it coming that Handke would seize this approach.

I have already established the mis-en-scene:

PROSPERO’S CREATION OF

THE COUNTRY ROAD

OUT OF HIS IMAGINATION

(But I want to say that isn’t Peter Handke ever a bitch! There he is one of the last great lean walkers on the road, thousands of miles on his boots, allegedly not only to WALK OFF his angers, to process them, when he is pissed at the many matters that piss him off, but also because walking is good for his allegedly congenitally afflicted heart, and he memorializes what a wonderful thing it is to walk no matter how “hard it has become to walk the earth”
WALK ABOUT THE VILLAGES (W.A.T.V.)

And what wonderful evocation it is.

COUNTRY ROAD

with its “I”, that itself splits into a narrative observer and a dramatic acting-out which moreover, sometimes, coincides!

[I myself don’t see the
“I”’s two sides talking in a different manner, say, syntactically, as the characters in VILLAGES do, thus their there achieving distinct individuality albeit in an unusual manner.]

The “I” which also has a double, a Doppelgänger, among the NOT SO INNOCENT INNOCENTS signifies that part of this DIVIDED EGO is afflicted with the ailments, characteristics it derides, which complicates matters even further – and I will get to what these matters are that bug the “I” about these NOT SO INNOCENT INNOCENTS.

(Whether the distinction among the theatrical and dramatic “I” are important, and obvious when the play is performed? Well, the “I” tells you, us each time it switches!)

The “I” and the Capo/ Chief, e.g. share a childhood! Thus they are much alike, and this childhood bears strong resemblance to the kind of personal childhood Handke has evoked both in the 1982 W.A.T.V and in the 2008

STILL STORM

As mentioned, dramaturgically, in an extra-ordinary move, if I am reading correctly, Handke’s directions are part of the spoken text; that is, the "I" “tells” us what it is doing, from one moment to the next & also what it is now creating! This makes for an immense text – the German book is 175 pages! – 25,000 words at least!

And since the play is so forthright with its dramaturgy I will take forthrightness one or two steps further.

As my as director

director’s mis-en-scene

imagine a

COUNTRY ROAD

that consists of a much enlarged top of peter handke’s head which means we have to mow through the nicely intact full head of hair.

Out of this curved road burst forth, initially, the "I” as a marionette doll, manipulated by the author underneath! After all, he is the creator director of this piece!

[Handke of course is obviously not a “flathead” - a curved country road might signify a Chaussee, the water flows off and does not accumulate puddles? which would be wrong for a country road!]

COUNTRY ROAD’S

major change in dramaturgy is an activist act within the tradition of Handke’s activist non-illusory playful formalized happenings dramaturgy

[See my reply to Oberender

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2014/11/peter-handke-thomas-oberender-50-jahre.html

& also over-all agreement with Klaus Kastberger

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2013/01/dde-arbeit-des-zuschauers-handke.html ]

Since I need to imagine a production in order to discern what effect the play will have on an audience I am not sure what - aside being disconcerted and puzzled – fascinated – enthralled = the dramaturgical innovation will produce in me as audience –

it ought to be welcomed, it is one of the final consequences drawn from

one-person-performance art,!

The piece has no end of odd moments and oddities that counter-act a naturalist take, and this produces a kind of Brechtian ESTRANGEMENT ???

Instantaneously, thus

far more efficiently.

[EXAMPLE/S]

The first I think is of a kind that shows how nearly we are back at versification, exalted speech.

In that respect Handke is not the only German dramatist.

Mich aufs Spiel zu setzen, fern vom rch, dem Erzahler:

schon spiire ich das Heimweh. Und doch. Du liebe

Zeit. Liebe Zeit? Ach, Leute. Leute? Liebe? Ach. Der Wind

weht, wo er will? Schon war's. Schon war's. 's war einmal.

Tauet, Himmel, den Gerechten, Wolken, regnet ihn herab?

Tautropfen, das da, von der Nacht und vom Morgen iibriggeblieben

im StraBenrandgras hier? Angstschweill! Tropfen

um Tropfen, Tropfchen um Tropfchen von AngstschweiB

oben an den Halmspitzen glitzernd und funkelnd, milli-·

ardenfach, zitternd im Friihlingswind, der langst nur mehr

weht, wo er muB, gestern sechs, heute sieben und morgen

acht Milliarden von Tropfen und Tropfchen im Wind wechselnd

quer durch das Spektrum von Bronze zu Gold zu Lila

zu Purpur zu Kobalt, wie vorzeiten der Tau im Gras

Example # 2: Perhaps

This way of establishing timelessness of stupidity, of the INNOCENTS is?

Die ersten Unsterblichen, das sind wir, du, du und ich,und aile andern hier in unserem Freilichtspiel, und die letzten Sterblichen, die letzten, die noch sterben mussen, sind unsereEltern. Unsere Kinder werden einen Vater und eine Mutter haben von jetzt bis in die Ewigkeit

Which resolves itself into a revenant from dream play Ride Across Lake Constance>

ZWEITER

Traumst du, oder redest du?

DRITTER

Stimmt: Man glaubt sich hier auf Tahiti. Traumreise, Hauptgewinn:

Weiller Sand und ein gewonnenes Land. Nur die

Frauen fehlen.

ZWEITER Stimmt: Wo sind die Frauen? Wann treten sie auf?

If the play is done in marionette-fashion? will emphasizing its artificial playful nature be sufficient recompense?

The play not having been – best I know -- translated, forces me to provide a step by step precis of the way it develops, scene by scene, and initially it is quite straight forward.

COUNTRY ROAD

is an unusually curious play & I am not at all positive that despite explicating it and reading it a few times and dwelling on it for a few weeks I have the proper handle on it. However, it strikes me that it is very much of an example of „Es ist eine Art Schutz, nur mit sich selbst zu sprechen.“ (Peter Handke, “it’s a kind of safe guard to talk to oneself”) that is, that it is more than unusually solipsistic… Handke used to say early on that no matter how unsettled he happened to be what he wrote then came out looking surprisingly calm, and I think obsessive writer that he still seems to be, writing was a way for him to overcome anxiety, which over-coming produced a sense of the heroic and grandiose.

=IV=B=

The first 33 pages of the play proceed in a straight-forward, slowly paced, exactingly-fashioned manner & ought not to present problems either for the director or actor “I” & the audience to follow, although at that point – at the inception of actual dialogue section between the “I” and the CAPO of the INNOCENTS

the PLACE = that is THE COUNTRY ROAD has become an unpredictable locale

where identities can be switched.

the “I” has transformed itself briefly

into CALIBAN

had not functioned only as the PROSPERO

that created COUNTRY ROAD

on which the play proceeds

THE INNOCENTS

are not exclusively a UNIFORFM MASS or ENSEMBLE

but a set of individuals.

Matters become problematic, for me perhaps for no one else, with the appearance of the

INNOCENTS & THE INNOCENT WOMAN

as I will discuss below;

and throughout the play and also

when the text calls for novelistically differentiated actions on the order of such minutae as cannot be presented on stage

ONE EXAMPLE OF MANY

das ist beileibe nicht jenes Aufschauen und schon gar nicht jenes Mich-Anschauen, wie es mir, friiher einma4 getraumt hat.

How does one represent “frueher/earlier”

on stage except unless the character describes his feelings? A novel!

or film –

as a reader you have no problems:

it’s a great

reading play

http://tinyurl.com/h2awuk6

and experience

because the

“I”

either as

NARRATOR or DRAMATIZER

leads and explains

as no novelist has made it easy for us readers for a very long time!

Yet even a mere reader methunks, will be deeply puzzled by the behavior of THE INNOCENTS – see anon.

The methodical manner in which Handke proceeds initially in establishing the

PLACE

reminds those

who know their Handke

that he has tied all his

ASSAYINGS

[as I think of his ESSAYS]

THE ESSAY ON TIREDNESS

THE ESSAY ON THE JUKEBOX

ON THE SHITHOUSE

Even his DON JUAN

etc

to a particular place

and that

HOUR WE KNEW NOTHING OF EACH OTHER

plays on a PLAZA

that is now

COUNTRY ROAD

a quite different open

SPACE

Whose status & nature the “I”

Defends

Against change and innovation

that the so-called INNOCENTS

propose.

The play is supposed to have originated as a polemic,

INNOCENTS is supposedly meant ironically but in that case serious charges need to be filed!

And what they are accused of all seems rather trivial!

Handke has become a rather positive fellow, he no longer goes around

Saying “fat Austria”

He’s become a Patriot!

http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/news/4931329/Handke_Ich-habe-Sympathie-fur-die-Schmiere

He’s become a politician! You have no influence by being purely negative!

Those who know their Handke may recall that in

WALK ABOUT THE VILLAGES

one of whose two mise en scene’s

is a construction site

the new Cement structure is adjudged to eventually looking beautiful.

No such allowance is made here for changes in this “country road”,

which we may regard as a marker for Handke’s progressive conservatism.

Handke, once nauseated by a mere whisp of hay, meanwhile sleeps in haystacks! is my shorthand for that development that had its first major inception around the time of

A SLOW HOMECOMING.

Living for seven years in Salzburg and living amongst the

“fat Austrians”

and fleeing back to Paris in the mid-80s might of course to have made him question his conservatism, but no,

Handke went back to writing by pencil,

sacrificing the type writer

except for writing dialogue!

A pencil slows you nicely down!

Handke is showing himself to be yet another of these great Catholic (Orthodox) writers who yet continue to be astonishingly and uniquely innovative in their craft

as here with developing

large-scale theater out

of one person performance art, something he started to do directly

with SUBDAY BLUES.

Whatever works works!

The methodical manner in which the ground has been laid by page 33 -

one sixth of the way

through a 175 page text! -

makes me aware that this we are taking a fair amount of time, aren’t we, for the playing to seriously begin, that we find ourselves in an unusual world, not just any old “country road.”

Shakespeare

would establish this in a few bold strokes, wouldn’t’ he, which we -

who grant Handke his knowledge of the Bard –

conclude that Handke is establishing HIS SENSE OF TIME

after all, we who know our Handke know that our genius is a most adept magician, also syntactically, say in THE REPETITION.

Will the audience be swayed to slow down into his time? It certainly is worth the wait for the extraordinary verbal pay-off that awaits. And then there will be very light sequences - we are back in the world of Raimund/ Nestroy as Handke has slipped into it at other times as a dramatist, although the way the dialogue starts – when it finally starts –

between the “I” and the CAPO

strikes me as rather flat, monotonous, repetitious

not one of the highpoints of Handke’s wit compared with the wittiness he was capable of in THEY ARE DYING Out

as matter of fact the argument that the CAPO OF THE INNOCENTS has with “I”

is cast in much the same manner as tht between Quitt (the “unreasonable one”) and the various business folk

in T.A.D.O.

Perhaps there is only one fundamental adversary position, but Handke in that respect has been repeating himself for about 50 years.

The big difference here is that

LE UNRAISONABLE

is the IMPOTENT “I”

who feels that he can’t beat THE INNOCENTS

Who is the loser in that respect?

And is infuriated into becoming a rapist of one of the INNOCENT WOMEN

which elicits a series of self-destructive self-recriminatory acts on his part.

A bit of psychological motivation for a change, or so it seems to me.

However, the argument, the dispute between the “I” and the INNOCENTS and their leader remains obscure, it isn’t as if the INNOCENTS want to convert the COUNTRY ROAD into a super-highway, after all, the workers would support that for various reasons, and so far this remains a weak fulcrum for me. I’ll reread the pertinent sequences few more times, because if the “reason” for wanting to salvage the COUNTRY ROAD are merely sentimental and idiosyncratic

HIS CONSERVATISM

stands on rather weak legs!

Perhaps that is even acknowledged by being such a weakling and starting to stutter when he feels he has been out-argued.

Perhaps Handke wants to avoid a conventional clash between so-called “progressivism” & remaining put?

I will enumerate and comment on the various numerable sections

from IV-1 onwards

=IV-1=

The opening sequence eventuates in a quite splendid evocation of a country road/ place, as is fitting for Handke,

Und da kommt sie, da erscheint sie, da fliegt sie mich an, da erstreckt sie sich, die Landstrasse, vorderhand leer. Und indem ich mir das laut vorerzaehle, ist die Strasse auch schon bevoelkert mit mir, der ICH am Rand der Strasse daherschlendere, mit ausgreifenden, epischen Schritten, vorderhand allein

Initially the “I” narrator had expresses ambivalence re wanting to ctd. to venture forth as “dramatic” I or a “narrative”, just as recently in this interview

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/autoren/schriftsteller-peter-handke-im-interview-ueber-die-wut-13847922.html?printPagedArticle=true#pageIndex_2

and at other times Handke mentioned that at this point in his life he waffles but then prefers writing epic plays to epic prose, whereas the opposite was the case for most of his life. Of course Handke does not write naturalistic plays and I don’t think is able to write a line of naturalistic dialogue, something I discovered 30 years ago when analyzing the screenplay for

HIMMEL UEBER BERLIN/ WINGS OF DESIRE. Here

Kommen lassen. Anfliegen lassen. Traumen lassen. Helltraumen. Umfassendtraumen. Verbindlich! Und da kommt sie, da erscheintsie, da fliegt sie mich an, da erstreckt sie sich, die Landstrasse, vorderhand leer. Und indem ich mir das laut vorerzaehle, ist die Strasse auch schon bevoelkert mit mir, der ICH am Rand der Strasse daherschlendere,

The imagination is invoked as justification for entering the road in that – PHANTASY - fashion & the pleasure about being there, and this may very well approximate the pleasure that great walker Peter Handke experiences who wrote in

WALK ABOUT THE VIILAGES

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2010/06/walk-about-villages-ueber-die-doerfer.html

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2013/07/par-les-villages-avignon-handkes.html

that it “has become hard to walk on the earth” feels when he sets out

Und es geschieht jetzt, darf ICH mich am Rand der Landstrasse, der Departementale, der Carretera, der Magistrala niederlasse. Da zeigt sich naemlich eine Sitzgelegenheit, ein Gestell aus Holz; Stein, Beton, eher ein Verschlag. Auch Schilfteile sind darunter. Es konnte sich um einen aus frueheren Zeiten am Strassenrand uebriggebliebenen, laengst ausgedienten Milchstand handeln, oder auch um den dachlosen Rest einer seit langem verlassenen Bushaltestelle, einer Schafhuerde …..

Aber Achtung: Menschenleerenicht gleich Menschenferne. So, hier allein, fuhleund weill ich mich UNTER UNS. Freude, holder Niemandsfunken. Ort, der keine Verschwisterung braucht mit einemandern, auch nicht in Mali oder Vietnam! Der einzige Ort,wo ich nicht in die Menschen-, in die Unschuldigenfalle geratenbin, noch nicht '" Heimgekehrt hier an die alte StraBe,in die andere Zeit. Das Epos ohne Krieg. Das Dram ohne Intrige.

=IV-2=

It is of course very odd, the moment of first encounter with

DIE UNSCHCHULDIGEN

Und dann spuckt der ERSTE der UNSCHULDICEN in dieser Stunde an der alten Landstrasse vor mir aus, spuckt, nach einerlangwierigen, kunstvollen Vorbereitung, mir wie vor die Fuesse, dabei ohne jeden boesen Willen, Vorsatz oder Hintergedanken, so blind wie blindlings, spuckt im Weitergehen noch ein zweites Mal ein drittes, was durch die Wiederholung einen Anschein von Uebelwollen oder gar Verwunschen bekommt, was in Wirklichkeit gar nicht der Fall ist, und laesst im Verschwinden, Gipfelpunkt der Unschuld, auch noch, wie tief in einem Tagtraum gefangen, eine wenn nicht fuftball- so doch tennis ballgrsse

First of all, the audience will be puzzled by these INNOCENT ACTIONS and not believe the NARRTOR’S ASSERTSIONS that these actions are harmless, if in fact the NARRATOR verbalizes here. How is

“was in Wirklichkeit gar nicht der Fall ist,:

to be REPRESENTED on stage?

Matters become even more puzzling with the appearance of THE INNOCENT WOMAN

Kaum habe ICH Zeit, ihm nachzublicken, mich ZU setzen atif meinen

LandstraftensitiJ tritt schon der ZWEITE, der Folge-UNSCHULDICE

atif den Plan.

first mistaken (by the I” for the 2^nd INNOCENT – HOW are we to tell, as the audience, except told by the “I” that he is mistaken? It is very odd since we are working without the expected psychological motivation, nothing new for Handke to dispense with psychology. Yet we are working more on the order of the representation of a narrative in hieroglyphics? Yet, psychology seems to intrude? Or is that merely I? my interpretation.

Action, experience before interpretation???

The appearance of the INNOCENTS and their behavior as well as the interaction with the “I”

reminds me that

lots of matters don’t make sense in LAKE CONSTANCE

a dream play!

And that that is one major means of creating a dream state for the audience, for it to be magicked!

=IV-B-3=

The appearance of the INNOCENT WOMAN

DIE UNSCHULDIGE

Ich kenne dich. Lieblingsgetrank: Holundersaft. Ein seit Jahrzehnteneingewachsener Zehennagel, nicht wahr, aber halb so schlimm, du bist nicht der einzige mit dem Problem. Bei mindestens jedem zweiten Mal das Hemd falsch zugeknoepft, aber auch da bist du kein rarer Vogel. Die Manner meines Lebenshaben sich freilich nie die Hemden falsch zugeknopft, keiner. …

Nichts fUr ungut, das jetzt ist nicht dein Spiel, kein Spiel fuer einen Unter-dem-Standard, einen Bastard, eine Landstrssenmischung. Weg mit deiner Freude allein unterm HimmeL Lust, Lust, nichts als Lust! Ich meines Mannes Urn und Auf, und er mein Dran und Drauf. Von Fuss bis Kamm, ein ganzer Mann. - Wie zu sich selber: Ein ganzer Mann, der dauert bloss nie an, selten eine Stunde, meistens nur eine Sekunde.Es gibt kein Mittel gegen mich, als hin zu mit

troubles this translator of

WALK ABOUT THE VILLAGEES

and close reader of STILL STORM

[and of Malte Herwig’s Handke biography & his own efforts

along that line

for being cast in the same mode: short sentences addressed to the protagonist, the Bastard child, but no longer the returning prodigal son, although this amusing speech could as easily be placed as an extension of the aforementioned plays that both feature Peter Handke’s childhood. Nothing like making your own childhood childhood per se! And Handke also resorts to a version of his own childhood in the “I’s” “self-berating section

that follows his brief transformation into Caliban.

The so-knowing INNOCENCIA sounds like a disappointed lover who disposed of “I” at some point in the past, who now happens by and knows him, the so-called INNOCENT WOMAN

& INNOCENCIA herself who it sounds loves to fuck!

She disappears and a whole bunch of other INNOCENTS appear

Und bei dem oder der DRITTEN habe ICH die Geste des Gruessens nicht mehr versucht oder sie gar nicht mehr so recht gewagt. Trotzdem habe ICH mich wohl weiterhin irgendwie gebaerdet, und die ANDERE ist mit einem Ruck zum Stehen gekommen und hat mich starrer nicht moeglich, ins Auge gefasst. Auch scheint sie mich oder den, den sie, er vor sich hat ZU kennen. Er, sie bleibt aber stumm, zieht hoechstens lautstark, was for ein Zischen, die Luft zwischen Lippen und Zaehne, zupft sich am Ohrlaeppchen, schuettelt den Kopf und geht so, weiter kopfschuettelnd …

once again behaving extremely oddly.

Normalerweise wurde ich mir das wohl gefallen lassen es kiinnte michSogar erheitern und ich hatte die Gehweise dieser UNSCRULDfGEN notiert skiZZiert gezeichnet - und wenn bioft in den Ltiftraum. Das tue fCR im ubrigen auch jezt ziemlich ungebeardig wieder, was meinem ueblichen “Ich” oder Wesen spuerbar auch mir seiber, zuwider latift. Doch jenes andere Ich} wie, es fur die Zeit dieses Dramas bestimmt ist

zeigt sich staerker als mein gewohntes Ich oder Wesen es geht geradezu mit mir durch. Dasgeschieht freilich nicht zumm ersten Mal in meinem Leben} beileibe nicht. Aber zum ersten Mal lasse ich es} statt daft es nur passier0 geschehen. Mag es doch mit mir durchgehen - soli es!

==IV-B-4=

Meanwhile – during the process of being addressed by the INNOCENTS it looks like - the “I” has been transformed

into Caliban~

Schon sieht das Wesen} als das ich mich jetzt entpuppe} nicht aus. Es

ist} als haette ich mich von einem Augenblick zum andern umgestuelpt und deljenige} der eben noch so gruss tbereit wie gruslbeduiftig seinen halben HochsitZ am Rande der Landstrafte eingenommen ha0 zuletzt still von ihm aufgestanden iSt hat sich} mit einem Sprung hinab atg die wiederleere Strafte} in ein Unwesen verwandelt. Dieses ahmt mehr schlechals rech0 wie immer, wenn feR mir nicht anders ZU helfen weiss, kreuz und quer ueber die Szene die eben vorbei deftlierten UNSCRULDfGEN nach} ein Nachahmen} das dann umspringt in ein Nachaeffen}

handke-drama

Friday, February 26, 2016

PART # I 2016-1994 -US HANDKE DRAMA RECEPTOION

Monday, February 8, 2016

# IV OF INNOCENT COMMENTS: DIRECTOR'S TAKE

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